After 20 Years, the Pokémon-Style RPG Fans Dreamed About Is Finally Coming to Switch

Two Decades in the Making

When Spanish indie coder Raúl García booted up a cracked copy of RPG Maker in 2002, he only wanted to impress a handful of forum friends. Instead, he sparked a passion project that would outlast three jobs, two economic crashes, and the birth of his daughter. Today, that same bedroom prototype—now a sprawling, 120-hour creature-collecting epic called Beast Tamer Legends—is days away from landing on Nintendo Switch, and the pre-load charts already have it neck-and-neck with Pokémon Scarlet.

From Forum Rom-Hack to eShop Darling

García never set out to compete with Nintendo. “I just loved the idea of secret evolutions you could trigger by singing into the DS microphone,” he laughs over Zoom from Valencia. His early demos swapped electric rats for Iberian folklore beasts like the fire-spitting Cuélebre, yet kept the rock-paper-scissors appeal of Game Freak’s juggernaut. Word spread on early-2000s message boards; soon hobbyists in Korea and Brazil were mailing him sprite sheets. By 2008 the project had 300 volunteer contributors—and a cease-and-desist letter from a certain Kyoto-based giant.

“They told me to shut it down. I told them I’d rename every monster and rewrite every line of code. Silence followed. I took that as permission.”Raúl García, solo-dev turned studio founder

Rather than fold, García rebranded, incorporated as PyreneCraft Studios, and spent the next twelve years re-drawing, re-balancing, and re-recording every asset. The result is a game that feels like the Pokémon Ruby we remember, yet plays like something 2024 desperately needs: an open-world, full-co-op RPG where every creature can be ridden, rented, or released into a dynamic ecosystem that keeps living when the console sleeps.

Why the Hype Skyrocketed Overnight

• Cross-Gen Nostalgia: 251 hand-animated beasts plus 49 secret forms only discoverable through AR camera quests.
• Shared-World Battles: Four-player drop-in raids that scale difficulty in real time.
• Eco-System Morality: Over-catch a species and the in-game black market inflates prices; free enough and endangered variants bloom.
• Physical Perks: Early eShop buyers receive a reversible cover that flips to a Poké-style poster—an unsubtle wink to collectors.

What Reviewers Are Saying

Press embargo lifted this morning. Nintendo Life calls it “the freshest take on the formula since Legends: Arceus,” while IGN Spain praises its “whimsical Andalusian soundtrack that will live rent-free in your brain.” The sole criticism so far: occasional frame drops in four-player couch mode, a hitch García promises will be patched before launch.

Launch Day Details

Beast Tamer Legends hits the eShop on March 28 at 9 a.m. PT, priced $39.99 with a 20% pre-purchase discount. A physical collector’s edition—complete with plush Cuélebre and 120-page field guide—ships the same day via online storefronts. Nintendo has not confirmed future DLC, but García hints at “a second continent inspired by Latin American myths” if first-week sales cross the million mark.

For a generation raised on Pokémon but hungry for ethical depth and modern co-op, that milestone feels less like fanfare and more like fate.