This is probably my favorite pokemon inspired game I have played and I've played a lot of the big ones, nexomon extinction, temtem, coromon etc. What makes this better than all of those in my opinion, is that its what most resembles pokemon for me, but isn't afraid to improve where pokemon doesn't/won't, whereas sometimes in the other games it feels like they hold back in certain areas or make the same mistakes pokemon does. The main example of this is the gameplay flow for Cassette Beasts, its very similar in structure to Scarlet and Violet where there is a mostly open world map, and you have 2-3 core objectives to complete in order to beat the game. It even has unlocking overworld abilities to help you progress the map like SV does but its implemented better here imo. And overall that gameplay flow is done better here thanks to firstly the map design and secondly the level scaling implementation.
I'll start with the map design. While the game is marketed as open world, its not really, but in a good way. You are meant to do the right side of the map first until you complete enough of it to travel to the left side, and how you progress through that right hand side and what order you complete objectives is up to you. This is where the level scaling comes in. At the start of the game you are giving choices in how the scaling will be implemented, for example will bosses scale down to you, how will enemy AI move in the overworld etc. This level of tweaking is fantastic as it allows you to essentially make a custom easy/normal/hard mode, a sorely lacking pokemon feature. This is what truly helps the game flow, as you never feel over or under leveled, I left it on the default settings and while I never truly struggled like say in TemTem at times, I also couldn't just blindly mash away like you often can in pokemon and SV (depending on your order). I also really liked how none of the objective locations are just given to you immediately on the map, you either have to find them yourself or have an npc in town tell you as a quest, its a nice touch for those into exploration.
In terms of beast designs, I liked a lot of them, I feared that the roughly 120 count wouldn't be enough but it is and they are distributed well throughout the map. I also like the sticker move system and the star system for evolving, it makes having a rotating squad very feasible. The fusion mechanic is also cool, the algorithm used is very good in that it never feels like the fusions are just slapped together like the default pokemon fusions.
If I had any gripes, its that I wasn't a fan of how the companions quests are generally tied into a handful of the main objective boss fights, which means for about half of the Archangel fights you have a companion with you that can't fuse until you do the fight. Not a big deal but it came up as an annoyance once or twice. The other gripe is the awkwardness of swapping around beasts, especially if you want to take a beast off a companion to give them a fodder one if you are swapping, you should be able to remove your active beast from the tape inventory menu rather than having to back out to the party specific menu, it just becomes a hassle if you find yourself swapping companions a lot, which you will have to do some amount of due to the quests.
Overall, thoroughly impressed with this two person dev team and I'm glad its on gamepass as that should help with discovery a lot and even on steam its a very fair price of €/$20 I believe. If you are a fan of monster catching games, this is one to try.
PS the music is very good but sadly theres only maybe a handful of tracks, would have liked a few more but at least what we have is good so you don't mind hearing them often.
I'll start with the map design. While the game is marketed as open world, its not really, but in a good way. You are meant to do the right side of the map first until you complete enough of it to travel to the left side, and how you progress through that right hand side and what order you complete objectives is up to you. This is where the level scaling comes in. At the start of the game you are giving choices in how the scaling will be implemented, for example will bosses scale down to you, how will enemy AI move in the overworld etc. This level of tweaking is fantastic as it allows you to essentially make a custom easy/normal/hard mode, a sorely lacking pokemon feature. This is what truly helps the game flow, as you never feel over or under leveled, I left it on the default settings and while I never truly struggled like say in TemTem at times, I also couldn't just blindly mash away like you often can in pokemon and SV (depending on your order). I also really liked how none of the objective locations are just given to you immediately on the map, you either have to find them yourself or have an npc in town tell you as a quest, its a nice touch for those into exploration.
In terms of beast designs, I liked a lot of them, I feared that the roughly 120 count wouldn't be enough but it is and they are distributed well throughout the map. I also like the sticker move system and the star system for evolving, it makes having a rotating squad very feasible. The fusion mechanic is also cool, the algorithm used is very good in that it never feels like the fusions are just slapped together like the default pokemon fusions.
If I had any gripes, its that I wasn't a fan of how the companions quests are generally tied into a handful of the main objective boss fights, which means for about half of the Archangel fights you have a companion with you that can't fuse until you do the fight. Not a big deal but it came up as an annoyance once or twice. The other gripe is the awkwardness of swapping around beasts, especially if you want to take a beast off a companion to give them a fodder one if you are swapping, you should be able to remove your active beast from the tape inventory menu rather than having to back out to the party specific menu, it just becomes a hassle if you find yourself swapping companions a lot, which you will have to do some amount of due to the quests.
Overall, thoroughly impressed with this two person dev team and I'm glad its on gamepass as that should help with discovery a lot and even on steam its a very fair price of €/$20 I believe. If you are a fan of monster catching games, this is one to try.
PS the music is very good but sadly theres only maybe a handful of tracks, would have liked a few more but at least what we have is good so you don't mind hearing them often.