MonsterCrafter

There are over 700 official Pokemon, but even that number is piddling compared with the sprawling roster your imagination is capable of producing. Or so your grade two teacher said once.

MonsterCrafter is a monster-breeding/battling game that leaves the actual process of creature creation in your hands. The catch is, you only have Minecraft-style blocks and textures to work with.

That means your answer to Pikachu can be a simple cube, or it can be the next digital "David". It all depends on how artistic you're feeling at that particular moment.

Regardless of your monster's visual complexity (or simplicity), the goal in MonsterCrafter remains the same: grow your creatures, battle them, and become the very best like no one ever was. You can work through a campaign mode that guides you through a line-up of fights, or you can take on other trainers online.

As is the case in Pokemon (and, frankly, most other modern monster-fighting games), each critter you create adheres to a certain element, and each element has a strength and a weakness. Fire-based attacks do extra damage to plant-based creatures, plant beats water, water beats fire, and so on.

Battles are one-on-one. You simply tap an enemy to order your monster to hurtle itself at it. Every attack causes power-ups to spill out of your opponent, including restorative hearts, coins, and elemental energy that charges up special attacks. Fights are fierce, and usually over pretty quickly.

Building your own creatures in MonsterCrafter makes it super-easy to form bonds with the little dudes. You're not just sending an anonymous monster into battle - you're sending in your monster. When you succeed, victory is sweet. When you fall, your heart breaks for poor little Horrorcow.

MonsterCrafter even sweetens bonding time by getting you to feed and play with your monsters. The idea is admirable, but it highlights a major flaw with the game. Your monsters have four moods: unhappy, average, happy, and ecstatic. A monster that battles when it's less than happy risks getting depressed, missing turns, and getting clobbered.

Making Rover happy is simply a matter of lots of feeding, petting, and playing in-between fights. But this all takes time and feels a bit tedious when you just want to jump back into the fight.

Moreover, feeding, watering, and playing with your monster costs coins. Coins are hard-won through victories, and typically go back into making new monsters and adding cool stuff to the monsters you already have.

Playing with your creatures is fun when you're in the mood, but paying for it and being forced into showing affection dampens the MonsterCrafter experience as a whole. Which, in retrospect, are sad words from a writer with two cats.

MonsterCrafter isn't an overly complex Pokemon imitator, but fighting with monsters you crafted with your own hand makes it one of the most charming. The game's simple online battles are fun, too, and the servers are always teeming with challengers.

All the necessary monster-grooming makes it a poor choice for a pick-up-and-go adventure, however. If you're in the mood to fight, you'd better make sure you're in the mood to dish out some love to your creations, too.