Late at night, I’m huddled up in bed with my Switch 2 millimetres from my face, when suddenly it feels like I’m being slapped with a Ratatouille flashback. My mind is flung back in time to the days of late evenings fervently exploring Pokémon Black and White, to weekends huddled in front of my TV playing Xenoblade on Wii, and countless hours helping Tidus explore Spira.

While swimming in this nostalgic bliss, suddenly I’m yanked back to the present as I navigate infuriatingly slow menus, tackle manic controls, or spend another 30 mins lost, just wandering around different buildings. This is where LumenTale sits for me: a game so good at evoking nostalgic feelings, but then slamming the brakes on the experience with small, jarring issues.

LumenTale: Memories of Trey comes from developer Beehive Studios and publisher Team 17, and feels like a direct homage to the DS-era Pokémon. But it is also an RPG using smart mechanic choices and modern conveniences to bring that experience into the modern day.

With nearly 150 Animon to catch, a beautiful HD-2D-esque world to explore, and some obvious gameplay comparisons such as ‘Lost’ Animon instead of Shiny Pokémon, Beehive isn’t shy about its influences. For the most part, that is a good thing.

This monster-collecting RPG feels laser-targeted at a very specific type of Pokémon fan, all while taking some bold and interesting diversions. One of the clearest is right in the name, as you control protagonist Trey instead of a nameless child. LumenTale uses the ‘amnesiac protagonist’ cliché as a fairly good thrust for your adventure, and I found Trey a compelling character.

After waking up without your memories, you set out to become a Lumen (the Pokémon trainers of this world) and discover who you are. You must catch Animon, build your team, and explore to finally uncover the truth.

So far, so familiar, but LumenTale utilises an impressive attention to detail and some subtle worldbuilding to establish both the depth and tone of this universe, which you will soon discover is a lot darker than you might imagine.

For instance, having an actual character as the centre of your ‘monster-taming’ game, one that has great dialogue and also has to make crucial decisions, well, it is really refreshing. It took me back to fleshed-out characters like Tidus in FFX and their journey of self-discovery, even if on a much smaller scale.

I won’t talk much more about LumenTale’s story, but just to say I loved the supporting cast of characters, with Ales making a wonderful adventure buddy, the pair Mina and Bon offering one of the most gut-wrenching moments of the game, and Pitan becoming a clear standout immediately.

Amongst all of the Pokémon-pastiche — with Animon instead of Pokémon, Bilia instead of Poke Balls (and so on) — Lumentale has a strong sense of identity thanks to the strength of its writing, the staunch anti-AI message, and the exploration of moral ambiguity. How you approach its many difficult situations will shape both Trey and your ending, so I’d recommend taking your time and really enjoying the dilemmas and characters Beehive has built.

To get to said ending, however, you are going to be doing a lot of battling. This is one area where Lumentale often feels like the similarly pixellated adventure Octopath Traveler, with a unique twist on the PP system you would expect in Pokémon. Animon come in different types, with some familiar (Fire, Water, Grass), and some strange (such as Virus, Data, and Chakra). All of these feed nicely into their designs and the many strange evolutions.

Each Animon has a type, a hidden type, up to five spaces for moves, and a system very similar to IVs, which you can spread freely across stats almost identical to Pokémon. There are a few other direct comparisons, even down to Animon having abilities and the physical and special distinction between moves. But instead of PP for individual moves, your team shares SP, with each move depleting this energy.

So, while you might start with 8 SP and Pound might use up 1 SP, a sweeping move that attacks all your opponents like Infernal Wave might cost 4 SP. You can end up reaching other Animon in the turn order with no SP left, but you can also skip an Animon’s turn to reserve SP for another.

Next, you start each battle with your opponents’ weaknesses hidden, and you can either try your luck with your elemental attacks or take the time to scan them. This is another crucial element, as if you land enough super effective hits against the opposing Animon’s weakness, you earn a completely free move, regardless of your SP, and can choose from any Animon or move in your party, regardless of your turn order.

As someone with thousands upon thousands of hours of Pokémon battles under my belt, this system feels really engaging, and I love chipping away at the elemental weakness, much like in Octopath Traveler. There isn’t much of a challenge, however, and that rings true even much later into the game. Figuring out types and avoiding bad matchups is one thing, but a selection of Animon with good coverage will almost always get you through any situation.

