Creature Academy Review

The market is currently teeming with grey-and-brown games brimming with chiseled, scruffy jaws, terrorists, and guns galore. Some people love those games, and that’s OK. But other people seek out reminders that games can be cute and colorful.

Creature Academy from Kabam is an adorable Korean RPG that serves well as a reminder – albeit not as thoroughly as it should. It’s bright as sunlight, its heroes are dashing, and its monsters are well-designed – but its gameplay is straightforward and kind of a little dull. There is a compelling monster-collecting component, however.

Creature Academy takes place in a world that’s been torn asunder by the sudden arrival of demons (don’t worry – the surrounding countryside is still pretty blasted cute). Human beings now team up with and train a huge variety of monsters to keep themselves safe.

The player’s job is to raise up a team of humans and/or monsters capable of clearing away the nasties. Monsters have different strengths and degrees of rarity, and can either be won through battle or acquired through treasure chests that are opened with the game’s hard currency (gems) or friendship points (which are collected from befriended players).

The core of Creature Academy is its battles, which are admittedly kind of a drag. The player switches out between three heroes, all of whom attack enemies automatically. The environments tend to look the same, and despite the presence of spells and skills, battles are purely a numbers game. Strategy is irrelevant; the stronger fighter wins.

Creature Academy‘s character models and designs all look great, though. There’s a cute and cool assortment of wolves, mushroom-people, dragons, and magical cats. Although it’d be nice if the game provided more biographical information about these friends and fiends.

Taken as a whole, Creature Academy is a perfectly average action RPG. Hardcore fans of free-to-play Korean RPGs will undoubtedly want to collect ‘em all, but everyone else should just wander down the road in search of their next adventure.