When it comes to making games that heavily resemble major titles in both their overall gameplay and flow, there’s a tough line to walk. Aside from not wanting to rip off a major title completely, opening yourself up to typically intense criticism and possibly more serious issues, there’s usually a desire to differentiate yourself and justify a purchase on your own merits. To this point there have been quite a lot of Pokemon-alikes on the Switch, and they’ve varied quite a bit in quality, but most have done a fair job of making themselves feel distinctive in some way. With Doki Monsters: Quest, in part because of its more old-school look and feel, it unfortunately struggles more to set itself apart.

For anyone familiar with the older Gameboy versions of the Pokemon series, you’re likely to have a bit of deja vu loading this up. Granted, it’s by no means identical, but given the graphical limitations they’ve chosen to go with, it’s a little harder for the games not to look quite similar in many ways. Its structure overall is also very familiar, with you being able to collect and train over 140 different monsters if you stick with it all the way through. You’ll battle other trainers, encounter wild creatures while exploring, and while you won’t capture them using a ball, the same general mechanics will apply.

One way that it does try to set itself apart is by having some more modern conveniences available to help the game move a little quicker, give you the means of swapping out color palettes to make it look more the way you’d like, and some other touches as well. In this regard it does set itself apart from the older titles, at least making some attempts to play in a more contemporary manner. That said, there’s also less of a feeling of polish in details like character dialogue and small puzzles you’ll encounter along the way, which don’t feel as refined, more just thrown in without an abundance of care.

I would absolutely stop short of saying this is merely a clone of the Pokemon franchise, since it does have some bells and whistles that help set it apart, and its monsters are generally pretty unique. That said, without the benefit of more modern graphics that would allow you to go with a more differentiated visual style, there’s no question that it’s hard not to have it all seem very familiar at times, and not necessarily in a complimentary way. If, however, you’d just like a variation on a theme you enjoy, and are willing to overlook it being less refined, it does well enough to warrant a glance.