PERSONA 5 ROYAL FUSION GUIDE PC
PERSONA 5 ROYAL FUSION GUIDE SERIES

Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin is available on Windows PC and Nintendo Switch.

If that doesn’t qualify a game as “Pokémon-like,” I’m not sure what does. Together with your party of trusty Monsties, you - a literal child - are tasked with saving the world from imminent destruction.

This warmth also extends to the game’s story, in which you become a Rider rather than a Hunter. In Monster Hunter Stories 2, you can even assemble a team of these Monsties to join you on your adventure across Hakolo Island. The Monster Hunter Stories games eschew the meticulous preparation, stalking, and actual hunting of fearsome colossi for a much gentler approach to these creatures (they’re even renamed from “Monsters” to “Monsties”).

PERSONA 5 ROYAL FUSION GUIDE SERIES

It may seem odd to compare Pokémon with the Monster Hunter series - one is about collecting cartoonish creatures, while another is about brutally hunting outlandish monsters - but Monster Hunter’s turn-based spinoffs have quite a lot in common with Pikachu’s flagship. Pair that with an impressive roster of 192 individual Personas, each of which can be obtained via persuasion, seduction, bribery, or a ritualistic mechanic called fusion, and you’ve got yourself an excellent type-oriented, creature-collecting RPG. Still, combat is turn-based and founded upon a variety of character affinities that can stun certain enemies. Persona games are more conventional JRPGs than any Pokémon title, in that they’re less about collecting neat badges to challenge a very friendly and supportive champion and more about attacking and dethroning God. It can seem a little complex at first, but fortunately, 2017’s Persona 5 makes for a pretty great starting point. Said demons are associated with specific elemental types, all of which interact with one another to create a similar type-effectiveness structure to Pokémon. Rather than being inspired by Nintendo, Persona is a spinoff of Sega’s own Shin Megami Tensei, a series in which you collect demons inspired by various mythologies from around the world. The Persona series has been around for as long as Pokémon has, so to say the former owes its existence to the latter is… well, just plain wrong. Monster Crown is available on Windows PC, Mac, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Opinions on whether the developers succeeded in delivering on that vision vary, but if you’re the kind of person who constantly talks about wanting “a Pokémon game for adults,” this is the Pokémon-like for you. Unlike the warm, mostly innocuous stories you’d expect to find in major Nintendo-published games, Monster Crown is intentionally dark, targeting a specific demographic of players who grew up with early Pokémon, but are now on the lookout for something a little more grown-up.

The area in which Monster Crown differs from Pokémon is in its narrative and world design. While this number is impressive, it extends to a whopping 1,200 when you consider the game’s breeding system, which allows you to pair specific monsters in order to gain access to new creatures you can’t meet through ordinary means in the wild. It’s heavily inspired by Game Freak’s RPGs in many ways, in that it incorporates 200 original monsters for you to catch, train, and battle alongside. Sure, Monster Crown might talk like Pokémon, but it certainly doesn’t walk like it. While Monster Crown’s overworld certainly resembles those of the Game Boy Color-era Pokémon games, anyone searching for cutesy nostalgia will be out of luck once they set foot on Crown Island. Monster Sanctuary is available on Windows PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. Even at the age of 5, I was embarrassed for them. They’re sort of like Team Rocket, but with an actual story that isn’t “We want world domination, but we’re only willing to achieve it if we can do so while using objectively terrible Pokémon.” In other words, these opponents are a legitimate threat - especially when compared to Johto-era Rocket. In doing so, you can finally take on the nefarious Alchemists, a guild of evil mages who want to conquer the titular Monster Sanctuary and use it to wage war on the Old World. Still, the core premise of Monster Sanctuary involves capturing and taming dozens of different creatures to attain the rank of “Master” in the Monster Keeper order. It’s a side-scrolling Metroidvania that takes far more visual cues from that genre’s namesakes than anything Game Freak has ever put out. OK, so this one looks nothing like Pokémon.

Persona 5 royal fusion guide