Huzzah! It’s another surreal Nintendo 64 title from legendary oddball Japanese developer Bottom Up. And it riffs off Pokémon big time, as well as remaining one of the console’s most obscure titles.

Yeah, it never made it out in the west! And that’s kind of a shame, as it looks interesting. But it’s forever doomed to obscure status… like with mini-retrospectives on stupid blogs like this.

Onegai Monster as the N64’s 3D Pokémon Clone

Right, so this is a rather forgotten RPG and strategy game for the Nintendo 64. As this was a Japanese release only, us westerners didn’t get to enjoy its weirdness.

Although it gets the Pokémon clone dubbing, Onegai Monster (おねがいモンスター) is actually much more similar to the likes of Digimon World.

It launched on 9th April of 1999, well into the console’s lifespan. It clearly wasn’t a big hit of any type, as there’s barely any information about the game online.

It’s pretty much the most obscure and forgotten Nintendo 64 game we think we’ve ever come across.

And we’ve covered quite a few at this point! Including the likes of Wonder Project J2 and Hamster Monogatari 64.

Despite its obscurity, Onegai Monster is fairly normal as a monster collecting type of video game. So, it’s sort of a Pokémon clone with the whole Digimon World (also 1999) thing going on and all in glorious N64 type levels of 3D.

From what we’ve gathered with our research, the plot goes like this.

You take control of a child protagonist who’s on a magical journey to become a monster breeder. It’s his 10th birthday, so why the hell not?

He receives an egg for his birthday and it hatches, after which you can head off around the world to complete quests and raise monsters.

The monsters you gather can be pitched into battle, plus they evolve in different ways. That’s dependant on what you feed the little blighters.

Yes, want to see it in action? Here’s this SOB live and in colour.

In case you’re wondering about that name, Onegai means “please” in Japanese. A basic translation is Please Monster. Which makes little sense, but there we go.

And that’s why we love Bottom Up.

The developer was responsible for other obscure Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 games, such as 64 Trump Collection. And we have a fondness for its wacky premises.

For the sake of this review, we actually played Onegai Monster online on an emulation site thing. And, yeah, along with the impenetrable Japanese, there’s the kawaii culture stuff going on.

The graphical style is quite good for the time and the music is upbeat.

And yeah, it’s very much a game of its time—plus, it’s so very, very quirky Japanese. Bottom Up style.

Due to the baffling nature of the language for us, we couldn’t really get very far. But we did want to document what’s something of a forgotten Nintendo 64 game.

It didn’t take off in the way Pokémon did, but it’s entered a realm of obscurity that just happens to appeal to lunatics like ourselves.