

Although Pokémon has become such a massive success, the beating heart of the franchise still lies with its games. The franchise has moved well beyond its Game Boy-based beginnings and has expanded into a multimedia juggernaut comprised of games, animated TV shows and movies, a trading card game, and about three dozen other things that would take too long to list. In fact, there are plenty of games that allow players to collect creatures where the player can never collect a single creature and have it not affect the game in any way.Even if you're not a fan yourself, it's not hard to realize that Pokémon is all-encompassing. In games such as these, the creature-collecting aspect can feel a bit underwhelming. Many modern games try to incorporate the creature collecting element into their games, and the games are not solely focused on collecting creatures. At this point, the genre is saturated with new entries.

There were several immediate imitators some were good, and some weren't. Not so much the creature collecting genre itself, but certainly its popularity. Updated October 18th, 2022, by Jeff Drake: The Pokemon series started something. Any of the games below are solid choices when you get done with Pokemon: Sword & Shield and still have the desire for more creature collecting. A few of these new entries are for some of the newer creature collecting games to be released - one is still in early access. This list was updated with five additional entries. Updated May 5, 2021, by Jeff Drake: It seems like these creature collecting games are only getting more and more popular as time goes on.

Here are ten games that play similarly to the games in the Pokemon series. Some games have similar game mechanics, like the character from Final Fantasy VI ( Final Fantasy III in North America) named Gau who can “leap” onto enemies to learn one of their moves, but do not allow the player to actually capture the enemy creatures. The fighting does not have to be the traditional type - the creatures you collect must be used in a competition of some sort or be used in battle in some way. To make this list, a game must allow the player to use creatures/entities to fight for them and also be collectible (in some way or another). RELATED: Pokémon: Things You Never Knew About Fire Red & Leaf Green However, the Pokemon franchise certainly took that concept to the next level by having the player catch and train the creatures they encounter along their journey. The idea of using monsters to fight on the player’s behalf in a role-plying game was not started by the Pokemon franchise.
