A Thrilling Game Arrives in the Pet-Catching Genre

Author / Hashichai

Edited by < The Reliable Editorial Desk >

At the end of July, Imo wrapped up its final test before open beta. Combining my hands-on experience from every test from the first through the third, I believe Imo is underrated.

Since the creature-collecting genre heated up, Imo is the most ambitious among the products about to launch.

At first glance, its biggest highlight was "Bonding" — the innovative "human-pet unity" mechanic — which later evolved into a pet-filled open world with nested gameplay modes including dungeon exploration, open-world exploration, roguelike combat, and "loot-fight-extract egg grabbing." By the third test, Imo had refined its dual real-time combat from both human and pet perspectives, its immersive ecological ecosystem experience, while also balancing elements like assist combat and home/base building.

After several conversations with the dev team, I have no doubt that the many deep Pokémon fans on the team are determined to deliver a great creature-catching experience, and I also hope to see them add something different to a gameplay loop that can easily become tedious.

From the very first test, the "Bonding" mechanic has formed Imo's most distinctive experience. Bonding means the player-controlled protagonist transforms into a pet in the game (an Imo), taking on the Imo's first-person perspective for combat, puzzle-solving, exploration, interaction, and more.

Starting with combat after bonding: every Imo has its own skills and combat moves. Imo's combat strikes a compromise between ARPG and MMORPG difficulty and experience — you need to watch type matchups, break toughness to shatter shields, dodge skills through positioning, and one careless moment can leave you hard-CC'd. Some Imos, thanks to traits like "increased break efficiency" or "bonus damage after breaking," became popular picks during the test.

After transforming into an Imo, players also gain the Imo's traits like flying, swimming, and burrowing. These can be used for traversal and puzzle-solving, making open-world exploration feel smoother — for example, racing minigames, or burning vines with fire to clear obstacles.

The most interesting part is Imo's creature ecology. After bonding, finding other Imos of the same species triggers all kinds of interactions — dancing together with a bonded Piaopiao Flower, lighting the last star of a pentagram, planting seeds to light up a cave, or becoming a butterfly to learn the butterfly family's story. Both the main story and side quests feature abundant content centered on the Imo ecosystem, with rich content and unique interactions — for instance, some Imos speak a language only they understand, which players can only comprehend in bonded form. You may find yourself entering their world just while collecting them.

In the third test, the dev team added new families: the Leaf-Seeking Sheep and the Bubble Octopus. The second test also added 11 new Imos. The team has consistently focused on building the immersion of bonding and the complexity of the ecosystem Imos inhabit.

Beyond bonding mode, the protagonist can also command Imos in battle — this is the "pet assist combat" found in other games. The protagonist uses skills to boost damage or heal the Imo, and can casually point to direct the Imo to attack or solve puzzles, delivering a satisfying "point and strike" feel.

For the creature-catching experience, Imo goes all out to maximize the fun.

In Imo, the ball-throwing action when catching is simple and direct, with no unnecessary slow-motion guidance — you can even throw several balls in quick succession within seconds, then wait for the results. Catch success rate is presented with a straightforward percentage UI, with real-time feedback.

Players can also send their own Imos to battle wild creatures in the open world. Lowering the target Imo's HP increases the catch probability, and can trigger a quick-catch mechanic.

Some expected creature-catching experiences, like back attacks and sleep ambushes to boost success rate, are in Imo. Some novel ones too — for example, during group catches, you can throw out a "Big White Ball" that spreads across the ground like a fluffy cloud blanket, sticking every Imo it rolls over into your pocket. That's fairly unique.

This sense of catching satisfaction has always been the most standout experience Imo has left me with — clear feedback and motivation when you first start catching, and once you're familiar with the controls, you can go hands-free.

Making creature-catching more fun isn't just reflected in the bonding and catching mechanics. In open-world exploration, in the second test, bonded flight in Imo only allowed soaring without speed boosts; by the third test, it was adjusted so players can accelerate while flying, and also sprint across grasslands.

When it comes to obtaining pet cosmetics, the balance between grinding time for rare skins, their scarcity, and the rewards still has no great solution on the market.

I also asked the dev team a question: "How does Imo handle the experience of scarce cosmetic pets found in other games?" At the time, the answer was that the team was still thinking about it. But players already had an answer during the test.

Iridescent, Shiny, and different weather-based form changes for Imos satisfy collectors' various demands. Moreover, the team simplified the rules for each form. "Shiny," as the name suggests, is obtained by catching with a Shiny Ball, layering a shimmering appearance over the Imo's look, while "Iridescent" is a more special color-changing design.

However, Imo has not turned cosmetic variants into opaque blind boxes for players to gamble on; instead, each Imo's Iridescent form is relatively fixed. For the acquisition process, the team also tried to state the rules plainly — for example, Iridescent is obtained through "Leyline Nurturing": you offer Poké Balls and open-world resources as tribute, and the higher the tribute's grade, the higher the chance an Iridescent Imo appears.

Once the nurturing ecosystem opens, players just need to catch blindly within the circle's designated area. There are also corresponding indicators for how tribute grade affects Iridescent Imo probability, so an optimal strategy exists. All players need to grind is collecting tributes and throwing balls after nurturing. Currently, the third test's Collector's Pass reward also includes an Iridescent Electric Thorn Mantis.

