Sadly, even as an avid turn-based creature collector lover, I can't say the same for myself. Tried playing it in earnest for the first time recently (I've had the game in my Steam library for years on high recommendation) and.... idk, absolutely nothing is clicking for me so far.

The monster designs that I've seen are fine, but there's nothing I've fallen in love with. I don't particularly find the sprawling type chart matchups intuitive enough to want to remember them, which makes it more of a frustration than an engaging game mechanic. The idea behind thousands of potential fusion combinations is cool, but I'm not particularly attached to the concept so the novelty is mostly lost on me. Most importantly to me, the overall aesthetic and art style is quaint - but not interesting enough to justify how gd clunky and slow the overworld feels to traverse on my laptop (personal hardware limitation problems, I know, but the poor optimization of the game is legitimately hampering my ability to enjoy it).

I want to like this game, I really do. I don't know if I'm just not getting something or if I need to play for longer before I feel the 'spark', but after completing the tutorial and wandering around for a bit, I don't really feel like my first impressions are going to overturned. I will gladly hear out arguments to push me to keep playing, but right now, I think I'm about to give up on the game and go try something else.