The developers behind LumenTale: Memories of Trey aren't dismissing comparisons to Pokemon because, well, it's a creature-collecting RPG, and the first thing that enters peoples' minds is the quintessential creature-collecting RPG, Pokemon. But the devs also want people to come with an open mind since LumenTale isn't trying to necessarily compete with one of the world's biggest multimedia franchises.
Beehive Studios CEO and the lead developer of LumenTale: Memories of Trey, Paolo Lella, says as much in an interview with GamesRadar+, explaining that the indie game might look like Pokemon, but it's not aiming at the exact same target.
"Being honest, if we were not welcoming [of these] kind of comparisons, we would be hypocrites, just because the game looks similar," Lella says. "What we would like, though, was if people playing it came into it with an open mind, because while the game looks similar to Pokemon, it's a lot different, and it offers a lot of different things than Pokemon does."
The similarities are easy enough to, ahem, catch. Heck, the pocket monsters here are called Animon. LumenTale's Steam page also promises over 140 species of monsters to befriend and 13 elemental types, which you can then take into turn-based battles across the single-player story or PvP matches.
But LumenTale: Memories of Trey is offering up some really promising new ideas as well, such as 4v4 battles in addition to standard 1-on-1 fights, making certain showdowns more akin to your traditionally party-based JRPGs where you need to consider team synergy. There's a bigger emphasis on cooking and crafting here, too, as well as "The Anispace" – a room for you to decorate as you wish and bond with your creatures in.
"So, we feel that it's not to be considered a competitor, but much more like an alternative," Lella adds. And with all of LumenTale's fresh features, I agree that calling the upcoming game a Pokemon-like doesn't quite do it justice.
LumenTale first found success with a huge $186,000 Kickstarter campaign in 2023, before publisher Team17 jumped aboard the hype train and signed the game. It's now due to come out sometime in spring 2026 for PC and Nintendo Switch.
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