Twenty-one years ago on February 27th, 1996, Pokémon Green and Red released in Japan. What would transpire in those next twenty-one years was unlike anything the video game industry had ever seen. The game franchise, that on its own sold Nintendo handhelds like hotcakes, emerged into one of the biggest hit of the 1990s in pop culture, and has continued into today without losing much steam.

As generation upon generation of new Pokémon made their way into the spotlight, so did generations in society adopt to the cause that is "Pocket Monsters". The adventures, the battles, the tradings, the collecting. Pokémon's success as an interactive experience shortly after its debut quickly made its mark across copious forms of medium. Its own anime series, multiple movies, trading cards, plush toys, and apparel, and even a number of spinoff games that stepped away from the traditional RPG format. You name it, odds are that Pokémon's got its hands in it.

With its success easily recognizable, it shouldn't surprise anyone that other development studios would try to create their own games using influences from Satoshi Tajiri, Ken Sugimori, and developer Game Freak. But while some would merely use the ideas of Pokémon as a reference point, others decided to, say, take things a bit too far.

Here are 15 games whose influences on Pokémon went "a bit too far".

12 Sea Life Safari

via: youtube.com

Developer Wild Tangent's attempt to take the elements of Pokémon Snap and use it as an educational tool for underwater marine life is easy to notice here. The on-rail movements and item usage to lure in specific sea animals not only don't seem to work real well, they tend to suck the remaining life out of an already mundane game. Not to mention your fellow deep sea fisher that provides you with feedback on the photos that you'd taken on your previous outings is presented exactly like Pokémon Snap does with Professor Oak. Sea Life Safari doesn't even try to pretend to be different from Pokémon Snap, and the added low review scores for the game can't help it much either.

11 Suikoden

via: gamerswithjobs.com

While its gameplay and story may lean more towards the styles of a traditional Final Fantasy game, what makes Suikoden takes from Pokémon is actually the quantity of potential allies that embark on this journey with you. In Suikoden, there are up to 108 companions that may or may not fight alongside you in your quest to bring down the corrupt Scarlet Moon Empire. If we're taking the time of release into consideration here (1995 (JA), 1996 (NA)), it ties in quite well with the original 151 first generation Pokémon that players can potentially capture, train, and battle alongside with. While we're unsure who took inspiration from who here, there's no doubt that someone was ripped off.

10 Pico Monsters

via: rockpapershotgun.com

While Sea Life Safari at least tried to use its own settings and environments to create a game with its own identity, the same cannot be said for Pico Monsters. From website lexaloffle.com, Pico-8 is used to create smaller versions of well known titles that are playable without the requirement of hard-to-find hardware. But the site's version of Pokémon, titled Pico Monsters, has a near laughable level of resemblance to the source material. Its beginning area, the "Picostops", and the battle system designs are exactly the same from what you see in a first generation Pokémon game. I admittedly took a crack at the game for a couple minutes after finding the website, and Pico Monsters looks like a forgotten step-child compared to the real thing.

9  PokeMMO

via: twitter.com

Developers like to see fans of their series take it upon themselves to create their own works of art influenced by their games. Some of the more common approaches would be cosplaying as their favorite characters, collecting memorabilia, or even getting a tattoo to express their love, and how much that experience meant to them. However a fan-made copy and paste online version of the original game certainly could spark some concern. Enter PokeMMO. Aesthetically, PokeMMO looks similar to the world and character designs from the third generation Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald titles. However, screenshots from the game's website shows multiple players plopped around Gyms and Pokécenters. Oh, and did I mention the game is free-to-play? If you're a fan of multiplayer games, Pokémon, and gaming on a budget, maybe you'll want to give PokeMMO a shot.

8 Rick And Morty: Pocket Mortys

via: mashable.com

It's tough to bring up a game that's completely ripped off Pokémon when a game like Rick and Morty: Pocket Mortys created its own game as an intentional parody of the series. The idea behind Pocket Mortys is based on a concept that was presented during the series' first season, and has since been updated periodically to include new characters as they are introduced into the TV series. So what does Rick and Morty: Pocket Mortys take from the Pokémon franchise? Literally everything. From player conversations to walking around the world, to fighting other "Mortys", there's not one piece of this game that you can't look at and say that it wasn't ripped off of Pokémon.

7 Azure Dreams

via: youtube.com

Probably the best comparison between Azure Dreams and Pokémon is that the game tries to focus more on its combat and exploration features, rather than delivering a deep story. Sure, each Pokémon game has a few new ideas with each game that comes around, but they're all based around the familiar concept of battling, training, and defeating gym and tribe leaders in order to advance to new areas in the game. In Azure Dreams, the game's main character Koh eventually grows old enough to travel to what is known as the Monster Tower, where the player can catch and train companion creatures to fight alongside. In addition to the traditional "capture and train" approach, you'll always have a visible companion that follows you around every floor of the tower as you fight your way from floor and floor, just like how Pikachu follows you around in Pokémon Yellow.

6 Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker

via: jrpg.moe

This is a slightly different case than other things on this list, as Dragon Quest was first created in the late 80s, before any of the Pokémon games were released. The Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker series, however, began in 2006, and its influence of features from Pokémon stem more from later generations of the series. More specifically, the third generation games of Sapphire, Ruby, and Emerald. Being able to capture and train multiple monsters at once is a direct reference to the introduction of tag team battles that were introduced in the 2002 versions of Pokémon.

5 Monster Rancher

via: gamespot.com

Monster Rancher is another attempt of recreating the glory that was Pokémon Stadium. This time around however, developer Tecmo decided to bring the RPG coliseum style to the PlayStation 1 in 1999. Unfortunately, despite the Pokémon Stadium influence, Monster Rancher really turned out to be the lesser of the two. Although it should be noted that the game did have its own anime adaptation just like, you guessed it, Pokémon. Though there are differences between the two series, there is no denying that Monster Rancher took great inspiration from Pokémon.

4 Jade Cocoon: Story Of The Tamamayu

via: youtube.com

Even though Jade Cocoon: Story of the Tamamayu takes a lot from Pokémon, you can at least credit the developer for trying to put a different spin on key exploration and battle system features. While developer Genki decided to use pre-rendered areas to run around and explore, monsters appear on-site, and can be avoided if desired. This is similar to what Pokémon does, where you can avoid certain areas of say, tall grass in an effort to avoid enemy encounters, or take a different route if you don't want to battle another trainer. The battle system presentation is where things are most similar, and even look exactly like how fights in more recent Pokémon games appear now in a 3D environment with their slower-paced, turn-based format. The final, and one of the more notable similarities, is that way you capture creatures in the game. Rather than take exactly from Pokémon and use a different type of Pokéball to catch enemies to fight by your side, the protagonist will actually use a flute in an effort to seduce monsters to become allies for them.

3 Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monster Coliseum

via: gamespot.com

Even though there are clear influences from the traditional games, Pokémon Stadium was easily one of the best games to come out to the Nintendo 64. Being able to link the Pokémon that you've caught in the original game and throwing them onto your TV screen was by far one of the best parts of my childhood years of gaming. Now, Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monster Coliseum may not look that similar at first glance to Pokémon Stadium, and that's understandable. Players throw down and attack with multiple cards at one time, where in Pokémon (at least, in the early stages of the franchise), everything was set up as one-on-one battles. So not only did Konami take from many aspects from Pokémon's trading card influences, they did the same with their video game adaptation a few years later with Yu-Gi-Oh! Capsule Monster Coliseum.

2 Digimon

via: giantbomb.com

Right off the bat, the abbreviation of Digimon should tell you that the Pokémon influences are strong here ("Digital Monsters" versus "Pocket Monsters"). The idea is that "Chosen Children" (similar to Pokémon trainers once they're of age) are able to enter a digital parallel universe to train Digimon. Digimon can "digivolve" using different types of Digieggs (just like evolution stones), and those chosen may have to fight other humans who are trying to take over the digital world (Team Rocket, anyone?) Despite the uncanny IP naming and similar features, what's impressive that the Digimon brand has done, however, is find a way to stretch itself across multiple forms of media, just as Pokémon has done. TV shows, movies, apparel... not only was Digimon similar to Pokémon in many ways, the way that the franchise expanded outside of games can't go unnoticed either.

At least Digimon didn't have their own trading card... oh wait, never mind.

1 Yo-Kai Watch

via: ign.com

It's tough to have a comparison list for Pokémon and not mention Yo-Kai WatchYo-Kai Watch's initial release in Japan in 2013 was like going back in time to 96', with developer Level-5 seeing the critical and commercial reception that Game Freak and Nintendo saw nearly two decades earlier, and it showed. In 2014, Yo-Kai Watch outsold the third generation remasters of Pokémon Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby for the 3DS (according to Japanese site Famitsu) which lead to the inevitable release of the game in North America two years later (sound familiar?).

Now Yo-Kai Watch may not be an exact copy of Pokémon, but it's close enough that anyone could notice the similarities. Yo-Kai Watch sees players playing through eight different tribes, just like the eight gyms you fight through in each generation of Pokémon's regions (Sun and Moon being the exception here). Also, the Yo-Kai Watch that records the Yo-Kai that you've battled and captured is practically the same thing as the Pokédex. Then of course, you can't mention a franchise that does exactly what Pokémon has done without them having their own TV series and accessory lines. Yo-Kai Watch may be the new-age version of Pokémon, but would it be here had Game Freak taken their creations in a different direction?