“We actually have an elemental system, you know”, he tells me.
Instead, they build a meter – otherwise known as momentum – which charges your strongest spells so you can unleash them in a fiery blaze of glory or Bomb Bomb Blast in my case.īaylis says the game’s combat is inspired by Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, where later battles will feature status effects that alter your rate of gaining momentum, or even moves that “debug” your enemies and prevent them from gaining momentum faster. Rather than bashing a monster to death with the same spell over and over and over again, Cassette Beast’s weakest spells cost nothing to use. The fights I took part in were polished, with vibrant animations and an introduction to what’s inevitably going to become quite a complex, ahem, beast. If you’ve played Xenoblade Chronicles 3 on the Nintendo Switch, it’s a similar thing where strong interpersonal relations may confer special benefits in battle.įor all the game’s focus on people, you might think that it’s compensating for janky combat or poor exploration. Baylis says it’s less like a “pet simulator” and more like a “Power Rangers thing”, so when you’re transforming into the monsters you’ve taped, you’re “elevating yourself, which means the focus is on people.”Īs for your AI companions, you’ll meet a bunch of folks on your adventures and form better bonds with them by helping them complete their personal goals. You see, you aren’t just catching monsters in a ball, but recording them to a cassette tape, which then lets you transform into them in battle. You can play up the emotions of like, how they interpret the events of being stuck here and what that means to them, and what they can get out of it.”Īnd the game’s focus on people lies not only in the wider story of why you’ve been dumped in this land, but also in the monsters and AI companions you’ll come across on your journey. “You know, they have their own reasons for wanting to stay and how they feel about everything. “ from real places on Earth, or their version of Earth, at least”, Baylis tells me. Baylis also says it’s a bit of a reference to UK culture and Arthurian legend, while also being a joke suggestion that actually turned out to be neat idea. This immediately raises intriguing questions and storylines, which makes a refreshing change from the usual “I wanna be the best trainer!” schtick we’re all so used to with these sorts of games.īytten Studio’s two-man team are both originally from the Wirral in the UK, hence the name of the game’s world. Sure, it’s a monster-collecting game, but what makes it so different from your Pokémons and Temtems? Well, it’s an isekai (Japanese portal fantasy) for starters, but it’s not just you who’s been thrust into this strange new land it’s everyone you meet, and part of the game’s overarching story is discovering why this has happened. One of the first things we chatted about as I explored the game’s opening area – a delightful little seaside town – was its premise. It was a genuine delight, especially as I was joined by Cassette Beasts’ artist, writer and designer Jay Baylis, who not only walked me through many of the game’s sights but also talked me through it all as I went about my business. I played roughly 25 minutes of an early build of Cassette Beasts, where I got to briefly explore the opening area of New Wirral, get into a couple of scraps and do some exploring before things ended on a spooky cliffhanger.
I like the way the game does away with the overdone shonen story of wanting to become the very best there ever was, and instead puts the spotlight on its cast of characters and the relationships you form with your buds. That’s because you’re able to fuse together any monsters you ‘catch’, but moreso because it’s a monster collectathon where you become the monster, essentially fusing yourself with bomb dogs and hermit crabs with traffic cone-homes. At this year’s Gamescom I got hands-on with Bytten Studio’s Cassette Beasts, an upcoming monster-taming open world RPG in the vein of Pokémon, which is far more interesting to me than the basic concept of Pokémon.
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