Cassette Beasts is a sweet little indie game that has it's ups and downs but is overall a very sweet little game with a lot of fun to be had. I have a lot of complicated feelings about this game, please enjoy my review.
Amazing Visions For The World
The absolute best thing about this game is the way it presents the world and politics even if tragically the very end slightly undercuts it. Every other second of the game captures what I am about to talk about in at least a good way if not a great way.
The world is one where there is no currency, crafts people ask for materials in exchange for things, your given a home for free and people chose willing to help one another. Despite being a world covered in monsters it serves as a functional utopia. It's not perfect, it's missing things, people don't have everything they could want but people work together despite that from across time and reality, people who share very little with one another stand by each other.
A main villain group in the game, one your required to clear to reach the ending of the game are a group of people looking to establish private property. These vampire land lords it turns were created by some elder god created by evil human desires. Yet, even these vampires get given human empathy at the end of this game, a vampire getting to express herself, find her own name, dress up for herself for the first time and be free of the situation, the system of being willing to abuse others she was born into. It poses capital and land ownership as evil forces, ones that have to be defeated. Yet, it reminds us that the workers stuck into the system, forced into it weren't in needing of destruction and can heal, can become better people. It's a perfect way to remind the player that these people who lived here had to learn and grow too.
The empathy and passion and optimism of the world is furthered through a story line of someone's childhood "cringe" OC having came to life and him having to confront his old OC and learn to embrace that she too is a part of him, a part of his artistic history and treat her like the person she was. This games queerness while mostly a make your own gay type situation also exists with the biggest figure in the town turning out to be a queer woman and married to another woman she met in this world.
It isn't all amazing leftist politics stuff either, it's also a world that is just fun, it has fun ideas, fun lore, fun concepts. It has other chances to strike blows against oppression, it has romance, it is incredible.
The Return To Normalcy
Where this falls short is that our leads want to move back to their world. They aren't inspired by the way the world is here and want to make their world better but by going to go live their personal lives back in their world to never see any of the world they lived in again. I want to sing this games praises so badly, I really really do because that first half of this right here, that is fucking perfect, I mean genuinely hard to craft a story that does all this amazing stuff and does it so damn well. It doesn't feel like a lecture really at any time but instead is just part of the world, you run at it at your own pace and engage it in the way you want to.
However, this return to the status quo at the end doesn't say "well your time with the game is done" it's not they shot you back to the end of the game before you stepped into the portal and give you tons of more story to engage with. Just lingering that you should go back to the portal but the game has sooo much more to do. This world has more to do too. In the course of the game we find that people from across worlds and times have fallen in love, some have even had kids. There are people who are indigenous to the world now, there are romances that are built in this world but it treats the idea that wanting to leave is just the most natural thing, the mature thing.
It undercuts the romance the player may go through, sure but more than that it undercuts the world itself. It says to me this world isn't real, stop playing, go live a normal life, the things here aren't valuable enough to stay. I just think that's bullshit. I hope among hope that since their still updating and expanding the game, they present an option to simply chose to make the world your forever home and for the party members to decide this place is their home too. As it stands now though, it is a massive detraction to the narrative.
Characters
The characters in Cassette Beasts are charming. Each character has unique and fun designs. Even though most characters don't do much of anything they each still get a few little voice phrases and a fully fleshed out design that really makes each feel special. These designs are top tier and stand among the best across all of monster taming games.
The Rangers are mostly silly goofs they don't last long but they do recure at least once more and get a little bit of spotlight between rematches and the like one cut scene each they get. Shop keepers don't do much of anything but are well designed. The party members are all fun, have solid struggles and interesting personal story lines you want to see through to the end. The side characters that don't fit either of those are all pretty outstanding fun characters who add a lot to the game. The main baddies are all pretty fun to beat up and all are well designed as well. They don't really overstay their welcome but are enough of a threat in the story they are part of.
In the romantic end you can only romance party members despite the big cast of cuties in the game one might be charmed by. Sadly the romantic relationship side of things decide you must be monogamous despite the fact your goal in this game is to leave this world and it's mentioned in the romance that these relationships are temporary yet still their locked under a monogamous lock. Especially weird when you always agree the relationship us tentative, your going back home so eventually the pair of you won't be together, you'll be separated by time and space, so why is it monogamous?
