Play Animon Story in Your Favorite Worlds

The world of monster taming video games is exploding with news at the moment. Coromon just released for Nintendo Switch, Digimon Survive releases worldwide on July 29 and Pokemon Scarlet & Violet leaks have been coming in waves. There’s even more news for even more properties but the property I’m most excited for is Animon Story RPG by Zak Barouh.

Explore the monster taming genre for tabletop RPG

Having recently exploded through all the stretch goals for its recent Kickstarter, Animon Story isn’t losing any steam. Creator Zak Barouh has been sharing artwork for the upcoming book and I’ve been loving those and the Animon approved art he’s sharing as well.

With all of the news for new and existing properties coming out I’ve been thinking about playing some Animon Story using existing properties’ worlds and ’mons. As such I thought I’d share five different monster taming properties and how I’d adapt them to Animon Story RPG.

Digimon

The first property on our list meshes with Animon Story seamlessly. Digimon is a clear inspiration for Animon Story’s development and playing a game using Digimon feels like a natural evolution for the two — a DNA digivolution, if you will.

Animon Story needs no adaptations to play a Digimon-themed game. However, if you want to go for something a bit more like the new Digimon Survive gameplay you could absolutely use some Digimon mini figures and a battle map to simulate a turn based strategy RPG.

With its digivolutions and the notion of crests in the anime, Digimon is a perfect fit for an Animon Story campaign.

Pokemon

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are fast approaching. What better way to prepare and share the hype with your friends than playing some Animon Story games in how you imagine the new region?

To spice things up you could even add your own Fakemon to the region and build your very own Pokemon canon through Animon Story. You could also take some notes from MandJTV, PragMagik, Lockstin & Gnoggin and others on YouTube by creating your very own region!

The thrill of building a whole Pokemon region could stick to strict canon or you could go full Pokemon Scarlet and Violet by exploring the past or the future. You might even blend new genres with Pokemon, coming out with something in the vein of The Legend of Korra as it was to Avatar: the Last Airbender. Let your imagination soar and build the region to beat all regions — the very best, like no one ever was.

In terms of adapting Animon Story to Pokemon the key difference is the lack of support for multiple ’mons per kid character. This could be circumvented by simply ignoring the rule that each creature on the character sheet is a stage of the same Animon and instead build a team of Animons that grow and evolve using the standard evolution rules.

However, when they evolve you can just alter the ’mon on the character sheet like when you level up for D&D. This works because evolution in Pokemon is permanent (except for megas, which we’re not touching right now). With a couple of simple adjustments you’re ready for a Pokemon game in Animon Story. In fact this forumla works well for a number of properties including Temtem, Coromon, Nexomon and more.

Medabots

Where are my ’90s and early 2000s kids? Any of you guys watch Medabots as much as I did? I loved this quirky series about kids and their robot companions battling to win new medaparts and modifications. I you’re unfamiliar with this gem, which holds up surprisingly well, you can watch the Medabots series free on Amazon Prime right here.

While Medabots don’t evolve as such, their medals do — especially in the video games (for those of us who played those GBA gems). The Medabots evolution mechanic makes them stronger internally but it doesn’t necessarily change their exterior unless you want to say they got an upgrade.

My thoughts on temporary evolution would be this represents manifesting the MedaForce, a sort of special power burst triggered by intense emotion where Medabot and Medafighter synchronized.

Of course, any game of Medabots would also need the iconic Mr. Referee among other humorous references. Medabots was goofier than most of its monster taming counterparts at the time but the wacky humor was absolutely a feature and not a bug.

Megaman Battle Network

Nintendo recently announced the MMBN Legacy Collection for next year and let me tell you I’ve been ready for this one for a minute! Megaman Battle Network is my favorite rendition of the blue bomber.

In it, iconic characters like Gutsman, Roll and Megaman exist as Net Navis — digital AIs that travel the internet for their operators (kid characters). Battle Chips in this system could easily translate into Animon Story as single use magic items much like cyphers from the Cypher System. Evolutions could be Style Changes, Soul Crosses or any of the other features from the series allowing Megaman to augment and change his powers.

One of the most interesting parts of the MMBN series was both kid characters and Net Navis had to cooperate to solve internet based problems and face threats with consequences bleeding into the physical world.

By extension, Megaman Star Force could also work as an Animon Story campaign. Much like in Digimon Frontier and Digimon Tamers, Omega-Xis and Geo Stellar fuse to become Megaman, leaning hard into the magical girl transformation that evolution draws inspiration from in many shows and series. While other entries on this list make their ’mons feel something like pets, this particular flavor of Megaman leans more into superhero tropes and flavors, especially with the villain of the week model.

Ben 10

This one might sound a little strange but given the previous entry it absolutely fits. Ben 10 is a series all about a kid named Ben with an alien watch that lets him turn into different creatures, which is where our evolution forms come into play. Plenty of characters in the show have magic or other powers going on and some of them possess alien heritage allowing them to transform.

Ben 10 is another monster taming adjacent series that still fits neatly into Animon Story given a few flavor tweaks. If you really want to go full ham with this you could make separate sheets for each form your kid character collects in their own watch’s repertoire.

Whether laying the smack down on alien invaders or wreaking havoc at the local bowling alley playing in a Ben 10 campaign seems like it would be out of this world!

What do you think?

Have you experienced any of the properties we mentioned here? Are you as excited for the Animon Story physical release as me? If you’ve got something to share please drop a like and leave a comment or find us on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

*Featured image — The monster taming genre makes a terrific match for a tabletop RPG like Animon Story. Learn more about this fun RPG and the creators right on Nerdarchy the Website here.

New videos all the time at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel