Jade Cocoon let you literally beat the monsters down to capture by yourself, and it came out in 1998 before Pokemon had even codified the genre. It even had breeding mechanics that are still more complex than 99% of games, and it was on the PS1.
The only difference is this one gave cute things the guns, making the power of going viral with memes basically do all the marketing for it.
Jade Cocoon let you literally beat the monsters down to capture by yourself, and it came out in 1998 before Pokemon had even codified the genre. It even had breeding mechanics that are still more complex than 99% of games, and it was on the PS1.
The only difference is this one gave cute things the guns, making the power of going viral with memes basically do all the marketing for it.
Megami Tensei was released in 1992.