Monster Teams

Here are my buddy squads from various monster-catching games I'm playing!! Gonna update this page as I play more and more - right now I'm going through the co-op TemTem campaign with Maunder and finishing up MHS2 for the first time ever!

Temtem
A gif of Baboong, an orange monkey-like Temtem with fluffy cheeks and arms. It is swaying gently back and forth while its tail flicks behind it.
A gif of Pigepic, a pink pig-like Temtem with dot eyes and small wings. It is flapping its wings and snorting happily.
A gif of Gazuma, a yellow bug-like Temtem with curving horns on its head. It is swaying to and fro while the wings on the bottom of its body beat rapidly.
A gif of Luma Paharac, a black bird-like Temtem with a golden leaf mask sitting above its beak.
A gif of Oceara, a blue horse-like Temtem surrounded by white seafoam. It is standing very still with a proud posture.
A gif of Nessla, a teal eel-like Temtem with three orange fins and a horn on the top of its head. It is flapping its forefins and waving its tail as if to stay afloat in the sea.

Sunny

Cube

Buzzbert

Starman

Nine

Walker

Monster Hunter Stories 2
An image of Barroth, a brown and orange bipedal monster with a posture similar to t-rex. Its head is adorned with a heavy, rocky crown.
An image of Royal Ludroth, a green iguana-like monster with a large yellow mane made of sponge.
An image of Nargacuga, a black bat-like monster with a sleek, furry coat and the beak of a bird. It has a red marking that runs from its eyes to its inner ear.
An image of Yian Garuga, a purple hornbill-like monster with the wings of a wyvern and the beak of a prehistoric bird. Its left eye is heavily scarred.
An image of Basarios, a wyvern-like monster with a heavy pelt of slate-grey boulders. Its face is hard to distinguish.
An image of Rathalos, a wyvern-like monster with red scales, a pale yellow underbelly, and deep black markings running over its eyebrows.

Buffalo

Jibboom

Nephthys

Crowley

Block

Ratha

Pokemon
A gif of Popplio, a blue sea lion Pokemon with a ruffle and a clown's nose. It is bouncing up and down gently.
A gif of Piloswine, a brown wild boar Pokemon with floppy ears and low-hanging fur. It is swaying gently from side to side.
A gif of Emboar, an orange, bipedal wild boar Pokemon with swirling yellow decorations and a collar of flames. It is breathing heavily.
A gif of shiny Luxray, a black-and-yellow lion Pokemon with a dark, star-shaped mane. It is standing still with a focused posture.
A gif of Dusknoir, a grey ghost-like Pokemon with a large, yellow mouth splitting its stomach. It is gesturing as if casting a spell with its hands.
A gif of shiny Sylveon, a blue-and-white Pokemon with the sleek limbs of a cat and the upright ears of a rabbit. It is standing still with ribbons from its collar and ears blowing in the wind.

Pop

Livny

Idaho

Blackjack

Dusknoir

Shay

Back to Home

Did You Know?

Jibboom is named after a part of a ship! I was inspired by Turnbuckle, a pirate from Treasure Planet whose name refers to the tool used by sailors to fasten ropes.

Sunny is named after Sun Wukong, the Chinese trickster figure from Journey to the West!

Jibboom's name can be shortened to Jibby!

Crowley was named by Munder! Yian Garuga is a purple and green birdy beast, so obviously I associate it with them!!

When Sun and Moon first came out, me and Maunder made matching tumblr blogs to document our progress through the region. We even had a battle counter that tracked our wins against each other!

Nephthys is named after an Egyptian goddess of mourning and night... and a cool egg boss in the Archie Sonic comics.

Despite being a high enough level, Pop hasn't been evolved into Brionne. I just love that little blue guy too much!

Starman is named after the song by David Bowie.

Jade Cocoon

One of my favourite monster-catching games of all time is Jade Cocoon, a niche title on the PlayStation that featured an awesome minion-fusing mechanic! It was developed by Genki in collaboration with Studio Ghibli character designer Katsuya Kondō, making it an awesome visual feast with over 600 pre-rendered backgrounds and a cast of colourful characters that oozed with charm and wild energy!

