A Final Look At Aniimo Gives Us Insight Into The Game’s Monetization

Pawprint Studio’s creature collecting officially launches this evening, and I’m fairly certain a lot of people are glad the wait is over. After all, the game is pretty promising. As you might recall, I was given the opportunity to take part in one of the beta’s a while back and found the game to not only be very pretty but also pretty chill.

That’s not to say that the game is all vibes, no conflict. Players are introduced to conflict almost the moment they step onto the Idyll continent. (That’s where the Aniimo live.) But I don’t think that storyline is intended to be something you just rush. After all, you’re new to this whole Aniimo catching and training thing – even if you’re automatically one of the best at it. So, you need time to learn the ropes. And, as is the case with every truly open-world RPG game, the devs obviously want players to explore and find all the secrets they can – a task that’s made easier and fun via the Twining mechanic that allows players to turn into the various Aniimo in their care.

Ahead of launch, we were offered the chance to spend time in Idyll again and experience things that weren’t technically available the last time around. That includes things like the game’s shop. Of course, this also offered us a chance to take in things that may have been overlooked the time before. For instance, the last time, I completely missed out on dueling random NPCs in the open world. I was too focused on checking out the main story and playing with the shockingly robust character creator, among other things. But, it only makes sense that a game in which you capture creatures, level them up, and evolve them; you’re going to want to do a little competitive critter fighting.

As for the combat itself, players build teams made up of four Aniimo. Each Aniimo is tied to one of nine elements and fills one of five combat roles. Some Aniimo can actually use two elements. And yes, different elements counter each other. Add to that Rarity and Rating and you have several factors that can affect your Aniimo’s performance in battle.

During battle, players can choose to take the form of the Aniimo on the field by Twining with them and execute their abilities. They don’t have to, however. The player character also boasts a variety of abilities – that players can pick from an ability tree. These include mobility abilities and combat-related abilites like healing. That means players can choose to stay in human form and heal or buff their Aniimo. Or, you can do both. Swapping from human to Aniimo form just requires hitting a button. That said, when players encounter obstacles that require things like the ability to fly or swim and the like, the game will swap them to the appropriate Aniimo automatically.

As I mentioned above, the most recent press version of the game granted us a look at the game’s store. Every game needs to make money somehow, and Pawprint has chosen a shop. Unless I’m really blind, there’s no gacha to speak of. But, there is a montly pass and a battle pass with a purchasable upgrade. There’s also a shop where players can purchase premium currency known as Lumin Crystals at varying rates – the smallest purchase is 60 crystals for $1 while the largest is 6580 crystals for $100. And, as you’d expect, the first time purchase offers bonuses that double the number of crystals received.

As for what you can do with these crystals, the store boasts a variety of packs. These packs feature Glimmer – a currency used to purchase items from vendors, cubes for capturing Aniimo, and a variety of materials for leveling. The other use for Lumin Crystals is outfit purchases. Currently, there are four outfits available in the shop. Three of them are direct Lumin Crystal purchases ranging from 980 to 1280 crystals. One outfit, however, players unlock by making a purchase from the shop and then logging in for three days.

It’s worth noting that with some exceptions players can swap out outfit pieces, mixing and matching as they please. So between the shop items and what they earn in game, they’ll have quite the wardrobe.

Of course, the game offers plenty of ways for players to earn materials and Aniimo as well. Most of these are found in the game’s various menus, like the Elite Training menu or the Institue guide which tracks daily activity and different challenges. Unfortunately, this mean exactly what you think it does. You’ll forever be clicking on menus in an attempt to make the red marks go away.

As mentioned above, Aniimo launches tonight in the Americas. The servers are slated to go live a 7:00 PM Pacific/10:00 PM Eastern. If you haven’t already downloaded and installed the game, you can find instructions on how to do that on our pre-download announcement post.