Can players merge with Aniimo?

The mechanic has a name: Twining, or Twine mode. Your Pathfinder does not stand back and issue orders. You transform into a collected Aniimo and take its form directly, controlling its abilities in person in real time. That covers movement and exploration, puzzle solving, and combat, so the creature you caught is also a body you can wear.

What follows from that is how you should think about your collection. A team of Aniimo is not only a fighting roster, it is a set of ways to cross ground and open up terrain. Every creature in the game can be found and captured directly in the wild through open-world exploration, so if you keep hitting a piece of the map you cannot handle, the answer is usually to go and catch the thing that can.

Traversal does not cost you a combat slot

Exploration and traversal mobility skills are managed separately from your fighting kit. They do not consume active combat party slots or abilities. Carrying an Aniimo around for the way it moves is not a tax on your ability to fight, so there is no need to weigh a good traversal form against a good battle form. Keep both.

Knowing what you have caught

A fresh capture does not hand you its full picture. Captured Aniimo have to be scanned or appraised at an outpost identification station before you can see their detailed stats, which means part of building a Twining roster happens back at an outpost rather than out in the field.

Not settled: Which individual Aniimo carry which exploration abilities is not laid out pre-launch, so how much your traversal options depend on catching specific creatures rather than any creature is still open.