Pokemon is a franchise that has pretty much become a household name ever since the series was first created. In the mid-90s, the series became a global phenomenon, exploding in popularity with kids and young adults all over the globe. During its initial surge in popularity, Pokemon had two main boons to help it integrate into western culture: the anime series and the video game series. The original games, Pokemon Red Version and Pokemon Blue Version were revolutionary as handheld RPGs and are still inspiring developers today. In fact, a recent title called Coromon is one such impressive example of the many games that have been inspired by the Pokemon franchise.
Back when Pokemon was first releasing, people would be hard pressed to go anywhere without seeing some advertisement of some kind about Pokemon. Flashing forward to today, Pokemon is still a worldwide phenomenon, even beating out brands like Marvel and Star Wars as the highest grossing media franchise of all time. It’s impossible to deny the lasting impression that the Pokemon franchise has had on not only the gaming industry, but the people involved in it. Be it current developers themselves or fans of Pokemon who might one day go on to develop their own games, Pokemon has been a major influence on so many people’s lives.
Getting back to Coromon – it’s a game that can be categorized in a couple of ways. On the surface, the game is an RPG in the monster collecting genre. On the other hand, it is very clearly a clone of the Pokemon series of video games. Coromon is an indie game by a small group of developers who clearly have a love for Pokemon, and it shows in nearly every aspect of the game. From its visual style to its overworld gameplay, the game oozes the classic charm that the early-to-mid Pokemon generations captured so well. However, Coromon seems to go well beyond just a simple fan game.
While some Pokemon fan games, like the ever-popular ROM hack genre that is popular in a subset of the Pokemon community, only seek to modify the already existing formula of the mainline Pokemon games, games like Coromon seem to seek out a little more. Coromon could be aptly compared to another long-time fan project inspired by another Nintendo IP, Oddity. Like Oddity, which was once known as a fan project called Mother 4, Coromon takes inspiration from another IP to make a game in the same spirit as the original while hopefully creating something new and interesting.
Now, to say whether Coromon will end up being better than other well-known Pokemon clones remains to be seen. The game is still currently in development and only just released its first gameplay trailer. However, that trailer does show off some promising features that could set Coromon apart from its competition. The game looks as if it could tell an interesting enough story, while still capturing that same magic and nostalgia as the middle Pokemon generation did on the Game Boy Advance systems.
While many aspects of the game like the creature design, graphical style, overworld exploration, and puzzle solving don’t seem ground-breaking per se, it would be unfair to say that Coromon looks like any other Pokemon clone. As many video game fans know, Coromon is far from the first monster catching Pokemon clone to exist, as many developers sought to capitalize off the success of Pokemon even when it was still new.
The first Pokemon clone that comes to mind is a contentious one. Some fans of this franchise might even scoff at the comparison to Pokemon or attaching the label of Pokemon clone to it at all, as the series has differentiated itself from Pokemon in recent years. That franchise is obviously the Digimon series. Digimon: Digital Monsters was first created in Japan in 1997, just two years after Pokemon was created in the same country in 1995. However, while Pokemon began as a monster collecting game, Digimon was first created as a virtual pet game, akin to the Tamagotchi series of toys.
Not unlike Pokemon, Digimon also grew in popularity thanks to its anime series, Digimon Adventure. However, while Pokemon thrived on handheld systems like the Gameboy and Gameboy Color, the first comparable Digimon video game was the home console PlayStation title, Digimon World. Unlike Pokemon Red and Blue, Digimon World received a lukewarm reception during its initial launch. While the title sold well enough to qualify it as a ‘Greatest Hits’ title in North America and would go on to spawn a slew of sequels and spin-off games, the Digimon franchise would never reach the heights that Pokemon is still achieving.
While many industry veterans might recognize Digimon as the original Pokemon clone, there were plenty of games that came out not long after that also sought to capitalize off of Pokemon’s newfound popularity. More often than not, these games were also JRPGs on handheld consoles, like Robopon. First released in 1998 in Japan, Robopon is the very definition of a Pokemon clone. One look at the game’s graphical style and overall aesthetic will make it clear to anyone that Robopon was clearly trying to bask in Pokemon’s initial booming popularity. Developed by Hudson Soft and published by Atlus, the Robopon series clearly had no qualms with being a subpar Pokemon clone in nearly every way.
There were other somewhat noteworthy Pokemon clones to come out of Japan during the late 90s and early 2000s that attempted capture children through the monster collecting genre of game. For example, the 1999 title, Jade Cocoon, for the PlayStation had a similar gameplay style to Pokemon while trying to tell a more mature story. Then there are more modern games like Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch that also feature monster collecting but differed greatly from Pokemon in other aspects. Of course, the Shin Megami series could even be called the grandfather of monster collecting games, featuring its famous demon collecting system in its first title, Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei, on the Famicom back in 1987.
Additionally, it’s important to note that it wasn’t only new IP that were trying to ride the wave of Pokemon’s success in the late 90s. Developers of existing and established franchises were trying to capitalize on the monster catching phenomena. Even the renowned Dragon Quest series, or Dragon Warrior as it was originally known in the west, attempted to make a Pokemon clone based off of its own IP. Dragon Warrior Monsters, originally released on the Game Boy Color in 1998 in Japan and 2000 in North America, was the first installment in what would become the Dragon Quest Monster series of spin-off titles. As one would expect, the gameplay centered around encountering, capturing, and raising monsters within the Dragon Quest universe.
Though the Dragon Quest Monster series never lived up to the fame of the Pokemon franchise or even the mainline Dragon Quest titles, it’s not very surprising. Very few series have ever managed to capture that same fever-pitch level of popularity that Pokemon reached in its heyday. One series, however, managed to get some industry veterans speculating as to whether or not they were about to witness the second coming of Pokemon during its initial surge in popularity. That series was of course, Yokai Watch.
When Yokai Watch first burst onto the scene, it made a pretty grand entrance all things considered. The series centered around capturing Yokai, which are spirits and ghosts in Japanese folklore. After befriending Yokai, players could summon them to battle and solve puzzles around the environment. The first Yokai Watch game, developed by Level 5 for the Nintendo 3DS, was met with positive reception and even better sales figures. The first Yokai Watch title even outsold Pokemon’s Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire titles by over 3 million copies. After the success of the first game and the anime series outperforming Pokemon’s own anime series, industry members were quick to dub it the ‘Pokemon Killer.’
Unfortunately, calling Yokai Watch a Pokemon killer was unquestionably jumping the gun. While Yokai Watch was extremely popular during the first year of sales in 2014, that number gradually slipped year after year until the series wasn’t pulling in anywhere near the amount of money that it initially did. While Level 5 still develops Yokai Watch games, the series slowly lost popularity in 2016 while Pokemon found a renewed sense of popularity with the Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon titles. Business experts have speculated why the series declined in popularity so quickly, theorizing that the Yokai Watch series did not have enough depth to keep children around as they got older, among other reasons.
That is one of the main reasons why Pokemon is the highest grossing media franchise in history. Pokemon managed to catch lightning in a bottle at the time of its release, and it kept cultivating and maintaining that popularity for over two decades. Many people who grew up with Pokemon still love and play the games to this day, and while the Pokemon series could arguably use a bit more growth and maturing of its own, it is still just as fun as it was when it first debuted. There will always be games, like Coromon, that seek to recreate the magic that Pokemon exhibited during its release and still exhibits today but the franchise will always be known as the king of the ‘Gotta Catch ‘Em All’ craze.
