LumenTale: Memories of Trey is the latest type of monster catcher game to attempt to go up against some of the biggest games in the entire industry, and some upcoming ones like Aniimo. This RPG sees players step into the role of Trey, a sarcastic but loveable protagonist, as they attempt to uncover the mysteries of the greater world around them.

As I proceeded with the game’s story, dozens of hours in, I still felt as if I’d only scratched the surface. This game has so much to offer, and right off the bat, you can feel how much it wants to separate itself from competitors, for better or worse.

I’ve always adored creature collecting games, but found them lacking in certain places, and LumenTale surprised me by really focusing on those places in particular. Unfortunately, this just wasn’t enough to make up for all the issues I ran into while playing the game on the Switch OLED. I’ll explain everything in as much detail as I can, but if you’re a fan of this genre, I’d recommend getting it on Steam or at least waiting until things are more stable on Switch.

What is LumenTale: Memories of Trey?

This is super simple because it’s a monster-catching game that has you play as a singular protagonist, Trey. You’re not some ten-year-old child out to become the very best there ever was; you’re an adult looking for answers to your amnesia. There’s a much greater mystery at play in the game, and it only comes in bits and pieces as you travel the world with your young companions.

It works almost exactly how you’d imagine; go out, capture monsters, known as Animon, and do battle with other people and Animon. You actually don’t have to fight Animon to capture them, as you can use your Holoken to capture them using whatever Bilia you have. A small mini-game plays to determine your success rate, and failure means you’ll have to stun them by throwing your Holoken back at them, but with your Animon in them this time.

This feature also allows you to wipe out weaker Animon and collect whatever resources they drop, as well as gain easy XP. It isn’t the best way to level, but it does give you an easy way to grind levels for lower-level Animon. That’s not where things end, though, because, much like Pokémon, there are ways to interact with the world by using your Animon.

Each Animon has a primary type. When you unlock that type’s Holoken Ability, you can use it while traversing the world to do things like break boulders or get across gaps. This is one of the main ways you’ll discover secrets and find various items scattered around each map. Unlocking those abilities will require progressing through the story and having that specific type of Animon selected in your Holoken when you throw it.

Battling is the primary way you’ll progress through the story, but you won’t just compete against other Lumen; you’ll fight against some larger-than-life boss Animon. There is one boss per section of the map that I found, so roughly around 10 in total. When you do battle, you can choose to do so with up to four Animon at a time.

The more Animon you play with, the more SP you have to spend on moves between turns. Each Animon has moves that cost a different amount of SP, so you have to plan accordingly. If you manage to crit or use a move the enemy is weak to, you’ll earn a TP. Earn as many of these as you have Animon on the field, and you’ll get a TP Action, which allows you to attack with any Animon for now SP cost.

The Beauty of Being Different

LumenTale clearly operates fairly differently from most other games in the genre. It makes the game incredibly interesting from a strategy standpoint. This only grows as you progress in the game and continue to find new, more powerful Animon. The depth of combat offers pretty significant flexibility to develop your own playstyle.

Deciding how you want to build your team and what roles you might want your mons to take on plays a pivotal role in success. This is what really attracted me personally. It was something relatively simple that removed some aspects of previous incarnations that I didn’t like while giving me something to work towards.

This feeling was only compounded as I collected more mons and developed a greater strategy with my team. It went a bit further than that, too, as you can actually upgrade various abilities of your Animon as well as improve their stats with points or certain food items. This meant that I could effectively have my mons fill in specific roles, much like a traditional RPG game.

Adding in those things gave me a level of control over my mons that I never thought possible, which was very nice to see, but it also meant that enemy mons possessed the same capabilities. That realization began to settle in very quickly as the same mons in different fights ended up surviving attacks others wouldn’t have or having a turn order that would be completely different.

Too Much Complexity Without Explanation

Buckle in because this one is going to be long. I haven’t even covered half of the things the game has on offer in terms of combat and capturing. From traits that every mon possesses one, to unknown mons levels for capture mechanics, there’s just so much here that you can’t account for without feeling like you have to memorize an entire guidebook.

This wouldn’t be a problem if the game actually offered up tutorials on everything, and to its credit, it seems like it does, but there must be some sort of bug preventing those tutorials from showing up in the tutorial menu. This just makes the game needlessly complicated in a way that isn’t fun or enjoyable.

Let’s focus on the two things I listed earlier, traits and capture mechanics. Traits are actually an incredibly integral part of the game that do all sorts of things like heal your team and do extra damage, but they cost an additional SP to use to empower a move. There are seven in total, and each mon can roll one whenever it spawns. The only way to check this is by going through the tutorials, which you cannot do in combat.

That means you have to memorize this, and you will eventually get the hang of it, but by god would it be so terrible to add in a reminder of what they do? It just felt like they wanted to be obstinate and demanded that you learn the game over hours of gameplay, which sucks for a mechanic that is so core to the experience.

