>>54010214Just played Cassette Beasts and was disappointed by both the monster designs - which were very simplistic and lacked character - as well as the characters. The typings (with plastic and other interesting ones that have cool interactions) are neat, but everything else disappointed me.
Monster Sanctuary on the other hand has the 3 major things I care about in a monster collecting game: Good sprites and animations, a complex beastiary - actually pages of lore per monster - and good gameplay. I will say that the designs for the monsters can be a little unimaginative and play it too safe, but I can forgive it regardless because it's the best indie monster collector I've played.
I also gave Coromon a try and while it has by far the best monster designs and animations of the 3, that's pretty much all it has going for it. The combat isn't particularly engaging and I don't like the level up system or big emphasis on the puzzles, plus the ghost-village boss is a ridiculously intense difficulty spike.
Overall, I just wish there were games besides Pokemon that had good monster designs with a focus on the monsters' ecology and biology and the world they live in that also had good gameplay and a decent story, but there are literally none whatsoever that hit every single mark.