Title: LumenTale: Memories of Trey
Developer: Beehive Studios
Publisher: Team 17
Release Date: May 26, 2026
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC
Reviewed On: Nintendo Switch OLED
Editor’s Note: The review of this game is based on a review copy the developer provided. That review copy has no impact on the score or critiques.
Monster-Collecting and Pokémon are often synonymous with each other, but that hasn’t stopped other games from trying to leave their mark on the genre.
That is where LumenTale: Memories of Trey comes in.
It is clear to see where LumenTale gets its inspiration, but the game does so much to differentiate itself and carve a path all its own. That’s not a bad effort from Beehive Studios’ first game. Still, that path does include its fair share of bumps.
The question becomes whether the good outweighs the unevenness, and if this game deserves a spot among the best to try the monster-collecting RPG formula.
Synopsis: A Tale of Two Factions
LumenTale follows the amnesiac cyborg named Trey, who wakes up in Iris Hamlet in a world filled with creatures called Animon. Trey sets out on a journey to establish a squad of Lumen in Iris Hamlet by defeating the leaders of others across the continent of Talea. He also hopes to find out more about himself and regain his memories.
The continent of Talea is broken up into two factions: Mythos and Logos. Mythos is on the southern end and adheres strictly to tradition and spiritualism. Logos is on the northern end and embraces progress and technology.
Trey meets new and memorable characters along the way including the young aspiring inventor Ales, the strong-willed Nada, and Moka, Ales’ robot companion. These companions serve story purposes rather than be members of a traditional JRPG party.
All in all, the story is a lot of fun. The world is really solid and enjoyable to learn about as I found myself wanting more lore from the world. The characters are lovable, memorable, and just a lot of fun to be around.
Analysis: Familiar Yet It’s Own Thing
In short, LumenTale: Memories of Trey is a blast to play. I will try to keep comparisons to Pokémon at a minimum, but fans of the long-running franchise will feel right at home here.
That said, the game does so much to distinguish itself from other similar games. Sometimes that ambition gets a bit strong and overshadows what the game hopes to accomplish. Nevertheless, there is enough good here to keep you entertained for a long time.
Combat: Monster-Collecting Meets Traditional JRPG
At its core, your goal is to capture Animon and use them to fight in battle. The more you battle with them, the stronger they grow. Eventually, they can evolve, learn more moves, have their moves upgraded, and grow affection with Trey.
Battles really stuck out to me. LumenTale embraced a fast-paced model that allowed for up to four Animon per trainer. Depending on how many Animon you use, you are given SP, which determines how many attacks you can take per turn.
Each move costs a certain amount of SP so trainers must be strategic in how they use their attacks. If they use up all the SP on stronger attacks from one or two Animon, there won’t be enough for the rest of your team to use that turn.
This made for a lot of fun strategy. While I rarely found myself not with enough SP, it did force me to be strategic in my battling. I couldn’t just dole out all of my strongest moves, I had to be smart with how I used that SP.
This is a nice wrinkle that makes battles feel more involved. Grinding becomes a lot more passable as it’s not just mindlessly attacking, but rather a more strategic puzzle.
If an Animon lands an attack with a type that its opponent is weak against, it adds to the TP bar. Once that bar is filled, an Animon gets an extra attack that uses no SP.
There’s a lot more here that I won’t include as the battle system is really involved. The game does a decent job at keeping you in the know on these mechanics, but there was a lot I had to figure out on my own. That’s not usually a bad thing, but with this much going on, it did feel overwhelming at times.
Once the combat clicks, however, it is a blast to manage.
Battles are also unique in that you are given some freedom over your statistics. As your Animon grow, you can control which statistics you grow, allowing you to determine what role your Animon will serve in battle.
This makes combat feel more like a typical JRPG than a Pokémon-type game. You can choose Animon to serve as a healer or be your physical punisher and you can control that by where you place their stats.
This freedom extends to the moves. Each Animon can have five moves in their arsenal. As you learn moves, you pick if they are added to the five slots. If any move doesn’t make the five slots, it goes into reserve and you can chose to sub it in at any time. Furthermore, you can upgrade moves as you collect materials, making your current moves even stronger.
I loved this level of customization. Again, I would’ve liked some more explanation on these functions, but this freedom was really nice. It added depth to what could’ve been stale combat, but I found it memorable as it played almost more like older Final Fantasy games at this point.
