Cassette Beasts

I have around 40 hrs played on Switch. Double dipped on Steam to try some mods for a new playthrough. I just have to say this game is near perfect. One of the best (if not THE best) Mon tamers out Art=10 Story/writing =10 Monsters= 10 Gameplay = 10 It has create-a-character, evolution, fusion, shiny mons(their own version that actually effects how the mon is played) Relationships the list goes on. Truly one of the greats in the genre. My only gripe is that you can not co-op through the game. There is multiplayer though You can run around battle each other and take on "raid" bosses together and do the post game hard battles but that's it. Would have loved to co-op the story with the Gf but I understand why you can't from a story perspective and MP was added later so probably some issues there. But yea if you're a Monster tamer fan even a little get this game. Super excited for their next game just hope it's not a rogue-like or they change the style too much like some other Mon Tamer devs have done and are doing -_-

Cassette Beasts is the most family-casual-friendly collect-them-all type of game I have ever played. It's super easy to get into; anyone can hop in with minimal issue, even if you're a single father of 2, a person with a horrible Wi-Fi connection, or someone who has never touched a video game in their life. This game has your back. Losing battles is really forgiving (you only lose some items and get a slap on the wrist). Unless the levels of most of the enemies you're facing are much higher than yours, you can easily win a lot of fights without too much draw-back. Mechanically speaking, this game is easy to understand. Being a mostly 2v2 where each character takes one main action per turn, that seems straightforward enough; well, it's a lot deeper than that. As each Cassette Beast has their own elemental type, such as fire, glass, and plastic, for example. Each one has their own strengths and weaknesses on which status effects are applied to them depending on the type of elemental attacks they are attacked by. And it isn't as simple as, for example, plant types taking more damage from fire types like in some other games; instead, they are easily ignited by fire attacks, taking burn damage for several turns. A lot of those are pretty self-explanatory if you know your science, like a metal type gains melee and range defense debuffs from being attacked by a water-type attack or a wind type have their accuracy decrease from ice attacks. There are 12 elemental types in total, so you can imagine the amount of complexity there is to the battle system, which is something I greatly appreciate about this game, where it encourages players to hold multiple Cassette Beasts of different types (6 in total) so you have the flexibility to switch between them so you don't accidentally help your opponent if you've gone into battle with the wrong one. Thankfully, each status effect has its own symbol, and the game alerts you to which one you would apply to your opponent before taking action so you don't make a mistake during combat without not knowing. If you are still worried about the number of status effects there are and the elemental strengths and weaknesses you need to keep track of, don't worry; the game slowly introduces them over time in combat when you first accidentally apply them to the enemies (or purposely for experimentation). It doesn't overwhelm you with all this information all at once, which is much preferable. If you are even interested in playing this game, know, right off the bat, after the bossfight tutorial, it releases you off the leash, allowing you to unveil a lot of hidden map locations where you would not only explore the world of New Wirral, an unknown island where many visitors from many points in time (past, present, and future) are randomly teleported into. There you will be recording and collecting as many Cassette Beasts as you can, fighting those dirty landlords, putting weirdos unconscious, and using the power of friendship to defeat a literal god. There's a whole load of content you can discover in this game without even trying. I think the reason this game is so beloved is not only for the combat challenges, the beast collecting, the characters bonding moments, the representation, the many secret surprise factors, the awesome soundtrack with great timing during battles, and the wonderful community that surrounds it. In the end, I'm happy I played this game. Was it easy? Yes. Was it memorable? Absolutely. Sometimes, it is nice to just chill and play some games that aren't the least punishing so you can entirely focus and enjoy them for what they are.

Whenever I criticize Pokemon (and that happens a lot) there is always someone ready to tell me that I've grown out of it, or of turn-based RPGs entirely, that it isn't for me. Cassette Beasts is here to prove these people wrong. But I don't wanna spend this review talking about the obvious comparison because the game is a lot more than just a pokemon clone and its flashy number of 14400 different fusion sprites. It's beautiful, cozy, has a good story, lovable characters, it didn't even need to have romance but it has that too. The menus are fast and responsive, moves have unique animations, the amount of team customization is insane, the balance is such that you can always use your favorites, but there is also room for optimization, the game allows you to break it only to show you enemies that totally counter your busted builds, I only had to grind on post-game, and even then they make it very fast and easy, and at that point I was also completing the bestiary (the game's pokedex), something I've never done in Pokemon, because I simply didn't want the game to end. If you like pokemon, play this. If you hate pokemon, play this. If you've never played pokemon, start with this one. There's a sequel coming out soon and I will be there day 1.