# Monster-Collecting RPGs - Genre: Digital genre - Date: Precursors 1987–92; popularized by Pokémon, 1996 - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/monster-collecting-rpg/ > The RPG in which the monsters become the party: find them, befriend or capture them, train them, trade them, and try to catch them all. **Why it matters:** Monster collecting turned the RPG bestiary from a list of things to kill into a list of things to keep, and through Pokémon it created the most lucrative franchise in entertainment and taught a generation to play role-playing games. ## Quick answers **What is Monster-Collecting RPGs?** The RPG in which the monsters become the party: find them, befriend or capture them, train them, trade them, and try to catch them all. **What are the hallmarks of Monster-Collecting RPGs?** The party is caught, recruited or bred rather than handed to you; A bestiary to complete: collection is a goal in itself; Creatures that level, evolve, fuse or learn moves as they grow; Type or element matchups that make team composition a puzzle; Trading and battling with other players as a social engine; Turn-based duels between champions rather than party-versus-horde fights. **When did Monster-Collecting RPGs emerge?** Precursors 1987–92; popularized by Pokémon, 1996. **Where does the name “Monster-Collecting RPGs” come from?** Also called monster-taming or creature-collection games. **What are the key works of Monster-Collecting RPGs?** Pokémon Red and Green and Dragon Quest. ## What it is In most role-playing games the monsters are the opposition: they stand between the [The party](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/party/) and the treasure, and the only thing to do with a [Slime](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/slime/) is defeat it. A monster-collecting RPG, also called a monster-taming or creature-collection game, turns that relationship inside out. Here the monsters are the party. The player befriends, captures, recruits or breeds creatures, trains them through battle, teaches them new moves, watches them evolve or fuses them into new forms, and assembles a team whose strengths cover one another's weaknesses. Completing the roster of every species becomes a goal in its own right. The genre is a branch of the [Japanese RPGs (JRPG)](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/japanese-rpg/), and most of its defining games come from Japan, but its appeal is the collector's instinct: the same pull that drives stamp albums, card binders and, in the case of its most famous creator, jars of beetles. ## Origins The idea grew out of the 1980s Japanese RPG boom in several steps. *Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei*, developed by Atlus and published by Namco for the Famicom on September 11, 1987, adapted Aya Nishitani's novels about demons loosed through a computer. Its developers wanted a feature to set it apart from [*Wizardry*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/wizardry/), and settled on conversation: the player could negotiate with hostile demons, paying them in money, items or magnetite to join the party, and could fuse two allied demons into a stronger one. That recruit-and-fuse loop became the backbone of the *Shin Megami Tensei* series that followed in 1992. [Yuji Horii](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/yuji-horii/)'s *Dragon Quest V*, released for the Super Famicom on September 27, 1992, made recruitment gentler. After a battle, a defeated monster would sometimes rise and ask to join the hero, bringing a slime or a golem into the party alongside the human companions; the original version offered 40 recruitable species. Players loved it, and it pointed straight toward a spin-off built entirely on the idea. The breakthrough came from [Satoshi Tajiri](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/satoshi-tajiri/). As a boy in suburban Tokyo, Tajiri had collected insects in fields and ponds that were disappearing under development. His studio, [Game Freak](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/game-freak/), spent about six years turning that hobby into a Game Boy game, and the Game Link Cable gave it its genius: Tajiri imagined creatures traveling between two handhelds along the wire. [*Pocket Monsters Red* and *Green*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/pokemon-red-and-green/) launched in Japan on February 27, 1996, with 151 species and some exclusive to each version, so that completing the set meant trading with a friend. Trading became essential, and the playground became part of the game. ## Evolution *Pokémon* grew with astonishing speed. Japanese sales went from about a million in 1996 to 10 million domestically by 1998, the year *Pokémon Red and Blue* reached North America; the anime, the trading card game and a stream of sequels