Following Aniimo’s reveal on the Xbox Video games Showcase final month, I used to be as eager as anybody to find what this vibrant, creature accumulating “next-generation RPG” needed to provide. Luckily, I didn’t have to attend lengthy – a hands-on alternative at Gamescom allowed me a day journey all over the world of Aniimo, which manages to be three completely different video games all rolled in one. And that is finally a really promising factor.
The demo wasted no time in letting me get out right into a portion of the open world, a textbook, grassy vista with an endlessly inviting horizon, filled with cute, docile starter Aniimo. Even this fast beginning space feels so wealthy and vibrant – a keenly stylised, fantasy world teeming with life however with a elegant, sci-fi aptitude that feels distinctive.
Right here, I swiftly captured my first few Aniimo in the wild, which is easy at this stage – merely intention a dice (Aniipod) at a creature, test the likelihood of a profitable catch, and throw. Every Aniimo has their very own talents which are helpful each in and out of fight. Emberpup is an lovable canine with quietly devastating fireplace talents, Budclaw is an unassuming crab with nice evasive expertise, and Nimbi, an lovable pastel sheep that may hurl items of its personal fluff at its enemies. Aniimo’s story additionally affords a selection between two speaking Aniimo that function a companion of types – a fiery lion known as Hellion and a glittery, moon-inspired fox known as Lunara. All of those Aniimo can evolve into extra highly effective creatures too, given the proper care, and it appears as if you’ll want them to take down more and more highly effective Aniimo later down the road.
However even in demo kind, Aniimo goes a lot additional than a easy collect-a-thon. You’re not simply right here to seize all of those creatures and make them battle – you’re additionally right here to analysis them in their pure habitats, perceive them, and doc their behaviour, which ends up in larger rewards.
It’s right here that Aniimo morphs right into a images sport of types – capturing photographs of particular Aniimo participating with their pure habitats, displaying sure behaviours and interacting with one another will enable you study extra about your Aniimo and unlock factors for different collectibles. This is what made Aniimo really feel a lot thrilling to me personally – as a giant Pokémon Snap fan, making the artwork of observing and documenting the life in Aniimo’s world, giving every creature a persona and a deep sense of place made me need to uncover extra primarily based on their design, reasonably than their use as a weapon.
And whereas your creatures do provide a swathe of fight talents, their performance exterior of combating is what actually makes Aniimo a distinct form of journey.
One core function of Aniimo is Twining – a capability that lets your playable, human character merge with the physique of one in all your Aniimo. From there, you’re in management– reasonably than commanding the creature to make use of its assaults, you possibly can deploy them because the player-character in actual time fight, which feels wonderful. Darting round as a tiny fox or a star-powered sugar glider is chic, and I used to be pleasantly shocked by how enjoyable it feels to only change into the creature I’ve spent a lot time observing and documenting. How would it not transfer? How would it not battle? Abruptly, it’s not only a role-playing sport to your personal character, I’m actively contemplating interact in fight primarily based on the persona of this creature too.
Twining is additionally constructed seamlessly into exploration, which was one other private spotlight. There is one thing so deeply nostalgic about roaming across the open world with the power to morph into a distinct Aniimo with ease – reaching excessive factors with or as Celestis, utilizing Budclaw to swim, even shifting throughout plains at velocity with Flameruff (the bigger evolution of Emberpup) – took me again to the anthropomorphic platformers from my youth. The world isn’t only a house to discover, it’s a puzzle to resolve, and your collaboration with every and each Aniimo will enable you remedy it.
There’s a coziness right here, paired with a way of marvel that feels concurrently harking back to video games I’ve loved however surprisingly contemporary in the way it makes the Aniimo extra than simply numbers to tick off in the sport’s encyclopedia, the Aniilog. They’re dwelling, respiration, dynamic elements of a world that exists past you.
Even in just some hours of play, Aniimo feels remarkably promising – it’s an alluring mixture of genres that circulation collectively surprisingly properly, and I’m excited to see extra.
Aniimo
Kingsglory Video games
Aniimo is a next-gen open-world creature-catching ARPG set to launch in 2026.