Though maybe kinda dated these days, (the sequel is definitely a smoother ride) it holds a special spot in my heart as one of the very first games I played as a kid. I remember padding around the lush, magical forests with my Marrdreg and being filled with a supernatural sense of wonder, like I was discovering things nobody had ever seen before.

And then beating the shit out of the wildlife with my cool metal dog.

Speaking of which, the minion designs!! Bug-eyed dragons, walking driftwood, tsuchinoko snakes and baskets with little feet... Jade Cocoon had such a unique approach to monster design that always felt less like it was trying to appeal to your affection for cute pets and more to your sense of discovery. Finding a new minion was always a mental journey of 'What the fuck is that thing?! Where's it's face?! Why's it coming at me?! Now I want one!' and it has endeared me for years.

My favourite minions are Marrdreg, Kolna, Dark Arpatron, Hiralco, Vatolka, Dogpara, Tuturis, Arvalzak, and the classic Telma, but nothing beats the beasts I merged myself!! Maybe someday I'll make a Jade Cocoon page on my site to show off merged minions and other cool stuff!

Memories

When I was a kid, I got my copy of Pokemon Ruby handed down to me from my brother. It still had his save on it, so I just played with that because I was like 'Wahoo! Free Pokemon!' Anyway, he'd caught a Rayquaza and called it Dragonbane and since this was way back when "the internet" referred to a fat off-white desktop computer you had to take shifts on, I had no idea that wasn't just the Pokemon's name. For ages I thought Rayquaza was called Dragonbane!

When I was a kid and obsessed with Charizard, I came up with a fourth evolutionary stage called Charking. It was a bigger, spikier Charizard, with wings on its arms and legs and a huge crown of spikes on its head to replace its two horn prongs. Sound familiar? Yeah, I was blown away when I first saw Mega Charizard Y!

On 27/09/22 I caught my first ever luma TemTem! Maunder and I were visiting Deniz to quickly fill out some gaps in our Tempedia and suddenly a black and gold Paharo jumped at us!!

Game Thoughts

I haven't played TemTem long enough to give a review yet, but what I can say is it's a great adventure to take with a buddy!! I've been playing with Maunder, my best friend and known Pokemon uber-nerd, and we've been having the time of our lives strategizing battles and dancing around roombas!


Monster Hunter Stories 2 is hands down my favourite modern monster-catcher! I grew up with the Monster Hunter games and was enraptured from the first time I saw my brother's hunter step out into the forest and slay a Rathalos. The gameplay is a rollercoaster of thrills, and everything about the monsters' designs call to me - so incredibly creative but grounded in a way that makes them feel plausible enough to leap out of the screen and wreak havoc in my living room! So learning Capcom was releasing a game where I could hatch them, raise them and ride them? Bro, you had me at 'releasing a game'!!

The battle system I gotta applaud especially for managing to get me excited for turn-based combat. Normally I'm not a fan, but MHS2 keeps it simple and snappy with the kind of deeper mechanics that feel more like a fun bonus than a chore! Plus, if Jibby is too swole for a guy I can press two buttons and they'll do a backflip and die.


What can I say about Pokemon that hasn't been said already? It's a classic - flawed but full of charm and character that has weaseled its way into the hearts of almost everyone who has played or watched it. Like pretty much everyone else on planet earth, I played a ton of Pokemon games as a kid and was immediately endeared to all the beasties I got to call my friends. Though, I can't really call myself a seasoned Pokemon player... I've barely finished any of the mainline games!! Not for lack of trying, I chalk it up to my ADHD making it hard to focus on handhelds.

Naw, the ones that REALLY grabbed my attention were the play-as-a-Pokemon spin-offs: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon and PokePark Wii!

Favourite Monsters

My favourite Pokemon are Piloswine, Dusknoir, Popplio and Lechonk!

I also love Charizard, Dragonite, Furret, Farigiraf, Ludicolo, Camerupt, Spoink, Luxray, Porygon-Z, Scolipede, Archeops, Zweilous, Slither Wing, Cutiefly, Drampa, Appletun, Sandaconda, Arrokuda, Toxtricity, Dragapult, Goodra, Dracozolt, and Sylveon.

My favourite TemTem so far is Pigepic!! I gotta play more before I can pick more!

My favourite monsties are Bulldrome, Popo, Ludroth, Barroth and Bazelgeuse! I got a thing for big chunky beasties.