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How to register and appraise captured Aniimo
Every Aniimo you catch gets one look before you decide its fate. Here is what to look at, and why the obvious markers mislead.
The short version
- Check three things on a fresh catch: Alpha status, any special or weather form, and the potential grade (Common, Good, Elite, or Perfect).
- Potential is rolled at the moment of capture and never changes, so a better version of a species has to be caught, not trained.
- Alpha status is not a shortcut to good stats. An Alpha can roll below the standard for its species.
- Your active team holds four Aniimo. Everything else lives in the box.
- Catching awards player experience, and uncaught species award it best, so catch one of everything on the way to the first city.
Catching an Aniimo is the easy part. The decision that follows is where players lose things they wanted.
A fresh catch arrives with a set of properties you cannot change afterwards, and some of them are only visible if you go looking. Register it, box it, or release it without looking, and you have made a permanent choice on incomplete information.
This is the appraisal routine: what to read on a new catch, what those markers actually mean, and what to do with the creature once you know.
The three things to read on a fresh catch
Before you register an Aniimo, and certainly before you release one, check three properties.
First, whether it is an Alpha. Second, whether it carries a special or weather form. Third, its potential grade, which comes in four steps: Common, Good, Elite, and Perfect.
That last one is the number that decides whether the creature is worth a team slot. The first two are flags that tell you what kind of catch you are holding, and they are the ones players most often read as a guarantee of the third. They are not.
What Alpha and Sparkling actually tell you
Alpha status does not guarantee a high-Potential creature. Potential is rolled when the Aniimo is caught, and an Alpha's stats can come in higher or lower than the standard for its species. A hard-won Alpha can grade out Common. That is not a bug, and it is why you check the grade separately rather than assuming the Alpha tag has already answered the question.
Sparkling variants are cosmetic as far as stats go. They offer no stat increases over standard forms, so a Sparkling catch is a collection prize, not a power upgrade.
There is also a naming trap worth knowing before it confuses you. The sparkling potential aura is a separate marker from the Sparkling trait, and an Aniimo can be Sparkling without displaying the aura. Two different things, similar words. A dedicated guide on this site covers Sparkling variants and cubes in full.
Alpha
- Worth checking on a fresh catch, alongside form and potential grade.
- Does not guarantee a high Potential creature.
- Stats can come in higher or lower than the standard for the species.
Sparkling
- Worth checking on a fresh catch, alongside Alpha status and potential grade.
- Offers no stat increases over standard forms.
- Separate from the sparkling potential aura. An Aniimo can be Sparkling without displaying the aura.
Potential is rolled once, and that is the whole game
An Aniimo's Potential is fixed at the moment of capture. Nothing you do afterwards moves it.
That single rule shapes how you play. If you want a better version of a species, you catch the species again. Duplicates are the usual route to better stats, which means a species you already own is still worth catching when you meet it in the wild.
It also changes how you treat a Common-grade catch of something you like. It will never become an Elite. Keep it if you want it now, but plan on replacing it.
- CommonThe first of the four grades a fresh catch can show.
- GoodThe second grade. Rolled at the moment of capture like the rest.
- EliteThe third grade. Fixed once the catch lands, so it cannot be raised later.
- PerfectThe highest of the four. Catching duplicates of the species is the usual way to chase it.
Four on the team, everything else in the box
An active team or party holds a maximum of four Aniimo. Everything beyond that lives in a box system.
Four slots is tight, and it makes the appraisal step load-bearing. Boxing a creature is cheap and reversible; you can leave a promising duplicate sitting there until you have caught a better one and know which to keep.
Releasing is the direction that does not reverse, so check your auto-release settings carefully. A setting left on the wrong option can discard an Aniimo you meant to keep before you ever look at it. Our guide to common mistakes goes into that one properly.
Four
Maximum Aniimo in an active team or party
Catch everything on the way to the first city
Catching Aniimo awards player experience points, and uncaught species award it particularly well. The appraisal routine above is about which creatures you keep. This is about why you should still be throwing at the ones you do not.
So during the opening quest and the trip to the first city, catch at least one of every Aniimo you meet. Each new species pays you in player experience even if the creature itself grades Common and goes straight to the box.
It is also the cheapest time to build the habit of checking a catch before you act on it. Early Aniimo are low stakes. Read the grade anyway, so that when something rolls Perfect you already know what you are looking at.
Where to start
Run the same check on every catch: Alpha, form, grade. Keep four, box the rest, and never release on autopilot. Early on, catch one of everything you see for the player experience, and remember that the only way to improve a creature's Potential is to catch another one.
Most of this page was re-checked against the released game on 18 September 2026. The rest has not been re-confirmed since release.