Category: gamescom

Hands On: Aniimo is A Creature Collector, Photography Simulator and RPG Battler All in One

Danielle Partis

Following Aniimo’s reveal at the Xbox Games Showcase last month, I was as keen as anyone to discover what this vibrant, creature collecting “next-generation RPG” had to offer. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long – a hands-on opportunity at Gamescom allowed me a day trip around the world of Aniimo, which manages to be three different games all rolled in one. And that is ultimately a very promising thing.

The demo wasted no time in letting me get out into a portion of the open world, a textbook, grassy vista with an endlessly inviting horizon, full of cute, docile starter Aniimo. Even this immediate starting area feels so rich and vibrant – a keenly stylised, fantasy world teeming with life but with a polished, sci-fi flair that feels unique.

Here, I swiftly captured my first few Aniimo in the wild, which is straightforward at this stage – simply aim a cube (Aniipod) at a creature, check the probability of a successful catch, and throw. Each Aniimo has their own abilities that are useful both in and out of combat. Emberpup is an adorable dog with quietly devastating fire abilities, Budclaw is an unassuming crab with great evasive skills, and Nimbi, an adorable pastel sheep that can hurl pieces of its own fluff at its enemies. Aniimo’s story also offers a choice between two talking Aniimo that serve as a companion of sorts – a fiery lion called Hellion and a sparkly, moon-inspired fox called Lunara. All of these Aniimo can evolve into more powerful creatures too, given the right care, and it seems as though you’ll need them to take down increasingly powerful Aniimo later down the line.

But even in demo form, Aniimo goes so much further than a simple collect-a-thon. You’re not just here to capture all of these creatures and make them fight – you’re also here to research them in their natural habitats, understand them, and document their behaviour, which leads to greater rewards.

It’s here that Aniimo morphs into a photography game of sorts – capturing images of specific Aniimo engaging with their natural habitats, displaying certain behaviours and interacting with each other will help you learn more about your Aniimo and unlock points for other collectibles. This is what made Aniimo feel so much exciting to me personally – as a big Pokémon Snap fan, making the art of observing and documenting the life in Aniimo’s world, giving each creature a personality and a deep sense of place made me want to discover more based on their design, rather than their use as a weapon.

And while your creatures do offer a swathe of combat abilities, their functionality outside of fighting is what really makes Aniimo a different kind of adventure.

One core feature of Aniimo is Twining – an ability that lets your playable, human character merge with the body of one of your Aniimo. From there, you are in control– rather than commanding the creature to use its attacks, you can deploy them as the player-character in real time combat, which feels excellent. Darting around as a tiny fox or a star-powered sugar glider is sublime, and I was pleasantly surprised by how fun it feels to just become the creature I’ve spent so much time observing and documenting. How would it move? How would it fight? Suddenly, it’s not just a role-playing game for your own character, I’m actively considering how to engage in combat based on the personality of this creature too.

Twining is also built seamlessly into exploration, which was another personal highlight. There is something so deeply nostalgic about roaming around the open world with the ability to morph into a different Aniimo with ease – reaching high points with or as Celestis, using Budclaw to swim, even moving across plains at speed with Flameruff (the larger evolution of Emberpup) – took me back to the anthropomorphic platformers from my youth. The world isn’t just a space to explore, it’s a puzzle to solve, and your collaboration with each and every Aniimo will help you solve it.

There’s a coziness here, paired with a sense of wonder that feels simultaneously reminiscent of games I’ve enjoyed but surprisingly fresh in how it makes the Aniimo more than just numbers to tick off in the game’s encyclopedia, the Aniilog. They’re living, breathing, dynamic parts of a world that exists beyond you.

Even in just a few hours of play, Aniimo feels remarkably promising – it’s an alluring combination of genres that flow together surprisingly well, and I’m excited to see more.