On Anima Design.

So before I began creating this project I settled on creating an uniform template that all Anima in this game follows. Anima are split into two categories, Regular Anima and Apocalyptic Anima. Regular Anima are the ones that can be found just by walking around any non-city map and encompasses pretty much the overwhelming majority of the Anima in the game. They all have three stages, a Novice Stage, an Intermediate Stage, and a Perfect Stage.  All Regular Anima once they reach their Perfect Stage Anima will have at least 85% of the stat total of the strongest Perfect Stage Anima available. The point of this design choice is to make sure that every Anima, from the ones you find right in your first minutes of game time to the ones found in the final dungeon, are useable. In short, players are supposed to use the Anima they like, not the ones that will be deemed top tier by the meta. 

Novice Stage Anima are the first form Anima are found in and they typically have a stat total that is 50%~80% of the stat total of a Perfect Stage anima. Their designs tend to be fairly simple and straightforward where you won't find that much detail put into them, especially since their sprites are, unsurprisingly, the smallest out of the three stages. Take Bushroomdo for example where his design is practically just a small mushroom. Some of them, like Bushroomdo again, only have a single Element, which in Bushroomdo's case is Nature.

Intermediate Stage Anima as the name implies serve as the intermediate stage between Novice Stage Anima and Perfect Stage Anima. A Novice Stage Anima will usually evolved into an Intermediate Stage one when their Level reaches 20~40, and their stat total is roughly equal to 66%~100% of Perfect Stage Anima. They have more details within their designs, such as how Samoldrai above has a more intricate look, being a dual-wielding samurai-looking being with a mushroom head,  than Bushroomdo's simple mushroom one. Sometimes when an Anima with a single Element reaches their Intermediate Stage they gain a second Element, in Samoldrai's case being War.

Perfect Stage Anima are an Anima's final stage. Needless to say, Regular Anima cannot get any stronger once it reaches their Perfect Stage. It generally takes a long time for Intermediate Stage Anima to reach the Perfect Stage being that the required level for an Anima to reach this stage is a whooping 40~80 depending on species. Perfect Stage Anima in general have very large sprites, as in Shitaikatana's case, and tend to be extremely elaborate and have a certain level of over-the-topness associated to them, case in point the quadruple-wielding mushroom ronin in the above image. Unlike Novice Stage Anima or Intermediate Stage Anima, all Perfect Stage Anima have two Elements, for Shitaikatana they are both Nature and War. 

Apocalyptic Anima, on the other hand, are to put it plainly the Olympus Mons of Anima Waker. Their stats are roughly equivalent to 110%~150% of Regular Perfect Stage Anima , they're usually used by people who are very important to the plot, and they're only obtainable at the very very end of the game, and only one of them exist per game. Not many species of them exist so it's not like they'll impact your journey that much, right? Right? 

Well, so let's see what else goes into Anima Design. Skill availability and innates, that is.

Each Anima can learn up to four skills at once. I tried tinkering it by changing the number to six but I reverted it back to four. Four so far feels like the ideal number of skills that a mon in a monster tamer game should have as giving less makes the combat feel dull while giving more feels like an overkill as you'll either going to just get insane Elemental coverage or you'll be stuck with useless skills that you'll never use.

The skill usage system in Anima Waker is more similar to Temtem rather Pokemon, for the people out there who've played monster tamer games before. An Anima can use a Skill that has 0 Stamina, but they'll take damage if they do, so while it's possible to walk around with an Anima with 0-Stamina on all skills it's not advised to do so.

Innates are passive abilities that each Anima family has that will easily complement their skillset and stats. Each Innate goes to one and exactly one Anima line, in the Bushroomdo line's case that would be Decomposer, which heals half of the user's LP if they defeat an Anima, which fits well to Shitaikatana's bulky physical attacker design.