As someone that grew up in the midst of the original wave of the Pokemon craze, creature collectors are comfort food. Really, they’re why I got into JRPGs and video games as a whole, as I only got my first console (Gameboy Color) for Pokemon. So whenever I see a new up and comer in the genre, I can’t help but feel a connection, and hope that someone can bring something new and exciting into this field.

Lumentale: Memories of Trey is a new creature collector developed by the team who worked on a popular Pokemon fan game Xenoverse, which has piqued the interest of those who already enjoyed that game. You play as Trey, an amnesiac who turns up in the world of Talea. After meeting up with new characters, Trey goes on a journey around the world of Talea to become a Lumen, someone who controls teams of Animon, the creatures in this world. His goal is to recover his lost memories and uncover the mysteries of the land. After an intro sequence you can choose to first go to the north, to a more technologically advanced half of the land or to the south, which is more traditional. I chose to go to the south. From my understanding, this could potentially lead to some differences in how the game goes, but I didn’t see those yet.

The first thing I immediately noticed when starting up this game is that it is gorgeous. It goes for an almost HD-2D style, with 3D backgrounds and pixelated characters and Animon. Everything looks great, down to the animations and environments. This all goes to support the design of the Animon creatures, which I think is serviceable. More than anything a lot of the creatures feel too busy with their designs, which is a common issue that these games can fall into. Some are better than others, but as a whole they’re fine.

The gameplay is also largely like a Pokemon game, albeit with a few key changes. You are still trying to capture then fight the creatures, but in Lumentale there can be up to four Animon per side out at one time. This tends to lead to longer battles, all with a turn-based system. The other change of note is that while all Animon have types that are like Pokemon types to determine their strengths and weaknesses, mostly elemental like in Pokemon, they also have attributes, which determine ways you can shape these creatures as well. The “felicis” attribute, for example, allows for an Animon to use an extra point of energy (used instead of PP in Pokemon) to add a small healing effect to the entire team. This is an interesting wrinkle and I can see this adding a lot more strategy, especially to high level play.

Unfortunately, while this game made a great first impression, the more I played the more I kept wishing I liked Lumentale to a greater extent. At the start, everything feels much more story driven, but about ten hours in and I’ve only gotten a few more hints at the overarching story. Instead, it becomes a lot more about going through the land and fighting, which would be fine if the balance was better. Early on, I had to go up against a boss Animon, which was the second I had encountered. This was still in what firmly felt like a tutorial area. However, this boss summarily destroyed me. I then found myself having to grind and hunt down specific Animon I hadn’t yet encountered to win this fight. I’m not opposed to difficulty in a JRPG or a boss that requires strategy, but considering I was so early on that there wasn’t even an item shop open for me, I felt a bit taken aback at this spike.

I also feel that some of the side activities, pacing, and just general exploration feels empty. There are some good ideas of town designs, having side quests and other activities, like a card collecting game, but ultimately things feel really empty. There are tons of characters standing around with nothing to say. There are SOME side quests but not all that many to be interesting. I have yet to find any sort of purpose for the card game (I could have missed speaking to an NPC but I feel like several towns in there should be something?). There’s a system of taking down bases run by other lumen but there doesn’t seem to be a real purpose to this beyond getting some extra experience. There are also some mandatory activities that are just bizarre. During my time I got to a seaside town that was having a festival, so I needed to do activities before going to bed so I could go fight the town’s lumen squad. I did two of the activities, and then ran into a mandatory game of hide and seek which lasted way too long because it was looking for one small character (hidden behind objects) across a huge map. This felt like it was just trying to waste my time, as there was nothing I gained from this other than being allowed to continue the actual game.

I also feel like a lot of the nuances to the system are under tutorialized. I know a lot of people complain about handholding in modern Pokemon games, but going the opposite route isn’t helpful either. So much is left unexplained. For example, you have the game’s version of Pokemon boxes, Anispace, which both allows you to store extra Animon but also decorate it with furniture, take out Animon, and train them. However, it’s never explained how to train Animon. You get tons of items that look like they should help, but I tried everything and got nowhere. Maybe it’s later in game, but I’m already 12 hours into my save file, I feel like basic systems should be explained already. One of my Animon has evolved but I can’t figure out if the others will too. There are a ton of systems like this where I feel like I’d be completely glued to the fan wiki if I was playing this post-release, because, for as much as I’ve played my fair share of games in this genre, I felt seriously at a loss.

The pacing is also just rough. In my journey following the path told to me in the game, I went from one area to the next. The wild Animon went from being about level 20 to being about level 28-29 across one screen. It feels like when I go into a new area or fight other characters, I never know if I’m going to be wildly overpowered or wildly underpowered, two things that have both happened while playing.

Lumentale is frustrating because I feel like there is a ton of potential here. This is clearly made with a lot of love for the genre, and there are interesting ideas. I want to love this game. But there are so many glaring flaws in how it’s constructed that, if I wasn’t reviewing this game, those would have been enough for me to exit out right then and there. I could easily see a sequel or similar title by this developer being one of my favorite games, but with all the issues this ended up being a rough experience. I’m going to keep trying to play more of this, and since I didn’t come close to an ending I don’t feel like I can honestly give this a score, but I feel like this game is constantly pushing back at me getting to that point.