This bleeds into another issue the previously mentioned bad ending of the game. The character's minus Viola have no motive to return home. Yet, all of them decide they wanna help you with your pointless mission to return home and go back home, why? Their is a society here and everyone wanting to return home kinda makes the party feel detached from the world their living in. Like so we're doing all this just to leave, like that is the most pressing thing? It just is this wet blanket over their more interesting personal journeys.
Gameplay
The game has lots of moves that feels pretty inspired from Pokémon but it's combat system is a lot more than Pokémon. Basically every battle is a double battle and you have a wider pull of slots for moves and much more freedom in building move sets. With the addition of the fusion system to mix up the pace of the combat you have a very dynamic system that allows for a lot of different strategies to see play. The most effective game plan in my experience is just stopping other other creature from being able to do any moves, it worked even on like the last boss just trolling it by removing it's ability to do particular things and predicting when it would do it to get them to whiff actions. It's actually a fairly fun way to test knowledge of the game and make informed assumptions about the foes moves.
The fusion system is extremally effective at feeling like a powerful payoff for the time it takes to charge doubling your meter gain on the fused creature and allow for a constant use of higher end skills. It was rare for a fusion to feel like it fucked me over although a few poorly done fusions had ended up screwing me over in the games harder end of combat. It feels satisfying to fuse with your partner and whale on your foes.
The capture system is very unique and creates fairly tense moments. It can veer into just frustrating on some of the higher end beasts but in the basic encounters it encourages a nice flow to the gameplay that shifts the pace.
Moving around feels pretty good, I imagine this game would be pretty fun to speed run if your into that kinda stuff. There is a lot of ways to skip things, go places early, get particular movement abilities before you need them and more in order to see the whole world. I believe you can even find your randomly generated final boss portal without finishing all the quests just by guessing what weird thing you need to do. I do wish by the end of the game I could just menu my teleports rather than needing to get to a train station to fast travel or at least do it from the hub town but outside of that I think the floow of overworld travel is great.
The Monsters
The monster designs I can't help but feel a bit mixed on. They certainly feel district, they are Cassette Beasts, they don't feel like Pokémon, Digimon, DQ Monsters or any other Monster Tamers style. These monsters have a visual aesthetic of their own. Typically Inanimate thing + animal = Cassette Beasts but not always. While there is undoubtly some of these beasts I really liked I feel like very few really stuck with me after the game. There wasn't a lot that hit the high highs of Cool, Sexy, Cute, Pretty, or best friendo status you want out of your particular monster tamer depending on the one your playing. I really think it's a personal taste thing.
In terms of how these creatures convey mechanics around them I think for the most part the designs do convey the type they are fairly way in the design. You'll have a general idea of what the monster can do by looking at it and understanding the moves and mechanics of the game. So undoubtly a big success in terms of conveyance.
The fusions really let me down, while there were plenty of monsters I liked, how many of the pairs I used fused felt very, meh. I understand that the scale they were working with was impossible to make every combo work but you would think starter and partner fusions would all have some special design to denote the special bounds but nah, that isn't the case.
The Music
This is a place where the game undeniably just rocks. Obviously musical taste is subjective but this is perfectly executed thematic music with great use of alternative versions to denote the level of a fight. Every song is an utter banger, you can buy them on bandcamp, their so good. I keep listening to the songs all the time well after I finished playing the game. The vocal tracks in particular are stunning with Shelby Harvey singing being out of this world good. This game has one of the best video game OSTs of all time.
If you enjoyed this review I do have a Patreon or Ko-fi. I worked hard on this review, it took me a while to finish because I didn't want to say the negative things I said because the highs are so fucking high on this game. This game could easily be a master piece with some edits really. Despite everything, I think this game is well worth anyone's money, it's a fantastic game. So if your not gonna give me money, give them so money, or us both, I am not picky.
hi!! im watching ur mina vod and im still at the part where you played lumentale. i heard you mention coromon and i've never heard anything about it before but it looks cool! do you recommend it?
Coromon was something I played on a whim cause a friend played it. It's neat but it doesn't necessarily do anything... innovative? That's not a bad thing but if you're looking for a creature capture game with a WOW factor, I'm not sure if you'll find it in Coromon.
I can't also say any of the creatures in the game stood out to me. And too this day, I still never went back and fought the last boss despite saving right in front of it.
But if you're looking for just an itch scratcher, I think it'll scratch it.
