Gotta download 'em all!
Disc Creatures
is a Mons Series RPG with a retro, Gameboy graphic style. It was designed all by a single Japanese indie creator, SATTO, developed by Picorinne Soft, and published by Dangen Entertainment. The game was released internationally via Steam on 17 Oct, 2019.
Disc Creatures is set in a world where humans live alongside a wildly varied cast of creatures, all with different personalities, abilities, and moral codes. The player takes the role of a newly-licensed Disc Ranger (or "DiscR"), who is able to store the data of these creatures on discs and summon copies of them through a computer in order to battle unruly beasts. Travel across a quaint, quirky landscape, taming creatures and helping those in need! Mysteries fill the land of Disc Creatures, and some are darker and more formidable than one might expect...
Tropes:
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- When the game starts, the only way to alter your party is via a PC. However, an early battle with another DiscR gives you the portable Move Changer, so you can at least adjust your current party's battle skills without backtracking to the last computer.
- Every Creature added to your collection starts at Level 1, but a restaurant in the second town can instantly boost it to a set cap for a pittance of money, with the cap raised to 15 after a few chapters.
- Cap: The player can have a max of 999 money on hand, and 99 of any item in their inventory. You can register up to 3 copies of the same creature in your database. Creature levels are maxed at 50, but the player can use a facility to regress their levels in exchange for up to ten bonus points that can upgrade specific stats.
- Decon-Recon Switch: The majority of tropes seen in multiple Pokémon games end up leading to harsh twists. Every problem being solved with a creature fight? A gang member decides to just punch the child protagonist's lights out instead. The legendary creature mentioned by the TV in the protagonist's home? A trap by lesser creatures to lure people to their dangerous home and drain their souls, though a real one shows up in the post-game. A researcher searching for young talent to help him reach said legendary creature? Actually a con man only interested in cash that tries to kill the player for his creature collection, only to fall into a trap. The somewhat absent-minded professor that gives the player valuable assistance? He's the final boss, who's come to believe that the "humans teaming up with creatures" way of life will just make humans oppressors with powers nature did not intend them to have, and wild creatures dangerous with retaliatory strikes. However, despite all of that, the young main character ends up succeeding at every mission, with their optimism and determination to do good deeds despite all hardships being their most defining trait.
- Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Every Creature has an element, such as "magic" or "elec", that's strong and weak to certain other types.
- Evil Knockoff: After defeating The Clud Brothers for the first time, Big Clud uses his transforming powers to look like the player character and commit a string of minor felonies.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Aubergee, who describes itself as the weakest of all creatures when first encountering the player, ends up being turned by Dr. Greype into a monstrous spirit intended to destroy modern civilization. It is only Aubergee's good nature and unwillingness to kill a meddling protagonist that allows him to disobey the doctor and prevent his plans from succeeding.
- Fusion Dance:
- Some Creatures can't be encountered, and are instead added to the database by finding the right recipe and combining two discs together.
- A variant of this is every Creature having powerful moves that can only be learned by sacrificing a copy of a different Creature's disc.
- Gotta Catch Them All: The game keeps track of the 200+ Creatures the player can find and make copies of.
- Heel–Face Turn: After Chapter 4, the Clud Brothers are convinced to turn over a new leaf, though they'll leave any actual danger to the protagonist and say anything to save their own skins.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: Most of the incidents in the game are caused by people rather than Creatures, such as the forest curse set up to protect abandoned pets, or the gang harvesting monster tears. This becomes Dr. Greype's motivation for trying to destroy the Disc Net and depowering all DiscRs in the world.
- Metal Slime: Copies of a Jegg disc, located in the cave right next to the starting town as early as the start of Chapter 3, are worth 300 cash when sold.
- Might Makes Right: The very first boss, "Puzz", is a Creature that believes this, and spreads rumors about its hideout so it could challenge DiscRs and take their stuff.
- Monster Organ Trafficking: Akin to Slowpoke Tails in Pokémon, Chapter 3 focuses on dealing with a gang killing Babool (bubble-like Creatures) to use their tears for profit.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Aubergee, the weak tomato-ish creature that starts out as a minion of the first boss, decides to become stronger after Puzz's defeat and ends up as the assistant to Creature researcher Dr. Greype.
- Ominous Visual Glitch: The title card for Chapter 6 glitches out a bit, foreshadowing the immense power of a mutated Aubergee and the intention of Dr. Greype to shut down the computer systems allowing humans to summon copied creatures.
- Post-End Game Content: After clearing the main story and seeing the credits, the player reaches "Chapter Ex", in which a bunch of side areas can be explored to challenge bosses. An arena also opens up in the main town, allowing the player to win points and redeem them for rare creatures (including all five Starter Mon).
- Starter Mon: The game actually lets you pick three out of five unique creatures to form your first team.
- Surprisingly Creepy Moment: The second chapter of the game takes place in a cursed forest. There are scarecrows that appear and disappear while the player is in menus, a hidden path with free items that turns out to be a graveyard when you travel the other way, an inexplicable rest stop whose healer sports a Nightmare Face when the player's back is turned...sufficed to say, it's far creepier than any other area in the game.
- Walking Spoiler: The main antagonist is Dr. Greype, albeit a Well-Intentioned Extremist who decides to mutate Aubergee into Scourghan and use its newfound power to destroy the Disc Net after seeing humans use creatures as weapons over and over again, so that humans no longer have the power he has come to believe nature didn't design them to have.
- Warp Whistle: The "Leapfrog" items take the player to the last Disc Cafe (combination rest stop/shop) they entered, and the "Super Leapfrog" takes them back to their house in the starting village. Midway through the game, a large creature appears in the player's hometown, offering to throw the player all the way to any town they've visited for a cheap price.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Dr. Greype, maddened by the increasing amount of human-vs-creature incidents, decides in the final story chapter to transform Aubergee into a beast capable of destroying the entire Disc Net.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Chapter 4 is one to Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door's Chapter 4, given its fake-out early ending and the Arc Villain copying your identity.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: When first encountered, the gang in the third chapter tells the player they'll stop their activities if beaten in a fight, so the player pulls out their Disc Machine...and then a lackey just knocks them unconscious with a punch, since they never said what kind of fight.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Lil' Clud and Big Clud are fought almost immediately in Chapter 4, and beating them brings up an end card. But the very next day, they get their revenge by doing crimes disguised as you, requiring you to track them down and fight them again.