made it a franchise that eventually became the world's highest-grossing media property. By early 2026 its roster had grown to 1,025 species. In 2016 the augmented-reality *Pokémon Go* moved monster hunting onto real streets, reaching 500 million downloads by the end of September that year. Competitors and cousins multiplied around it. Enix spun off *Dragon Quest Monsters* in 1998, built on *Dragon Quest V*'s recruitment and on breeding. Bandai's *Digimon*, born as a virtual pet in 1997, became games and an anime. Tecmo's *Monster Rancher* (1997) generated creatures from almost any CD placed in the PlayStation. Atlus's *Persona* series carried Megami Tensei demon fusion into high-school drama. In the 2020s independent studios reworked the formula: Crema's online *Temtem*, Bytten Studio's *Cassette Beasts*, and above all Pocketpair's *Palworld*, a survival-crafting game with firearms that sold 2 million copies in its first 24 hours of early access in January 2024 and was quickly nicknamed "Pokémon with guns." In September 2024 [Nintendo](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/nintendo/) and The Pokémon Company sued Pocketpair in the Tokyo District Court for patent infringement over its capture mechanics, a case that underlined how valuable the genre's core loop had become. ## How to tell it apart **Versus the ordinary JRPG.** In a standard [Japanese RPGs (JRPG)](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/japanese-rpg/) the party is a cast of written characters who join at story beats. In a monster-collecting RPG the party is assembled by the player from what the world offers, and the story is often deliberately thin so the roster can take center stage. Recruitable monsters inside a traditional RPG, as in *Dragon Quest V*, mark the boundary where one genre shades into the other. **Versus the gacha RPG.** A [Gacha & Live-Service RPGs](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/gacha-rpg/) also asks players to collect characters, but it distributes them through randomized paid pulls. In a monster-collecting RPG the creatures live in the world and are earned through exploration, skill and trade. The resemblance is real, and many gacha games borrow the collection instinct, but the economics are opposite. **Versus the collectible card game.** [Collectible card games](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/collectible-card-game/) such as [*Magic: The Gathering*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/magic-the-gathering/) share the "gotta collect them" impulse and trading culture, and *Pokémon* itself spawned a card game in Japan in 1996. But a CCG is built around a deck and randomized booster packs, not creatures that grow through play. ## Where to start - [*Pokémon Red and Green*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/pokemon-red-and-green/) (1996), or their Western *Red* and *Blue* versions, for the original design. - *Dragon Quest V* (1992), in its DS or mobile remake, to see recruitment inside a classic JRPG. - *Shin Megami Tensei* or *Persona 5*, for the darker demon-negotiation and fusion tradition. - *Dragon Quest Monsters* (1998), the first spin-off built wholly around the idea. - *Cassette Beasts* or *Palworld*, for how independent studios have reinvented the form. ## Hallmarks - The party is caught, recruited or bred rather than handed to you - A bestiary to complete: collection is a goal in itself - Creatures that level, evolve, fuse or learn moves as they grow - Type or element matchups that make team composition a puzzle - Trading and battling with other players as a social engine - Turn-based duels between champions rather than party-versus-horde fights ## Facts - In Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei (1987), players talked demons into joining them and could fuse two allies into a stronger one. - Dragon Quest V (1992) let defeated monsters ask to join the hero; the original offered 40 recruitable species. - [Satoshi Tajiri](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/satoshi-tajiri/) based Pokémon on his childhood hobby of collecting insects. - Pokémon Red and Green launched in Japan on February 27, 1996, with 151 species; by early 2026 the franchise had 1,025. - Pokémon is estimated to be the world's highest-grossing media franchise. - Pocketpair's Palworld, nicknamed 'Pokémon with guns,' sold 2 million copies in its first 24 hours of early access in January 2024. - In September 2024 Nintendo and The Pokémon Company sued Pocketpair in Tokyo for patent infringement. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monster-taming_game) - [Wikipedia: Pokémon Red and Blue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Red_and_Blue) - [Wikipedia: Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Devil_Story:_Megami_Tensei) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.