Abomi Nation

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Abomi Nation is a thoughtfully designed indie RPG developed by Orange Pylon Games and published by DANGEN Entertainment that reinterprets the familiar creature-collecting formula through the lens of roguelike structure and high-stakes decision-making. Rather than offering a fixed world and permanent party growth, the game places players on a mysterious island that is regenerated with each run, ensuring that no two journeys unfold in exactly the same way. This approach immediately sets the tone for an experience focused on adaptability, experimentation, and learning from failure, where success depends less on grinding and more on understanding systems and making informed tactical choices. At the heart of the experience is the recruitment and management of creatures known as Abomis. These creatures come in a variety of elemental types, each with strengths and weaknesses that interact in intuitive but meaningful ways. Battles are primarily one-on-one, which gives each encounter a focused, almost duel-like quality, forcing players to carefully consider matchups rather than relying on overwhelming numbers. Team composition becomes a strategic puzzle of its own, as Abomis not currently …

Rouge-like monster tamer games are what I feel like is a bit rare but this game has some decent charm that makes it interesting enough. Its gameplay has similarities to tried and true nuzlocke runs as even though you can build up a solid team of what you have been given, its only a matter of time before one bad hit screws you over and the permadeath mechanic kicks in (at the very least you don't have to worry about group level grinding). In other words, it has a good amount of difficulty that really makes you think about your strategy, especially with whatever hand you're given throughout the run. It has a good amount of charm with both the biomes and creature design, with a lot of replay value and customization. The only issue is that the game feels kind of slow but other than that its good for what it is.

This game should not have been a roguelike, period. It genuinely would've been so much better if it was just a monstertaming RPG and built around that. Every single aspect of this game feels like it's being held back by the need to be modular. The environment design is repetitive and bland, the characters are repetitive and bland, the story is... well, in all fairness I did not make it far enough into the game to see if it's repetitive, but it sure was bland. The relationship/bonding mechanic implies that you should feel some sort of way about your party members, but there really isn't anything to like about them because all dialogue feels, again, repetitive and bland. It sucks giving this game a thumbs down because I can see the potential in it. Unfortunately however, most of that potential gets squandered.

It's like pokemon nuzlockes and not really much of a rougelike. Some good rule customization to make things more to your preference. I found it fun, I got 100% of everything you can do in the game. Kind of a grind, but I want to give this game some positive attention even if it's not very deep.

This is a cautious positive review from me. If I had the option, I would choose a neutral rating instead of an upvote or downvote. I originally wrote a negative review of the game complaining of choice. I praised the game's creature design and overall mechanics, which tend to mirror Pokemon's in terms of battle system but a roguelike in terms of progression. I explained how the rigid adherence to a "Nuzlocke" style was problematic to me because type matchups tend to dictate success or failure, particularly early in a run where additional options are not readily available. Moreover, Abomi Nation differs from Pokemon because you receive each new monster from a randomly generated large pool and the bosses you fight are not static -- they change with each run. Thus, a run could easily be sabotaged due to unluckiness from RNG. In a normal playthrough of the game (running the game on normal difficulty with normal setting), you could easily get RNG blessed or screwed at the start, which would massively affect the success or failure of a run. For instance, if your first 3 monsters are all grass types and you are up against fire bosses or air bosses, you will have a hard time. In fact, my…