Next on the chopping block is capture mechanics. You can wipe out a mon that you throw your Holoken at, and if you don’t instant-kill it, you’ll enter into combat with damage on the mons in combat. This sounds really awesome, and it is! There’s just one tiny problem: you have no clue what you’ll instant-kill and what you won’t.

If you’re grinding an earlier area and wiping out mons left and right, then all of a sudden, you get into several fights that slow your game way down. It isn’t something that feels like it should be that annoying, but it quickly becomes frustrating because you have no idea which ones you’ll drop immediately and which ones you won’t.

It feels like there’s too much information that isn’t readily available as a player to have a strong grasp of what’s going on. In the early game, it feels like a new world to learn, but about ten hours in, it just becomes frustrating. What’s more frustrating is that I actually love the game and what it has to offer, including a gorgeous world and interesting creatures.

An Unbelievably Creative World

There’s so much beauty in this game, even given its simplistic art style and direction. I play a lot of different games, but the use of colors and design choices here makes something that will absolutely stun most players. From the environments to the creatures themselves, it really is something gorgeous that makes the game worthwhile.

This game takes place in a futuristic society that’s divided into two halves, Logos and Mythos. One worships technology while the other prefers tradition. It’s a pretty typical sort of setup for something like a JRPG. It gets a little more interesting as you explore each area with a unique environment and unique Animon.

To top it off, the Animon look great too. They feel unique yet familiar and most often clearly convey what their type is likely to be, with only a few that manage to be a bit sneaky. The cohesiveness of everything together makes it feel like a real world rather than simply one that exists solely for players.

This extends beyond the visual dynamics of the world and its creatures. The story was actually the main driving force here and not simply window dressing to ferry you from one location to another, granted that is sort of what happens anyway. I really enjoyed the story and the characters, especially Trey, because he honestly has so much sass.

The writing is good and feels mostly aimed at a younger audience, but that doesn’t stop it from covering some pretty significant topics like overzealous religions and human sacrifice. I was always hungry to discover more and see what exactly the problem would be in the next location I arrived at. This was coupled with the overarching story that really grabbed me as well.

Poor Performance in a Weird Way

There’s no simple way to say this; this game ran miserably on my Switch OLED. Now mine in particular isn’t as youthful as it once was, so this could be entirely individual, but I doubt that it is. Screen stutters, FPS drops, and straight-up crashing were not uncommon occurrences in the 20 hours I played.

Combat seemed to cause my Switch to simply explode once every turn as animations started and then froze, followed by the next Animons’ turn. It wouldn’t have been so frustrating if it hadn’t happened in almost every single combat. At one point, I just had to put the game down before I nearly broke my Switch.

What became significantly more annoying was that the level design of the game was clearly based on much better hardware. For example, in the first town you visit, the last fight takes place at the top of a tower. Not uncommon for a game like this, but if you wanted to complete each floor’s challenge, it meant going through four or five loading screens at a time.

You’d go up the stairs and through a loading screen, only to go into a room and go through another. Then you’d unlock another door to another room for another loading screen as you exit one room, and then another loading screen as you enter a separate room. This happened for three or four straight floors, and I thought I was going to scream.

The performance needs some incredible improvements in a bad way, because as it is now, I imagine many players will spend more time moving from menu to menu and loading screen to loading screen as they play the game.

There’s Just Too Much Going On

This is already pretty long, so I’m going to wrap things up by telling you that I didn’t even cover everything the game has to offer. That’s both really amazing and really irritating. Let me see if I can list it all for you without frying your brain. There’s still the Aniverse, which acts as a place to store your Animon. You can also have them train there if you get the necessary furniture, which the game doesn’t cover in its tutorial of the place.

There are also collectible cards, a crafting system, a dex-style information place, and challenges. I’m absolutely forgetting something, but it’s almost too much to keep straight. All these systems have their own problems that need to be adjusted. For instance, the Dex doesn’t provide you with all the information on Animon you catch. Instead, you have to scan them during battles up to four times to unlock all the information.

The collectible cards don’t seem to serve a purpose, and neither do the challenges, as neither provides anything in return except another menu to rifle through. Instead of creating those systems, that time could’ve gone to tying up the loose ends in gameplay and performance. They are cool to have, but that’s as far as those systems go.

There are still things like weather effects and a lack of fast travel that cause the game to suffer. You do eventually get a hoverboard that makes you significantly faster, but going back through so many areas before reaching the next destination feels like it should be unlocked earlier in the game.

LumenTale: Memories of Trey is among the best creature collector games we’ve gotten in years. That doesn’t stop the game from feeling like it’s collapsing under the pressure of just how different it’s trying to be. Whether it’s bug issues or performance issues, the game just reaches a point where it feels like work to play. There are a lot of genuinely great ideas here, and hopefully, things can get ironed out to be an experience that everyone on any platform can enjoy. If you enjoy creature collector games and want one that’s going to be hours upon hours of learning and fun, then this one is for you.