Which is a shame, because LumenTale’s story does a good job of using massive and physically imposing Animon as bookends for each story’s chapter, instead of just a gym battle. I love the scale of these moments; I just wish the battles themselves offered a little more challenge.

While I loved battling, I did find actually capturing the monsters frustrating, because of two distinct systems. First, while exploring the overworld, you can simply aim your Bilia at a wild Animon, and then a quick QTE pops up, with specific button prompts as concentric circles shrink, meaning you have to hit the right button and at the correct time. Naturally, the tougher the Animon, the smaller the circle you are hoping to hit.

Personally, I cannot stand this system. I just never enjoyed having to frantically tap the right button at the right time. I think it should either be the button prompt or the shrinking circle, as both at once is punishing. Not to mention, other wild Animon can still rush you immediately after this, so you have to avoid them despite their ubiquity. I can’t imagine children finding this system easy, either.

This is also made difficult by the need to hold ‘R’ on the right Joy-Con and then use the right analogue stick to aim your Bilia in the overworld. The reticle seems to spin like it is possessed, and I missed so many throws at crucial moments. You even use your HM-like abilities this way, throwing out your ‘Holoken’ item with an Animon of a specific type in your party to interact with the world. The wild movement of the reticle, the cramp-inducing need to do both actions with your right hand, and the need to have Animon of a specific type in your party make this process annoying at best.

Otherwise, when catching, you can use your Bilia in battle, which is much more forgiving as it forgoes either the button prompt or the timed circle. But while you can buy enough Bilia to catch everything, there is also an empty crafting system, where you use resources to craft Bilia, Potions, and other items.

It is always nice to feel rewarded for exploring or completing battles, thanks to item drops and earning some cash. But when I could always just buy enough Potions and Bilia to get through, I simply ignored the crafting system, so it felt superfluous outside of the ability to use resources to improve your Animon’s moves.

On top of this, LumenTale seems to just assume a deep knowledge of Pokémon in the first place, as many elements are either not explained in full or skipped over entirely, with you having to either find out by exploring the many menus or searching online.

Thankfully, I had good reason to catch the many monsters, as I love the variety of designs. Cute basic Animon like Lampecko, Bonkey, and Chompuff are particular highlights. But often when evolving, they feel overdesigned or messy even, as the simplicity of those earlier forms gives way to an occasional overwhelming mixture of limbs, patterns, and additional accoutrement.

Ghorious is a good example of these creatures losing a distinctive silhouette and clear design philosophy, getting bogged down later with too many elements. But, overall, the Animon look great, and the Lost (Shiny) forms even offer physical differences on top of a palette swap, which I really appreciate.

In fact, almost every visual element of LumenTale really works for me. Alongside the Animon’s designs, I love the squash and stretch of them in battles, so reminiscent of Pokémon Black and White-era sprites. Then the way both the pixel Animon and your characters interact with a boxy polygonal world feels perfect.

It is all bolstered with great detail and colourful design language for each distinct area, helping to sell the personality of each region. I can honestly say it has been my dream to have a Pokémon game in something close to this style for years now.

But, while in some areas LumenTale feels like the game Pokémon fans dreamed of, there are obvious moments where the lack of polish intrudes on the experience. Playing on Switch 2, I had about six complete crashes, where I was booted back to the main screen and lost progress. Navigating menus is both needlessly complicated, thanks to some baffling UI choices, but also agonisingly slow, as the game chugs when loading each new element.

The same can be found when moving between areas, and especially when entering buildings, and these performance issues are only exacerbated by the pace of battles, which can often feel agonisingly slow. Please, either implement an auto-battle or let us adjust the speed of battles; in fact, gameplay options in general are astonishingly slim.

LumenTale does so many things really well, and there are plenty of other elements I could mention (good, like the addition of Animon’s Traits, and bad, like the lack of objective markers within buildings), but I think, importantly, its proximity to Pokémon works as a double-edged sword.

The times when LumenTale expands on existing elements in smart ways feel so refreshing, and the world and characters are consistently rewarding to discover. But frustrating elements are only amplified when held up against their Pocket Monster counterparts.