Cassette Beasts Review

thesixthaxis.com:

I don’t care what anyone says, the 80s will never truly go out of fashion. This is especially true on the island of New Wirral, a multiversal lost-and-never-found that serves as the backdrop to Cassette Beasts — a grown-up Pokémon-like JRPG, where you physically transform into the monsters you ‘catch’ using hi-tech, albeit retro cassette tapes.

You play as Cass, the island’s latest refugee, and start the game washing up on the beach just outside Harbourtown, the island’s main settlement. This is where you meet Kayleigh, your first real ally in this strange and hostile world.

The narrative ark and feel to this game comes with strong Angel Beats vibes, which I absolutely adore, and the writing is second to none, especially if you’re a fan of puns, 80s music and jokes about estate agents being bloodsucking vampires. The game is full of jokes, twists and references to real-world events and locations. The stations of Glowcester Road and Mournington Crescent certainly made me smile.

There is a lot to like about Cassette Beasts beyond the writing, starting with the remarkably in-depth battle system — the backbone of any Pokémon-like RPG. In a nutshell, you walk around the overworld until you either bump into a monster or are spotted by an NPC who wants to fight. Like Pokémon, you have six monsters to your team in the form of ‘tapes’, but a major difference is that your battles are always with a friend alongside you – you and your chosen partner have a tape each, and a pool of four in reserve – and against between one and three opponents.

While your overarching goal is to escape New Wirral, let’s be honest here, you’ve also gotta catch ’em all. Get the enemy’s health down low enough and you can use a tape to try and record the enemy