Are there any Pokemon game knockoffs?

[Eric the Orange]

I ask because as an industry video games will always copy what is popular. but Pokemon is very very popular, but I can't think of any ripoffs of it.

Note that I don't mean Pokemon ANIME knock offs, I know there are a lot of those, but a game that apes the mechanics and style of the pokemon games.

The only one I can think of was this DSi ware game from gameloft, a company who seems to specialize on low budget knock offs of popular titles and movie tie ins.

 

[krazykidd]

Ni no kuni . It's basically Pokemon with Real time combat . It does ge clusterfucky at times , but if a pokemon game was made like Ni no kuni , it would be the best thing since sliced bread .

 

[shrekfan246]

Sure, there's Pokemon Black & White ahem, sorry.

I've not played the aforementioned Ni No Kuni, but certainly heard reports of its similarities. I think it depends on what you'd say qualifies the game as a straight rip-off though. Even Digimon, the most widely known "rip-off" of Pokemon, had pretty drastically different games. World 3 would probably be considered the closest, since it had fairly typical turn-based JRPG combat and monsters that level up and evolve (sort of), but even that...

I can't really think of any games that I'd say were made solely to ride the popularity of Pokemon. That's not to say it never happened, but it's probably died off in the seventeen years since Pokemon debuted, and none of them were memorable enough to stick around until today.

 

[Asita]

I seem to recall a pretty direct knock off popping up as a facebook game...Miscrits, I think it was called? You're plopped into the world, get your first Miscrit (which is either Fire, Water or Plant aligned), you go out and start collecting other Miscrits, each has a maximum of four moves and each of which evolves twice...

 

[hazabaza1]

Final Fantasy 13-2 has a pretty big focus on the whole getting monsters and raising them stuff. Not quite as deep as yer pokeymans but it's there.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Ni no kuni . It's basically Pokemon with Real time combat . It does ge clusterfucky at times , but if a pokemon game was made like Ni no kuni , it would be the best thing since sliced bread .

well a JRPG with pets isn't really a pokemon ripoff. I played Ni No Kuni and it does not play like pokemon and the play style is the key point.

 

[Eric the Orange]

I seem to recall a pretty direct knock off popping up as a facebook game...Miscrits, I think it was called? You're plopped into the world, get your first Miscrit (which is either Fire, Water or Plant aligned), you go out and start collecting other Miscrits, each has a maximum of four moves and each of which evolves twice...

Ah, facebook, that would explain why I've never heard of it.

 

[EMO_of_LiGHT]

There was a Shaman King GBA game that lifted all of its gameplay from Pokémon, aside from Gym Battle. As far as rip-offs go it wasn't altogether awful. There were even two separate versions!

 

[CriticalMiss]

I seem to recall a pretty direct knock off popping up as a facebook game...Miscrits, I think it was called? You're plopped into the world, get your first Miscrit (which is either Fire, Water or Plant aligned), you go out and start collecting other Miscrits, each has a maximum of four moves and each of which evolves twice...

You stole my answer! Although I played it on Kongregate. For all of five minutes. Then left.

I've not seen many that are blatantly copying Pokémon, a few come to mind but I don't remember the names which seems merciful. There certainly haven't been any good ones to my memory. But there are a few unofficial Pokémon games that showed up for a while and were subsequently annihilated by the legal fury of Nintendo like a Magikarp fighting a Zapdos.

 

[TheSteeleStrap]

I remember Dragon Warrior Monsters for Gameboy. There are some differences, but it's essentially the same thing.

 

[SD-Fiend]

Monsters planet. I'm pretty sure it's been removed from facebook by now but it was really obvious.

And although it wasn't a true "rip off" the demikids series on the gameboy and GBA from Atlus tried to copy that sort of thing. They even did the "versions" thing. I'd like to play it but they don't look all that interesting.

 

[cswurt]

Dragon Warrior Monsters 1 and 2 (for Game Boy Color) and Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 1, 2 for DS are kind of Pokemon'y.

Sure, they use the setting and monsters from the Dragon Warrior/Quest series (which is 10 years older than Pokemon), but the spinoff 'Monsters' game came some time after Pokemon.

It has you roaming different 'worlds' you visit through portals, meeting and befriending monsters who will join you and fight for you while you go around solving all the world's problems and completing the main storyline.

They even have giant monster battle tournaments that you can take part it. Very Pokemon League'y. Though, more Pokemon League'y than even the Pokemon games... Because the Pokemon games just have some ceremonial fight in the dark with the Elite Four. The Dragon Warrior/Quest tournaments are actual tournaments in front of screaming crowds, etc.

You raise them up, can breed them, etc.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Most of the Shin Megami Tensei games have demon collecting mechanics that are somewhat like Pokemon. There's also Jade Cocoon on the PS1, which is all about collecting monsters. Or Azure Dreams, which is more of a rogue-like dungeon crawler with monster raising.

SMT was released a 4 years before the first pokemon game

EDIT: not sure if it counts, but I'd say monster rancher. but its been so long since I played that game i may be thinking soemthing different.

 

[Nadia Castle]

Animorphs on Gameboy Colour, god it was an awful game. Just ripped off the gameplay of Pokemon and slapped a licence on it. Wander around 'collecting morphs' by fighting animals with no animations and some of the worst music to grace the system. Also random encounters against aliens since there was nothing else to do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-PWAereLQk

 

[teh_Canape]

I remember there was an old GBA one in which you would beat the monsters, and then instead of capturing them in pokeballs you got their phone number and you had to call them in each match
it was... something

 

[Kotaro]

Robopon started out as an almost-exact copy of Pokemon, just with a different experience point system and some added features. It was pretty decent, but annoyingly, only one of the three versions was released in English.
The sequel changed quite a lot, differentiating itself from Pokemon a fair bit, but was also a much better game than the first one.
Am I the only person who remembers these games?

 

[saintdane05]

Animorphs on Gameboy Colour, god it was an awful game. Just ripped off the gameplay of Pokemon and slapped a licence on it. Wander around 'collecting morphs' by fighting animals with no animations and some of the worst music to grace the system. Also random encounters against aliens since there was nothing else to do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-PWAereLQk

Why. WHY DID YOU REMIND ME!

<youtube=L-PWAereLQk>

 

[Dragoon]

Yeah I'm quite surprised that more people haven't tried to make Pokemonesque games but I guess they'd just flop, Pokemon has the market held pretty damn tight.