As someone who has played a lot of open-world gacha games over the years, with most of my recent hours split between Wuthering Waves, Arknights: Endfield, and The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin, I’ll admit I’ve gotten a bit tired of the formula. Aniimo has had my attention since it was first announced, though. I’ve always enjoyed Pokémon games to a certain extent, but I’ve never felt like Game Freak does the series justice in the modern era, and we’ve sunk hundreds of hours into Palworld because that gameplay loop is so addictive and satisfying. What really attracted me to Aniimo, however, is its Twining feature, which basically lets you become the Aniimo instead of just commanding it.
Pawprint Studio gave me early access to the 1.0 build for review, but it was on a private media server, which meant nothing I did would carry over to the live game. So my actual goal going in was to figure out whether Aniimo had enough original ideas to get me to play it for real when it launches on September 16. The original plan was to run through everything available to me, but a few hours in, I decided it wasn’t worth ruining the experience by rushing through it all just to write a review. Instead, I’m publishing these first impressions, and the short version is that there’s enough here that I’ll be starting fresh on launch day for the full review.
Gacha Covered
Truth be told, for the most part, Aniimo follows a very similar format to the wave of open-world games that have arrived in the wake of Genshin Impact’s success. There’s quick character swapping, resource management, and a unique skill kit for each Aniimo, so anyone who has played Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves, or Arknights: Endfield will feel right at home with the structure. Where Aniimo really differs, though, is that there isn’t a character or weapon gacha constantly pushing you to pull. Aniimo are caught all around the world, and each one is essentially a different playable character you can control.
In combat, you can choose to just be your character and command your Aniimo, or you can Twine and take direct control of the Aniimo itself. I barely scratched the surface in terms of team building and theorycrafting, but even from what I saw, there’s clearly a lot to unpack here. I especially liked the fact that the game automatically swaps you into the right Aniimo when you try to glide through the air or swim. It’s a really neat touch. I want to be clear about something, though. I’m using gacha terminology a lot because so many of Aniimo’s systems are easily compared to that genre, but from what I’ve seen, Aniimo does not use a gacha system tied to its monetization to obtain Aniimo.
Glimmer of Hope
Since monetization is the first question anyone asks about a game like this, here’s what was in the shop on the media server, with the obvious caveat that all of it is subject to change at launch. There’s a $4.99 monthly pass that doubles your Primergy cap, cuts hatch times by two hours, and pays out currency over 30 days. It also unlocks daily reward storage, which automatically saves missed daily rewards for up to five days. That’s a pretty nice feature so people don’t feel obligated to log in every single day.
The Companion Handbook is basically a battle pass built around an exclusive Prismana Aniimo egg and a pile of additional rewards. I saw two tiers: the Advanced Companion Handbook at $9.99, which also adds five Aniimo storage slots, and the $19.99 Keepsakes Companion Handbook, which adds cosmetic items, 10 storage slots, and a 10-level boost to the handbook itself. Beyond that, it’s a lot of cosmetics, bulk Aniipod purchases (the cubes you need to catch Aniimo), and the usual gacha game staples like energy refills and appearance changes. As far as I can tell, there are two currencies tied closely to the shop economy, Glimmer and Lumin Crystals. It’s worth knowing what’s monetized in a game like this, and the answer from what I can see is that it’s the standard stuff, minus the pulls.
Alpha Bet
The tutorial doesn’t overstay its welcome before setting you loose to freely catch Aniimo and fill out your party. From there, the loop is what you’d expect: fill out your collection, battle and catch Alphas, take on 1v1 trainer-style battles, and follow a main questline. I got into the 30s before deciding I’d seen enough, and I never felt like the game was withholding the fun parts behind hours of setup.
Combat, I’d say, is on the easier side, and it’s definitely not as demanding as something like The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin. The content I saw let me spam skills, dodge here and there, and freely swap Aniimo to cycle through cooldowns without much resistance. The variety of Aniimo I ran into was impressive, though, and that’s really what kept me pushing forward. Every new zone had something I hadn’t seen yet, and the pull to catch one more before moving on was real.
Menu Fatigue
The voice acting is pretty good for the most part, and the writing is better than the average open-world live-service game I’ve played recently. At the very least, it’s not as nonsensical as some of the other games I’ve played recently. The plot makes sense without having to think too hard about it. The stakes are a lot lower compared to comparable games, at least from what I’ve seen so far, which fits the cozy tone the Aniimo themselves set.
The one thing that genuinely wore on me is the menu. Aniimo has your standard gacha mobile game layout, with nearly 20 icons on the main screen, and that’s something that has become exhausting to deal with across the genre. You’ll unfortunately be wasting time clicking through all of those menus and clearing notifications just to figure out what is what. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s the one part of the format I wish Aniimo had left behind along with the pulls.
Thirty Minutes a Day
Overall, I’m feeling very optimistic about Aniimo as the kind of casual gacha-style game I can play on mobile. I’m looking forward to just running around catching Aniimo, experimenting with team builds and comps, and seeing what the endgame and daily grind actually look like. If it’s not too demanding, Aniimo might be the ideal casual game where I can spend 30 minutes a day and feel like I’m making meaningful progress. I don’t mind having one of these long-term games in my daily routine, as long as it’s something where I don’t have to think too hard or focus too much. Log in, do some dailies, have some fun, and constantly grow the collection.
Whether Aniimo eventually gets consumed by monetization tactics remains to be seen. With such a large variety of Aniimo available even at launch, though, I’m not sure introducing new ones will carry the same urgency as pulling for a new character in comparable games. Unless they’re really cute, in which case I can definitely see why people would want to buy them outright. Look for our full Aniimo review once I’ve put real hours into the live game.
Aniimo launches on September 16, 2026, for PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X|S, and PC, with Android and iOS following on September 23. These first impressions are based on early access to the 1.0 build on a private media server, provided by Pawprint Studio, played on PC (Intel i9-14900K, 96GB DDR5-6800 RAM, MSI RTX 5090 Gaming Trio OC). Progress on the media server does not transfer to the live game. While FullCleared does have affiliate partnerships, they do not influence our editorial content.
Aniimo First Impressions Gallery
