Invasion of the Monster Fighting Games

Greetings fellow Bog Leeches,

You've all probably noticed that monster collecting/fighting games are pretty popular these days, thanks in very large part to the success of Pokemon. This is a topic to talk about all the more obscure games that followed in Pokemon's foot steps, as well as overlooked monster collecting/fighting games that existed before the super popular Pokemon franchise.

I'll start by posting this one, "Foto Showdown", a game where you appear to battle with teams of traditional RPG monsters. The oddly proportioned girl giving the tutorial in the following video makes no attempt to hide the fact that this is 'inspired' by Pokemon, despite the actual game not being all that similar (aside from the basic concept):





Next up is Dinosaur King by Sega, a game where anime kids battle realistic-looking dinosaurs against one another in ridiculous rock paper scissor style fights. The series was originally an arcade game which made use of special cards players could purchase. It is pretty amusing to see how the dinosaurs are slotted into their respective categories; did you know that tyrannosaurs was a fire type, and triceratops was electrical?:





Dinosaur King is popular both in Japan and in the West, and has its own anime show, which is exactly what you are picturing:


(the pirates are a nice touch).

Okay, so we've covered dinosaurs. What's the other thing kids are crazy about? Oh yeah, BUGS!

Well, specifically beetles. Mushiking, or 'King of Beetles' is another arcade/card game by Sega, this time about the Japanese hobby of beetle fighting (much better than fighting with real beetles, imo). I don't think this one has come to the West yet, but you can see a video of game play here:



~ Final Battle:


The game also has a surprisingly interesting anime series, which you can see the opening of here:



Oh hey, how about ANOTHER arcade/card game where random animals beat each other to death. Enter 'Animal Kaiser', a game that somehow manages to be even more ridiculous than the last two:



I'm gonna max level my goblin shark...is that God attacking? What, pineapple? WHAT?

You can play Animal Kaiser if you live in Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia or New Zealand, as these are the locations that appear to have the arcade machines. Here is the main website:

http://www.animalkaiser.com/

Article by : ScutigeraColeoptrata - February 26, 2010 10:56 PM (GMT)

These are the rare cards that i have...

I have 1 gold,7 silver,7 bronze.
i think i quite lucky because i only can play once in a month
~ Sahasi Jatmiko Kaguyago

AK Evo had come to Philippine shores !!

There's An AK EVO Machine in MALL OF ASIA :) yeah on MOA , But It's Hard To Play because the machine is REALLY crowded
~ Lorenzo Eugenio


yup, there's evo at rockwell, greenhills and robinsons ermita
~ Jonathan Malamang

i know where are the ak evo's machine its at the power station and i play a lot on ak but if you have trouble on finding it it just next to the timezone and the road
~ Carl Jose Guingab