Games with the Best Bestiaries
A friend told me to make a list of the best lists and this is the first thing I thought of.
19 Games
The Piklopedia from 2 I honest to god owe so much to why I love creature design so much. Every creature in this game feels so well thought out as an animal in a larger ecosystem and I read the logs on them so many times it changed my brain chemistry.
Pikmin 4's goes just as hard it just doesn't get nostalgia bias lmao.
Pikmin 4's goes just as hard it just doesn't get nostalgia bias lmao.
Just sticking this here as an insert for the entire series but the Pokedex is such a fun insight to Pokemon behavior and reveals how well thought-out they are as animals and is even utterly unhinged sometimes, I love it.
I got absolutely enraptured in the worldbuilding the enemy descriptions have in this game and something about how it's backed by "Were You Foolin" enhances it so much.
This is part why I love it so much when games have an ingame model viewer. I spent so long just staring at the creatures in this game and admiring their designs.
All three Prime games have really cool descriptions for the creatures and it makes me sad the 2D games don't quite have an equivalent to the logbook.
All three Prime games have really cool descriptions for the creatures and it makes me sad the 2D games don't quite have an equivalent to the logbook.
(For the whole KH series)
While the descriptions leave a bit to be desired, the Heartless/Nobody/etc designs are so fun that it's just nice to look at them up close.
While the descriptions leave a bit to be desired, the Heartless/Nobody/etc designs are so fun that it's just nice to look at them up close.
They hid some of the funniest jokes in the game in here.
It's not a bestiary for video game animals or monsters but rather real-life animals, but I feel like this game is at least part why I find insects and sea creatures so fascinating.
It feels weird to call this a "bestiary" in the usual sense since it's a lot of blurbs about objects from the perspective of the King of all Cosmos but if that's not enough to sell you on it, then-
It doesn't have detailed descriptions beyond what's already printed on the real-life cards but I think getting to see loads of Yu-Gi-Oh monsters, especially the more obscure ones that never got the spotlight in detailed 3D like this was so wicked.
Specifying this game since it started it but pause screens really carried Kirby lore for a while there huh.
Some really cool insight into the themes of the game.
I remember some of the enemy Tattles having funny descriptions.
Maybe including a digital cardgame is cheating a little but there's some seriously neat worldbuilding for Runeterra and some of the best card art for monsters in any card game in it.
Included for the really cool traditional Japanese art of all the monsters alone.
This one and all the ones past it are honorary mentions because I heard a lot of good about their bestiaries so it'd feel weird to leave them out but I don't know first-hand since I haven't played these games yet.
