I Stopped Playing Palworld For This Creature-Collector Game
When I think of creature-collector games, I think of the Pokemon series and, in more recent years, Palworld. Pokemon's decades-long dominance faced plenty of imitators throughout the years, until Palworld's monster-collecting, base-building, and weapon-crafting hit broke through. Since then, every new creature-collector game has to answer the same question: What makes that worth playing instead? HoYoverse might finally have an answer. Enter Honkai: Nexus Anima. It goes without saying that Nexus Anima borrows ideas from the genre's biggest titles, but it feels more dedicated to combining the best parts of Pokemon and Palworld than replacing either of them, while still adding its own flair by way of interesting battle mechanics, beautiful worldcrafting, and a riveting narrative. I can't stop playing it. The Anima are adorable. In my formative years playing Pokemon, I knew the idea was to fill the Pokedex, but it was the feeling of connection with my Pokemon that made me fall in love with the series. Choosing my starter, taking them on my entire adventure, refusing to consider stat-adjusting moves, and instead going for an all-out assault on my opposition no matter the circumstances, are things I still love to do now. That's why, when I met a shy Inkifoal with a mysterious backstory in the early hours of Nexus Anima, that feeling began to reignite. While there are plenty of screens, stats, and paragraphs of information about Nexus Anima's, well, Anima, they don't exist just to fill my collection. Their adorable designs, expressive animations, and various personalities had me choosing my party based on the vibes, rather than their strengths. There are bonuses to considering your team synergy of course--bringing multiple Anima with the same Aspect will grant buffs to your attack in combat--but if you're purely interested in having the cutest, coolest, or most novel team combinations, that's not punished. There's a huge variety of original creatures to find. HoYoverse has built its reputation through titles like Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero, where it crafts characters with instantly recognizable designs and engaging personalities, and it's somehow managed to apply that philosophy to a creature-collecting game where the majority of the Anima don't have the ability to speak. Where other titles that tried to reach the lofty heights of Pokemon struggled was their inability to capture the magic of Pokemon's creatures. Temtem was considered similar to Pokemon, but an MMO, and while it proved that capturing Pokemon's battle systems was possible, emulating its sense of discovery was much harder. 2020's Nexomon had hundreds of creatures, but they all felt like variations on familiar ideas rather than memorable individuals. Even Palword, despite its massive success, focused on reinventing survival mechanics rather than the deep bond that defines Pokemon games--and even became the subject of a lawsuit from Nintendo for how similar some of its mechanics were. Battles take place in a grid format. Where Pokemon's combat is relatively straightforward, Nexus Anima takes all the strengths of HoYoverse's action-RPG roots to create fast, fluid, and visually stunning battles that encourage you to consider your positioning and technique, all without becoming overwhelming. Battles take place on a hexagonal grid, and as you level up, you can take more Anima into battle with you. Anima have different Traits, Roles, and Damage Types, which affect their efficiency in combat, as well as unique Abilities to use to take down the opposition. Where Honkai: Nexus Anima struggles slightly is making it obvious when your Anima are using those abilities, and I'd like to see that indicated more clearly without clogging up the UI. The environments are also absolutely breathtaking. Nothing immerses me more in a game than when I actually enjoy being in that game and soaking up the scenery. In Nexus Anima I found huge satisfaction in walking down a street filled with believable NPCs, a variety of stores, and some that you can even go in and meet the Anima working there, or complete challenges. It feels like a HoYoverse game in all of the best ways, and I keep finding myself pushing forward through the story to discover the next setting, wondering which angle the developer has opted for. Will it be an eerie corridor lined with ominous red blooming flowers, will it be a vast, open beach with the most beautiful skybox I've seen in a game in a long time, or will it be a water-filled arena complete with lilypads, mist, and hanging banners? Arena design aesthetics alter from one area to the next. Honkai: Nexus Anima isn't trying to be Pokemon, or Palworld, or any of their mimics. It feels premium from the outset, offering a highly satisfying combat cycle, engaging narrative, and creature designs that make me want to find and befriend them all. The dedicated HoYoverse playerbase has infinite scope to build teams, discover new Anima, experiment with different combinations, and tinker with the synergy, all while being rewarded by the game's progression systems. Whether Nexus Anima can retain players after the initial buzz remains to be seen, but for me HoYoverse has achieved something I wasn't expecting: It made me excited about a new creature-collecting game. While the Pokemon Winds and Waves releases are still on my radar, and the Palworld 1.0 release certainly seems impressive, all I can think about is Nexus Anima.
