Angry Over Pokemon Sword & Shield? A Japanese Indie Dev Has An Alternative In Disc Monsters

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For those dissatisfied with Pokemon Sword and/or Shield, there's an indie alternative that brings things back to the Game Boy era. Not only for Pokemon, but touches of Dragon Quest Monsters too. Consider it a nostalgic montage.

Disc Creatures comes from a Japanese indie developer who goes by the online handle SATTO. He worked alone on this project for three years (with an additional two years spent on English localization), channeling his enthusiasm. "Pokemon and Dragon Quest Monsters are both game 'bibles' to me, so I referred back to them a lot when working on this game," SATTO writes, in a translated answer courtesy of publisher Dangen Entertainment.

SATTO's story is undoubtedly familiar to most '90s kids. That's when Disc Creatures popped into SATTO's mind. "I got the idea to make this game right after the first Pokemon was released, about twenty years ago. I was in elementary school at the time. and drawing your own Pokemon was a popular thing to do… Ever since then, I'd always wanted to put the characters I'd thought up into a game and see them move around… This game was created based on all the things I had thought up when I was a kid," he writes. 

A familiar RPG battle screen

Dangen Entertainment

Inspiration isn't enough though. In Disc Monsters' case, working solo meant no feedback loop; this was all SATTO, and that caused some problems. "In the beginning I planned to have around 100 creatures total. But I ended up adding more and more until the number became around 200 creatures. So it took me a lot of time to finish setting up each creature, and I ended up with so many creatures that I didn't even have places on the map to put them," he explains. 

With those lessons in mind. SATTO is working on a follow-up to Disc Creatures. He's planning to include a lot of original ideas to further separate his game from its origins. To note, although the inspiration is clear, Disc Monsters already carries an identity of its own. "A lot of players who've actually played the game have also commented on how it really is a totally different game from Pokemon and Dragon Quest Monsters," SATTO notes. Sounds like he's already getting close to a unique indie extension of monster hunting/battling.