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Cassette Beasts review: dropping the mic on the Pokémon-likeMew-sic to our ears
Mew-sic to our ears
Image credit:Raw Fury
Image credit:Raw Fury
Cassette Beasts | PC Date Announcement trailer | Available April 26th!Watch on YouTube
Cassette Beasts | PC Date Announcement trailer | Available April 26th!
And yes, Scarlet and Violet certainly tapped into a lot of these fantasies when they came out last year, or at least they did when they weren’t running at ten frames a second, or wigging out under a mountain of bugs and hiccups. But even putting their technical woes aside for one minute, my biggest problem with Scarlet and Violet - and this is why I’m areformedPoké person rather than a current one - is that, fundamentally, it’s still Pokémon. The same old Pokémon we’ve been playing for the last two and a bit decades, with the same elemental combos, the same old schtick of catch, evolve and stick in a box, and the same ‘this game is great if you’re ten-years-old’ energy. Pokémon is, and always will be, a fantastic game for ten-year-olds. That was the age I fell in love with it, and it has stuck steadfast to serving those ever-present ten-year-olds ever since. Just ask Ash Ketchum, who recently retired at the grand old age of ten after being in the business for 26 years.
Cassette Beasts, on the other hand, feels like more of a thinking person’s Pokémon - the kind that caters to those lifelong Poké peeps who are now in their 30s (and have been wishing Pokémon would grow up alongside them ever since they first encountered it) much more effectively. It not only sands off a lot of Pokémon’s rougher, niggling edges, but it also goes much deeper on itsRPGelements, giving you multiple storylines to pursue at once, a party of companions to pick from (each of whom have their own story quests to explore), as well as gradually evolving relationship bonuses based on the depth of your friendship with them. It’s veryPersona, albeit without the constant worry of only having limited time to earn best pal status.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
You have two health bars to watch out for in Cassette Beasts - your monster’s green bar, and your own underlying red bar. When a monster’s health bar hits zero, you revert back to your human form, and when your health bar hits zero, it’s back to Harbourtown for a hasty heal. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
It also applies a much more scientific eye to your monsters' types and elemental attacks. Fire isn’t just not great against water, for example. It also creates a healing mist of steam for the receiving water monster. Hit a metal type with a poison attack, meanwhile, and they’ll receive a whole coat of the stuff, allowing them to deal extra poisonous contact damage the next time they perform a melee attack. Air types, on the other hand, can ‘uproot’ plant types, disconnecting them (and any sneaky leech attacks they’ve got going) from the ground. Earth smothers fire. Metal and water conduct electricity. Plastic types can be ‘melted’ with fire and release noxious fumes, turning them into temporary poison types.
This is particularly evident in its multitude of boss battle types. The main plot sees you tracking down screen-hogging ‘Archangels’ in abandoned underground train stations to try and find a way home from the strange island of New Wirral, but there are also Ranger battles to pursue (this game’s version of gym leaders), and ‘Rogue Fusion’ challenges, the latter of which see you face off against two monsters that have been merged into one. These larger than life fights help keep Cassette Beasts' regular battles from getting too stale, and you can, of course, always fuse your own active beasts together for added spice when you’ve built up your fusion bar. Given you can fuse any two beasts together in this game, Cassette Beasts does a pretty impressive job with the final result, creating a weird and wonderful array of sprites that not only capture the essence of both monsters you’ve chucked together, but who also draw from each mon’s respective movepool.
Monsters roam in plain sight, and recording certain beasties give you new abilities that open up its gorgeous world even further.
All of Cassette Beasts' monsters have their origins in real-life folklore creatures, but rest assured: its portmanteau pun game is still very much on point (lookin' at you, Djinn Entonic). |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun
The fact this is all the work of mostly two developers also just blows my mind a tiny bit, too. I don’t think it will convert those who have never enjoyed a Pokémon game before, and I can also see its in-depth elemental system being a bit too much like a GSCE chemistry lesson to capture the attention of those Pikachu-loving ten-year-olds. But for those who have felt increasingly like the Pokésphere just doesn’t cut it for them anymore, there’s definitely a lot to like and admire here. Pokémon will always likely be the dominant force in the monster-catching genre, but Cassette Beasts is a smart, evolutionary offshoot from the Game Freak family tree that I hope has a long and happy life ahead of it.