When I think of creature-collector games, I think of the Pokemon series and, in more recent years, Palworld. Pokemon's decades-long dominance faced plenty of imitators throughout the years, until Palworld's monster-collecting, base-building, and weapon-crafting hit broke through. Since then, every new creature-collector game has to answer the same question: What makes that worth playing instead? HoYoverse might finally have an answer. Enter Honkai: Nexus Anima. It goes without saying that Nexus Anima borrows ideas from the genre's biggest titles, but it feels more dedicated to combining the best parts of Pokemon and Palworld than replacing either of them, while still adding its own flair by way of interesting battle mechanics, beautiful worldcrafting, and a riveting narrative. I can't stop playing it. The Anima are adorable. In my formative years playing Pokemon, I knew the idea was to fill the Pokedex, but it was the feeling of connection with my Pokemon that made me fall in love with the series. Choosing my starter, taking them on my entire adventure, refusing to consider stat-adjusting moves, and instead going for an all-out assault on my opposition no matter the circumstances, are things I still love to do now. That's why, when I met a shy Inkifoal with a mysterious backstory in the early hours of Nexus Anima, that feeling began to reignite. While there are plenty of screens, stats, and paragraphs of information about Nexus Anima's, well, Anima, they don't exist just to fill my collection. Their adorable designs, expressive animations, and various personalities had me choosing my party based on the vibes, rather than their strengths. There are bonuses to considering your team synergy of course--bringing multiple Anima with the same Aspect will grant buffs to your attack in combat--but if you're purely interested in having the cutest, coolest, or most novel team combinations, that's not punished. There's a huge variety of original creatures to find. HoYoverse has built its reputation through titles like Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, and Zenless Zone Zero, where it crafts characters with instantly recognizable designs and engaging personalities, and it's somehow managed to apply that philosophy to a creature-collecting game where the majority of the Anima don't have the ability to speak. Where other titles that tried to reach the lofty heights of Pokemon struggled was their inability to capture the magic of Pokemon's creatures. Temtem was considered similar to Pokemon, but an MMO, and while it proved that capturing Pokemon's battle systems was possible, emulating its sense of discovery was much harder. 2020's Nexomon had hundreds of creatures, but they all felt like variations on familiar ideas rather than memorable individuals. Even Palword, despite its massive success, focused on reinventing survival mechanics rather than the deep bond that defines Pokemon games--and even became the subject of a lawsuit from Nintendo for how similar some of its mechanics were. Battles take place in a grid format. Where Pokemon's combat is relatively straightforward, Nexus Anima takes all the strengths of HoYoverse's action-RPG roots to create fast, fluid, and visually stunning battles that encourage you to consider your positioning and technique, all without becoming overwhelming. Battles take place on a hexagonal grid, and as you level up, you can take more Anima into battle with you. Anima have different Traits, Roles, and Damage Types, which affect their efficiency in combat, as well as unique Abilities to use to take down the opposition. Where Honkai: Nexus Anima struggles slightly is making it obvious when your Anima are using those abilities, and I'd like to see that indicated more clearly without clogging up the UI. The environments are also absolutely breathtaking. Nothing immerses me more in a game than when I actually enjoy being in that game and soaking up the scenery. In Nexus Anima I found huge satisfaction in walking down a street filled with believable NPCs, a variety of stores, and some that you can even go in and meet the Anima working there, or complete challenges. It feels like a HoYoverse game in all of the best ways, and I keep finding myself pushing forward through the story to discover the next setting, wondering which angle the developer has opted for. Will it be an eerie corridor lined with ominous red blooming flowers, will it be a vast, open beach with the most beautiful skybox I've seen in a game in a long time, or will it be a water-filled arena complete with lilypads, mist, and hanging banners? Arena design aesthetics alter from one area to the next. Honkai: Nexus Anima isn't trying to be Pokemon, or Palworld, or any of their mimics. It feels premium from the outset, offering a highly satisfying combat cycle, engaging narrative, and creature designs that make me want to find and befriend them all. The dedicated HoYoverse playerbase has infinite scope to build teams, discover new Anima, experiment with different combinations, and tinker with the synergy, all while being rewarded by the game's progression systems. Whether Nexus Anima can retain players after the initial buzz remains to be seen, but for me HoYoverse has achieved something I wasn't expecting: It made me excited about a new creature-collecting game. While the Pokemon Winds and Waves releases are still on my radar, and the Palworld 1.0 release certainly seems impressive, all I can think about is Nexus Anima.
Full article body is being fetched in the background. Refresh in a moment to see the complete paragraphs. For now this page shows a summary and AI analysis.
