Hey, @bogleech, have you ever heard of the old game Nanovor?
It was an old toys-to-life game (think Skylanders) from 2008, created by Smith & Tinker, that sought to make their mark during the height of the Mons craze.
The plot of the game stated that, long before life as we knew it lived on this planet, the very first creatures to evolve shortly after the formation of the Earth were microscopic silicon-based creatures known as Nanovor, feeding off of the Nitrogen-rich atmosphere.
As the Earth transitioned to an Oxygen-based atmosphere, the Nanovor began to die out, becoming extinct. Their corpses became sand, crystal, and silicon, and inadvertently became revived when humans invented the computer chip, hiding away in many electronic (or just electric) devices.
A group of students inadvertently discover the Nanovor, and guided by their science professor, seek to stop this knowledge from falling into the wrong hands.
It was a multimedia franchise, so, besides the computer game, there was a handheld peripheral called the Nanoscope that you could use to store your Nanovor (Pokéwalker-style) and battle wild Nanovor and other players on the go.
There were also comics, a web animation series, and even a short-lived tv series that served as an expansion of the web animation.
There were also action figures that served as both collectibles and ways to get new Nanovor:
The creature designs were top-notch in my opinion, as you can see here with the three Starters, which are nowhere near as ridiculous or extreme as the designs can get:
And as for how the tone of the combat goes, it’s closer to Digimon than Pokémon, in that it’s got a Hard Sci-Fi tone. In fact, the best way I can put it is that it is to those games as Darkspore was to the original Spore, as, like Darkspore, it had the Hard Sci-Fi tone and was much more violent, as the Nanovor slaughtered each other in gory fashion during battles.
In fact, that was a plot point, as they only way they could stay alive in an oxygen-based environment was by the adrenaline released through combat. Those killed could be easily revived by another surge of electricity, none the worse for wear.
Sadly, the game was shut down a year or two after its creation, but, like with Darkspore, there are fan projects in the works to create functional emulators to bring it back!
