62) Doki Monsters Quest (2025)

After playing Pokémon Legends: Z-A and being left with a somewhat bitter taste in my mouth, I yearned for a new experience that could perfectly capture the glory days of the franchise. Unwilling to replay for the thousandth time one of the many versions of the game to be released over the past 30 years, I opted to look elsewhere, finding myself desperately scouring the eShop in the pursuit of that sweet dragon-type fix. As a popular and incredibly profitable franchise, Pokémon has had no shortage of imitators of varying quality over the years, and without fail these knock off experiences always come up lacking. While the simple formula of the franchise makes it easy to try and cash in, very few imitations have the heart and soul needed to successfully pull it off.

So it was that I found myself stumbling across Doki Monsters Quest, a game I'd heard nothing about being sold at a relatively modest price. On a whim, I decided to give it a shot, as the graphical style, reminiscent of the classic Game Boy Color era, immediately drew me in. The promise of over 140 monsters to collect and battle seemed pretty par for the course, and while the designs seemed a bit on the busy side, they at least showed an overall cohesion that monster collecting games tend to lack. With nothing to lose, I took the dive, and am I ever glad that I did.

As we begin, the game front loads us with a bit of lore about the world, chief among them being how terrifying the creatures are. Having played more than my share of tryhard ROM hacks and Poké-clones that decide they need to be edgy to stand out, I had to roll my eyes just a bit. We learn that a comet led to an all out war between humans and monsters, leading to the majority of human life being destroyed. We also learn that, years before our adventure starts, we had a childhood friend that went into the woods alone, never to return. Despite this, we choose our character sprite and begin our journey to become monster rangers. For vengeance. The game leans heavily into some of the more well known creepypasta surrounding the Pokémon series, but it actually manages to come off as charming in most instances.

After the brief and dark introduction, we're given a choice of starting monsters, with the obvious grass, fire and water types on display. I chose the water type and began my adventure. If you're familiar with Pokémon, then the type system will be mostly intuitive, though the game does mix things up a bit. The omission of a normal type, instead having a light type which acts as the counter to dark, makes sense, as do pretty much all of the type match ups you can imagine. The game does feature a few mechanics I wish the actual Pokémon games would implement, such as being able to go in and freely manipulate stats, changing the appearance of your monsters to whichever form in their line you prefer, and having monsters with one type do more damage with their moves compared to dual types, offering an interesting trade off.

The story is a fun deviation from what I've come to expect. Yes, there's a villainous team, and yes you face off against particularly strong rangers to get the equivalent of badges, but there's a larger plot in the background that, to my surprise, relied very little on having a child save the world. The audio and visuals, while purposely feeling nostalgic, were competently made and incredibly charming. The game makes no secret that it draws its inspirations from the classic games and the feelings surrounding them. Feeling less like a cash in and more like a proper homage, the game perfectly manages to capture the essence of what made the original games special.

With an impressively long story, witty and charming writing filled with humor, and with a ton of secrets to discover, Doki Monsters Quest feels more like a proper Pokémon game than even the most recent Pokémon game did. While it may look like the classic games on the surface, it borrows and improves upon the numerous quality of life features that have been introduced over the years. If you're a fan of the Pokémon formula, especially if you've been soured with Game Freak's more recent outings, you owe it to yourself to check this game out. I cannot recommend it more highly.