Animon: Cute but Forgettable
Any good monster-collector should have memorable beasts and, for the most part, LumenTale does this. That said, I couldn’t tell you what any of their names were or what they looked like without having the game to reference.
This is a hard spot to be in because there are over 140 Animon in the game. They all are fun to see on screen, but I forgot them as soon as I turned off the game.
Each Animon will fall under one of 13 elemental types. They also will have one of five traits to go along with it.
The elemental types help determine their weaknesses and what they can resist. The traits add some extra skills to each Animon in combat.
Determining the elemental type is fairly obvious and each attack has the elemental logo next to it. It was the traits that can get real confusing really quickly.
These traits add extra skills when the Animon attacks but only if the player initiates it when selecting an attack. This makes the attack cost an extra SP but the effect comes in handy. The problem is these effects are not entirely obvious.
You have to venture into the tutorial archives to remind yourself of what they do. Eventually, you’ll memorize it, but that may take most of the game for some while others may learn it quickly.
Gameplay: Across Talea
The gameplay is what really stood out to me. There is a fun story and world to explore that allows for exploration, lore, and a gorgeous landscape.
Similar to other JRPGs, Trey will embark on a main quest but will encounter optional side quests throughout his journey. Each town Trey visits will have its own set of problems the gang must solve.
In each city, Trey’s Animon will eventually battle a mega Animon akin to bosses in other JRPGs. These are tougher battles that require strategy and patience to defeat. Once defeated, Trey will battle the city’s Lumen squadron to further establish his “hometown’s” squad.
The gameplay loop is really basic but in between each city, there are a lot of opportunities to explore. Players can do as much or as little exploring as they like. Furthermore, the path is littered with wild Animon perfect for grinding or capturing. There are also other Lumen with bases you can battle and further establish your reputation.
I never found myself lost thanks to the quest markers, but there were times when the quest was unclear. Sometimes a side quest was a prerequisite to moving on in the main quest, but that wasn’t clear based on the main quest markers. There was one instance where I was stuck for a while trying to figure out what to do next only to realize it was the side quest I needed to do.
This wasn’t a common issue, but did happen a couple of time. This could be user error too.
Art Style: A Gorgeous Take on HD-2D
While not officially HD-2D, Beehive Studio has put a lot of love and care into this game’s world.
I loved how colorful this game is and how much of a joy it was to explore. While the landscape itself is not memorable, the art style is. It’s bright, it’s cheery, and it’s immersive.
This art style made it perfect to play this game in handheld move as the colors on my OLED really popped. I played it a bit on the TV and the colors were muted a bit, but still vibrant.
It’s not often that a game can relax me solely based on its art style, but LumenTale accomplished that each time I turned it on.
Performance: A Major Detractor
As much good as this game does, its performance holds it back way more than it should.
Keep in mind, I played this on a Switch OLED so it could be isolated to Switch users and PC gamers may have a different experience. That said, stutters, framerate drops, crashes, and others were unfortunately common on my journey.
The stuttering would come usually during sudden changes in movement, but wasn’t limited to that. I could feel the game struggle as it tried to catch up to me as a gamer, leading to the stuttering and framerate drops.
The worst was the few crashes I had. They usually seemed to happen when entering a new area, but not always. There was one crash where nothing really happened on screen before.
Loading also will take a long time. The loading screens between new areas such as a new route or a house slowed the game significantly. It could take long enough for me to check an email or watch a Reel before it loaded back in.
Other minor areas that stood out was there were some positioning errors where one text box covered another with battle menus.
The game did run well for the most part, but there were times when it felt like a chore to get through some of the performance hiccups.
Final Score (Four out of Five Stars)
I applaud what Beehive Studios tried to do here. They made a monster-collector feel interesting and enjoyable. They gave what could be a run-of-the-mill collect-a-thon and gave it a story and a world worth investing in. I absolutely loved my time with this game and couldn’t wait to have another play session in it.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of performance hiccups and other minor hang ups that keep LumenTale from realizing its full potential. Additionally, there is so much going on here that I didn’t even cover all of what you can do with this game.
Those road blocks aside, LumenTale: Memories of Trey is the monster-collector RPG you’ve been waiting for. A bit more polish would allow this game to shore, but here’s hoping that this isn’t our last time venturing in the world of Animon.
In short, LumenTale does a fantastic job at blending monster collecting with a more standard JRPG formula, making for a game for fans ranging from Pokémon to Final Fantasy. Just don’t expect the smoothest journey as of launch.
Featured Image: Team 17
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