The grind flow for "Rainbow Iris" in special events is also not complicated: after defeating the boss, players simply throw balls mindlessly for a period of time, with a chance of catching it outright during throws, or they can use fragments to guaranteed-exchange for "Rainbow Iris" within the event.

This model is more like a party-game blind box, with rules more familiar to players. Currently, the resources needed for each catch attempt — the pity floor is roughly the amount of two monthly cards — but some players have reported being able to grind and obtain it using only resources stockpiled from dailies.

Overall, compared with existing products that grind for rare cosmetics on the market, Imo tries its best to offer plain language and direct processes for the rules and flow of acquiring rare cosmetics.

Moreover, Imo doesn't stake its selling point on multiple cosmetic variants of a single pet, but rather on stacking known forms of a single pet — e.g., Shiny + Iridescent, Shiny + Weather Iridescent — combined with other forms and custom outfits, delivering a DIY experience.

Back to the question of "what are creature-catching games really about?" — typically, players build emotional bonds through story and creature ecology, then engage in full-dex horizontal collection and vertical cosmetic/stat development of individual pets.

This content isn't very varied or novel, and it's generally hard for a single creature-catching mechanic to support an open world on its own. Even if it does, players will quickly feel fatigued. On the market, the balance of heavy vs. light creature-catching design is still being explored: some build classic turn-based catching and PVP for power validation, while others relegate pets to side gameplay like assist combat and home building.

As I understand it, the core of Imo as a product is doing creature-catching right. A large number of team members are veteran Pokémon players, which made this clear from the project's inception — some Imos were designed early on, rather than building the open world first and stuffing pets into it later.

Gameplay-wise, the team initially presented dungeons and open-world puzzle-solving, with bonded PVP races and chases or multi-stage mechanism challenges. By the third test, this system had evolved into a more solid open-world and sandbox exploration experience.

On top of that foundation, the team added fun PVP like "loot-fight-extract egg grabbing" and PVE challenges like "roguelike combat" — a fairly bold attempt to add novel gameplay beyond story and ecology, solving the question of what else there is to play beyond catching.

Plus, with the team's experience from various mature projects, this led to the deeper monetization and progression selling points being pulled forward for concentrated testing in the third test.

For example, the "Transmog" state's skin rerolling presents wings and other cosmetics in exaggerated forms. While the emotional value is maxed out, the corresponding payment intensity and rewards are actually more familiar to MMO players. Progression also added a fairly long-term carried-items system.

In offline communications, the dev team explained that progression was designed to give players more headroom when facing high-level or level-skipping monsters in the open world. In other words, although this system looks intimidating, it isn't mandatory. Similarly, with transmog skin rerolling, we've only seen streamer KOLs spend thousands to acquire them — the effects are cool, but they're not necessities either.

Imo has no forced PVP power validation; the only PVP mode, loot-fight-extract egg grabbing, leans more toward entertainment. Most progression power and bottlenecks are in PVE designs like open-world and roguelike challenges — no need to pay or grind for the sake of "winning."

And as I understand it, the acquisition method for "Transmog" cosmetics is still being explored and may change at open beta; likewise, the carried-items progression system may also be adjusted at open beta.

It can be understood that Imo still places its focus on the average player's experience of grinding for rare Imos and rare cosmetics, optimizing the process there, while designing some deep monetization content for players with more capacity to grind or spend heavily, satisfying their emotional needs.

This isn't an absolutely correct solution, but it is indeed an exploration and answer within the questions of "what should creature-catching games be about?" and "what else can they offer?" Returning to the original design intent, Imo has always aimed to be an all-ages, global, all-gender creature-catching product — which is also why Imo seems to carry a bit more than just creature-catching and pet ecology alone.

This also explains why Imo's art style looks less than unified. Someone close to the team told me that from the project's inception, they wanted the art to emphasize a "fluffy" direction as the basis for design interpretation. This has been upheld since the first test, and to some extent sacrificed the art's own exaggerated and personalized expression.

But players can still easily find their favorite — like the soft and cuddly "Xingledi" and "Fluffball Sheep," or the cool-styled "Quenched Blade Mantis" and "Armor Warrior."

Finally, I have plenty of complaints about Imo too.

On the rare cosmetic grind alone — although the process is faster and clearer, the path from nurturing quality to Iridescent probability isn't broken down transparently enough, and there's still a certain learning curve.

Imo doesn't force progression or monetization, but there are simply too many modules, which doesn't make for a great impression; many side stories and open-world dungeon exploration are quite good, but take time to appreciate; and bonding offers plenty of variety — could even more be built around it?

These issues and characteristics make Imo a somewhat slow-burn product. For example, the newly added home gameplay includes bead art — in the second test this feature was incomplete, but by the third test players were already immersively doing bead art in-game.

Before the third test, Imo was more like a product with ambition and ideas. In the third test, the team served up everything they wanted to do and everything they were unsure about for players to experience in depth. As it stands, Imo's foundation is solid enough, and combined with pet bonding — bringing different perspectives on combat and ecology plus the mechanical fun of catching — it has unique differentiation and competitiveness in the creature-catching genre.

I'm very much looking forward to what adjustments Imo makes at open beta to the pacing of its deep monetization and progression releases — and even more, whether it can spark a defining battle in the newly heated creature-catching genre and get developers competing with each other.