Why Aniimo Might Be Better Than Pokémon

It almost feels like blasphemy to start writing this. Better than Pokémon? What could possibly be better? Hear me out.

After the visual sacrilege (which was blasphemy in its own right) of Scarlet and Violet, which featured graphics that looked like a 16-bit retro game stretched onto modern hardware alongside a whole host of performance bugs, I think the community was pretty fed up. With the gaming technology we literally hold in the palms of our hands today, it felt offensive. Nintendo even waived their non-refundable digital policy for it, a refund I fully took advantage of.

Granted, after a few months, I admit I repurchased the game with that refund money. And honestly? I had a blast with it. I played it for a few weeks until I completed the main story (though I skipped the DLC). While the graphics were pretty rough to look at by 2020s standards, the gameplay loop was excellent—albeit mind-numbingly easy for a 33-year-old who started playing Pokémon back in 1998 when I was five, unwrapping both Red and Yellow from my parents and grandmother on the exact same Christmas. By this point, with such a massive, global, multi-generational fanbase... we deserved to be respected a little bit more instead of being handed a clearly unfinished title.

Aniimo

Which brings me to Aniimo.

Created by Chinese developers, Aniimo looks like what we’ve been hoping Pokémon would evolve into by now. I can’t be more excited for this game and its implications as a new IP. Pokémon and Nintendo are probably sweating a little bit, or at least they should be. Solidified by an insanely profitable trading card game, Nintendo’s juggernaut isn't going anywhere. But if their core mainline video games refuse to innovate and keep up with the technology and expectations of the actual players, they’re going to start digging their own grave.

I’ll pause to say that the Pokémon Winds and Waves footage we've seen looks incredible, but that level of polish is what should have come out three years ago, not a late catch-up apology.

Aniimo

What Aniimo is offering us instead is high-fidelity, anime-style graphics, fluid and natural lighting, and original creature designs brought to life with vibrant, expressive animations. Pokémon doesn’t have to be the only creature-collector IP we’re allowed to love. It can inspire others to build something similar and potentially better. We should lean into having options.

And while some designs clearly nod to classics like Lucario, Shroomish, Cubone, or Growlithe, Pokémon’s roster is so massive that overlap is inevitable. These Aniimo designs feel original, unique, and offer us a whole new world to explore alongside brand-new friends and family members to get to know.

Aniimo

It’s that exact magic the first generations of Pokémon achieved, and it’s something we’ve been craving for decades. That first time I saw Totodile? That unexpected moment my Eevee evolved into Espeon? Here's that feeling again. If you manage to avoid spoilers, you’ll get that same shocking surprise as our new found-family of monsters grows, evolves, and defends us through thick and thin.

Let’s embrace it alongside the other 28 million people that have preregistered. Let’s dive into Idyll.

Forget Kanto, Galar, or Paldea... just for a little bit.