Cassette Beasts

You really don't hear people talk about Cassette Beasts too often. And that's a big shame! Just looking at the game for more than a few seconds and you'll realize this game takes big inspiration from Pokemon. Now while I cant say I'm too familiar with Pokemon, I've really only played Pokemon white as a hand me down as a kid. But I still know the general gameplay flow of it. I'll try not to compare this game to Pokemon too much, Unless I feel it has something unique that differentiates it. Cassette Beasts opens up the player washing up on New Wirral a floating point in space where people from all sorts of time periods come from, though the game still tries to keep a 80's aesthetic. and the clash of art styles can be a little jarring. But what i find worse is the character designs. like some of the characters are fine, but some like sunny or some of the rangers have some of the most gaudy, oversaturated, overdesigned character designs I've ever seen. Its like a OC made it into the finished game. I'm not going to say its Concord levels of character design but its close at times. Now this Isn't really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of the game but I still though I should mention it. As for the main meat and potato's of the game, I'm happy to say the gameplay really amazed me. It has the same type chart that Pokemon has but with some tweaks and new types. But there are 2 very interesting things about it. First is the actually effects of hitting a opponent will a type advantage. When done you do some extra damage, But you also do a specific debuff for the opponent. Say for example if I hit a metal type with electricity. they will be conductive which makes them take damage every time I or they use a melee attack, And if multiple enemies are conductive each melee hit will trigger all of them. And it works the other way around as well. So if I hit an air type with fire it creates a wall that will block 3 hits for the enemy, its actually better to not attack them at all. And for almost every type, buff and debuffs are different for each weakness and strength, (except for electricity all of its weakness make it "uni-target"). Secondly is the transmutation mechanic. For certain types (plastic, ground, ice, water, and glitter) if hit by a specific type they will change type. when a fire move hits a plastic type, they turn into poison types (that's a real thing by the way don't burn plastic) and since like in pokemon you do more damage if you use a move that is your type you can have a plastic move to get the extra damage. it completely changes your weaknesses and strengths on the fly. and the glitter type is the odd ball type. If you hit a glitter type they will be turned into the type of the move you hit them with. But if they hit you with a glitter move you become glitter and the next damage you take will turn you into that type. There aren't any actual beasts that are glitter types (excluding bootlegs) but some beasts can learn glitter moves to forcefully change your type. The other big feature is the stickers. the stickers are extremely flexible in what they can do. There are 3 main types, passives, status, and attacks. attacking stickers are pretty self explanatory. some are only able to be used for certain types. But there are also stickers that are typeless meaning that any beast that uses them, the sticker will change to become the type of the beast. which means if you have a basic typeless sticker and are changed into another type it will change as well, which can be good or bad. The status stickers just inflict a status on your or the enemy pretty simple. though you can intentionally hit your team with a type to give them a buff or status. and there are coating stickers which can change your type for a party member in exchange for a turn. now the passives are where things can get crazy. each gives you a benefit either for free or under certain circumstances. but the things they can do are insane like starting the fight with more AP (each move costs a different amount of AP) or resistance to a types debuffs and transmutations, or gaining more damage when your party member dies. And on top of that each sticker in the game has a random chance to have a bonus effect, like 10 percent more damage, shares sticker with team, or guaranteed crit on type advantage. And this all sounds busted, and it is but I don't think that's a bad thing. You are limited by rng if you can get some of the effects and you can gamble for them. And you really only get access to them in the late game. Think of the stickers as a mix of the Paper Mario badges with the HM's of Pokemon, and the transmutations of this game. But I know some people might be thinking back to the famous quote "given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of the game". But I don't think that's applicable, here's why: I would say there are two major exceptions in my experience and others I've asked about when game is more fun when you can break it than otherwise. roguelikes and for games with build variety. My guess for why this is, is that you have to first realize the limits of the system. And second you have to experiment to see what combinations are possible to find a solution that is uniquely your own. and then you start trying to find all the ways you can break the game wide open. The game rewards you for thinking outside the box and experimenting, which I would say is the opposite of optimizing the fun out of a game, even if it can make the game easy. It makes two ways in which the player can get better at the game, strategy (with the build possibilities) and just the normal way with skill. And in general having more build variety in a game like this or a roguelike is a big part of the games fun. so its better to have a few broken strategies instead of stifling the creativity aspect. All things considered this game was a surprise I wish this game was mentioned more, I remember hearing about it when it came out but this game is largely quiet these days. This is a really good creature collector and just a good game on its own merits. it can feel a slight bit basic at times or the world being mostly non linear might be a little complaint for some. But it has a really good gameplay flow: From exploring, fighting bosses, and using stickers. My final verdict is 8.9/10 thank you for reading.

A creature collector/ battler with a relationship mechanic that does way more than just following in its inspirations' footsteps. Was genuinely surprised at how much fun this game is and how tactical you have to be whenever you're forced to battle with disadvantages. Battles are done with two party members and it's much, much closer to say, a 2-character party SMT game than pokemon. Since you transform into the monsters yourself and revert back to human form with a separate HP when your current monster gets KO'd, it's important to not get KO'd as a human because then the battle will be over even if you still have full health monsters in stock. (also note humans cannot be healed or revived!) Elemental Types are more than just weaknesses and resistances, but also result in side effects and ailments (fire v. plastic = poison, fire v. water = steam, fire v. wind = tornado wall, wind v. lightning = conductivity, water v. ground = erosion, poison v. steel = poison spikes, etc.) which is kind of insane to think about and these will encourage very strategic team compositions. You can also hit your own allies to deliberately cause these side effects. Capturing weakened monsters are done via a cassette player by one party member who has to revert to human and has to stay human for a whole turn. The other member must choose their move wisely, keeping your vulnerable human alive is one thing, but in later encounters you also have to deal enough damage to the enemy to perform a successful capture. If your human gets hit, it will lower their capture success chance (shown in percentages). One more thing, once you've established a bond with the other party member (by finishing their initial story arcs) you can perform a fusion where both of your monsters will combine to a single large monster with combined stats, HP, typing, action points, and move pool. This is important (and its primary purpose is) in boss battles because bosses have inflated stats and moves that could oneshot your party unlike mobs. Fusion can also help you at times of clutch if you have trouble with mobs. There are also randomised fusion monsters that can be encountered in the wild, serving as challenge minibosses. Fusion can be done with ANY monster even two of the same kind, because the game uses procedural generation to create the fused sprites instead of the devs creating them manually. The result is sometimes cool- sometimes abominations- reminiscent of that one online pokemon fusion generator tool if you've tried that. Overall I think this a very, very solid game if you like creature collectors and looking for an indie game in this genre. Do yourself a favor and try it, I think it's worth it for the challenge and variety alone. This game goes on sale often too. Add in the DLC and easily a 25+ hour game worth your time.

I loved this game when I was playing it, but by the end I was ready to be done. I really enjoyed my time with this game, and now I'm done. Never played a mainline pokemon game before this, or after, but I think I've got my fill. A solid 7/10 game if I do say so myself. I wish their was a book or something that recapped effects and stuff as it only tells you once what it does and never again, if there is a book I missed it. I really liked the story and the "spookiness" of the plot. I'm not really a fan of becoming your creature, kind of ruins the bonding experience. Solid game, Cool story, Nice graphics, seemingly low spec demand. If you like Pokemon this game is probably up your alley.