You are the newest initiate to the Sodland Creature Keeper Guard, an elite force that defends the kingdom by teaming up with Creatures to battle enemies, protect your hometown, and… well, mostly pull a lot of weeds. However, before your induction into the Guard can even properly begin, a shocking betrayal reveals a great danger: a force known as “The Corruption,” long thought defeated, has returned, turning Creatures aggressive and threatening to bring the time of peace to an end. You must set out, with only the Creatures at your side, to defeat the Corruption once and for all – and befriend lots of new Creatures to help you along your way!
Creature Keeper is a combination action RPG and creature collection game developed by Fervir Games and published by Graffiti Games. It is Fervir’s first game, and an extremely impressive first outing. The creature collecting mechanic at the heart of the game is extremely well done, and different enough from other games in the genre so as not to feel repetitive. You can befriend creatures by giving them food, and they will join your team once befriended. From there, you can add them to your active team or store them in the Pocket Garden, a peaceful dimension where they can hang out free from danger.
However, things don’t end there. Each creature has a Bestiary entry where you can earn points by performing various activities, which range from simply petting them to defeating a certain number in combat, leveling them up, or getting specific rewards from trading food to them. These points can strengthen the creature, strengthen you (by increasing your health, for example) or provide cosmetic benefits such as unlocking new hats for that type of creature to wear.
I really like this system – it reminded me of the research tasks in Pokemon Legends Arceus, and encourages you to continue interacting with creatures you befriend rather than just sending them to the Pocket Garden and being done with them. I also like that the game encourages you to befriend more than one of each creature type, as it’s a great way to get more food and exclusive cosmetic rewards that you might find creatures in the wild wearing!
The creatures themselves are really well designed – Creature Keeper uses a pixel art style, and each type of creature is unique looking. Some are cute, some are intimidating, and some are goofy, but there’s a really good variety. In particular, one of the first creatures you encounter is Amphibole, a frog with a perpetually vacant expression. I found Amphibole so adorable that I kept using it in my party even after it had been long outclassed by other creatures, simply because I wanted to keep looking at its face. I think the creature design is probably Creature Keeper’s greatest strength – they are all just so good!
Combat in Creature Keeper is a little bit chaotic; you and your creatures all fight at once, and sometimes multiple wild creatures will be participating in the battle as well. One of your weapons – and the first one you unlock – is also a boomerang that ricochets wildly around the battlefield, which adds to the chaos. I struggled sometimes to process everything that was going on during battles, and a few times forgot to monitor my creatures’ health and had to constantly remind myself to go pet them to heal them. This is not a dealbreaker though, as the game is still quite fun despite this.
I would say, though, that one area in which Creature Keeper struggles a bit is providing direction to the player. You will sometimes get a quest objective that is simply “go to the next city and meet a person” without being given much direction regarding how to get there, which can be frustrating as the world is quite large. There were a few pieces of (I think?) optional side content that I ended up discovering entirely randomly while exploring, such as earning a shield by bringing honey to a specific location. There were definitely a few points where I got totally lost trying to figure out what to do next and could have used more in the way of hints or direction.
Other than that, however, Creature Keeper is an extremely solid game. There are plenty of mechanics – obviously, befriending creatures is the primary, but you can also customize their abilities through the Skill Gem system, grow food for them via a mini-game in the Pocket Garden, and craft various beneficial items that can help both you and your creatures. I was particularly fond of the ability to collect cosmetics by trading creatures for them, as I loved letting my creatures wear cute little hats or cool sunglasses and was absolutely delighted every time I saw a creature in the wild wearing a new cosmetic that I hadn’t unlocked yet.
Creature Keeper is a fun addition to the creature collection genre. The system of earning points via different creature interactions, the pixel art style, and the trade-based Befriending system help it stand apart from other similar games. The overarching plot is okay, if a little bit standard for a fantasy RPG, although it is overshadowed at times by how fun befriending and trading with Creatures or planting seeds in the Pocket Garden is. I do think there are moments where a few more hints or directions about where to go next could be added, and some of the side content could be more clearly signposted, but this is an overall small issue with an otherwise quite good game.
Kate played Creature Keeper on PC using a provided review copy.
