Deozoa will be a monster-catching game released for iOS, Android, PC, Mac, Linux, and—most interestingly—the Ouya. Although it pitches itself as a game in the same genre as Pokémon, you only pair one creature per character, and the battles are not one-on-one combat. It resembles a more typical RPG, although its battles seem to be terrain-based and character combos are limited to two skills per battle. According to the developers, the reason for creating a monster hunting game is to offer something fresh in the genre that Pokémon, Digimon, Monster Galaxy, and Lost Magic have worked to build a foundation for.
The creatures seem to work like Pokémon on the outside, and you catch and evolve them (or, as the creators coin it, they merely ‘grow’ into their other forms). The playable characters each have different classes, which probably affects the two abilities they are allowed to take into battle. I imagine that the two abilities correspond to the two characters you control: the creature and the human, and you can only use one of these attacks per each pair’s ‘turn.’ I think it’s kind of unfortunate that you’re only allowed two moves to bring into battle, and then you can only use one of them at a time, but perhaps I am misinterpreting the commercial they have. Hopefully, their terrain-based combat and huge amount of elements will give battle the variety they promised.
Other than those features, the game looks like a typical RPG made in Flash. I’m definitely interested in it (my perfectly bred and EV-trained competitive Pokémon team is all I need to prove I love this genre), but its graphics don’t outperform Monster Galaxy, which I imagine will be its main competitor as a free alternative. The designs also seem a little bland, although it might just be the art style or their adherence to the natural growth (rather than mutation) of their creatures. Then again, the main goal of the Kickstarter is to create the funds for graphics and animations, as it seems their game engine is generally complete.
The music and concept of the game gives it a more mature feel than the other games in its genre, which should bring a decent amount of new players to the genre. Along with that, there will be over 100 monsters that go between two and four (four? Yes, you read that correctly) stages of growth. You can recruit roughly a dozen playable human characters that you pair with one creature each. Hopefully that just means you can only use one monster each battle, or switch monsters at some point, because I imagine if you’re stuck with the same creature throughout in a monster-catching game, you’d quickly regret your choice as you stumble upon something cooler.
Overall, I’m excited about this game and what it has to offer to the genre. Hopefully after their Kickstarter succeeds they will be able to spruce up the graphics a bit and become a huge figure in the monster-catching genre. A new game that adds onto the base that a mere handful of other games have founded will hopefully make this genre grow and flourish as we head into the next generation. You can see the Deozoa Kickstarter here.
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