Board 8 > Cassette Beasts in the best pokemon game in a while

(+) Yeah! (+)

so the game came out a month or so ago and i havent seen much talk on it despite it being fucking incredible so i assume people havent heard of it so im making a topic. in short its a pokemon like monster catcher but it has some many neat improvements and features. and keep in mind this game is 20$ and is currently on sale for 16. and was made by like 4 people. im gonna just kinda ramble about everything that comes to mind so thisll be a bit long

right off the bat theres character customizing. nothing major but considering its a sprite game its more than youd think. you can also change everything (including name) whenever at your house. theres also difficulty sliders for those who like to complain about pokemon being hard. theres AI Intelligence and Level Scaling. the default is 'wild monsters use moves randomly, humans and bosses somewhat intelligently. lower levelled enemies scale up a little, higher leveled dont scale' and it goes harder/easier from there

storywise youre regular person whom gets sucked into some weird vortex and end up on an island with a buncha monsters on it. people have been washing up on it for like 100 years and no ones been able to get off. also everyone is from a different timeline or dimension or something??? anyway for reasons people are able to record monsters onto cassettes and transform into them. then you set off to find a way off the island because video game story. also theres some kinda eldritch stuff going on. youve got your gym leader equivalents, evil team equivalent, and assorted side quests and the like

battles use an AP system. you get 2 ap per turn and moves cost some ap. theyre usually 2v2 but can be 2v1 or 2v3. instead of physical/special theres melee/ranged buts basically teh same idea i think. theres type advantages of course but they work completely differently from pokemon. instead of a flat damage increase/decrease they apply buffs/debuffs based on the reason why its effective or not. so like Air is effective against Plant because air uproots it from its source of nutriets the ground. this decreases the plant types ap gain per turn to 1. Metal is effective against Earth because it penetrates its defense, like a shovel which lowers both its defense stats. Earth is effective against Plastic because its plastics ultimate fate to be buried in a landfill and i think this lowers its speed. theres also a Glitter type which i havent encountered any of yet but nothing is effective against it

you switch to your human form in battle if a mon faints until you can switch out. if you run out of human hp that character faints and you cant use your second mon. you can also beat enemies trainers like that without them using their other mons.

catching mons has you switch to your human form to try to record them. while recording a mon cant escape and it cant be killed. it also tells you the %age chance you have of catching it

also theres a super in the form of Fusion. if youre familiar with that pokemon fusion generator its basically that in game mechanic form. you get all the moves of both mons, both their types, and im not entirely sure on the stats. it also adds vocals to the battle music

every attack move is a sticker that you can freely take off and put on another mon (if they can learn it). so you could level one mon of a type for moves and put them on another to use. theres a few places to buy some but as of where i am theyre kinda expensive. theres also uncommon and rare versions of moves which have modifiers which i assume are random. ive seen splash damage, increased exp, increased crit chance, and the like. and generic moves are typeless and will become whatever type the mon its attached to is

game is...not quite open world but you can kinda do whatever you want in whatever order. there are HM equivalents though. well sorta. recording specific mons will get you an overworld ability which lets you traverse new areas and solve puzzles and stuff. they kinda feel more like metroidvania abilities than HMs imo. you can play local coop and theyre planning on adding online coop but no date set.

music is great. standard battle theme uh slaps? is that what the youth say these days? town music is also really good.

and of course theres the mons themselves. theres 128 total i think and i havent seen all of them but from what i have seen theyre good. opinions will vary obviously but so far theres only like 3 id say are kinda bad. and one of them evolves into something not terrible so hey! well theres also one i cant decide its so stupid its amazing or just fucking stupid. but so far so good and im finding myself excited to see what some of these evos are. the starter i chose went in a completely fucking nonsense direction i wasnt expecting in the least

theres also a clearly inspired by shinies thing called Bootlegs. theyre not quite shinies because they affect gameplay. each bootleg changes the mons type, stats, and moves it learns. each mon has 14 bootlegs, one for each type which is kinda nuts. theres a lot of split evolutions which is handled in a really neat way imo. ill spoiler it just in case whenever something with a split evo evolves, it gives you a question and lets you choose which branch you want. one of the early mons causes trouble at night so when it evolves you get to choose Which path fo the night will you follow? Thief/Vagabond. a snake has Which aspect of the serpent will you embody? Elegance/Ruthlessness. its really cool imo but im sure some people might not care for it. you can also turn off autosave so you can save scum onto what you want.

not sure if thats it but uh its probably enough. if you want to see any of it in action heres some gameplay from a streamer i watch. but yeah anyway game is fucking great go buy it

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1321440/Cassette_Beasts/
https://youtu.be/lFngrWbWUeY?t=1700

Sounds interesting. I'm going to have more spare time than usual for the rest of the of the month so I might be able to include a new game.

It is part of our Game of the Month slate.

It is also available on Game Pass

I quite enjoy this game!

You're not traveling in the right circles. There are definitely people talking about this game. It has 2600+ reviews which are 96% positive -- not bad for 9 weeks.

I haven't played a Pokemon game since '99 and I bought this day 1 because it was by the developers of Lenna's Inception. Even for a non-Pokemon person, it's a really good game.

It's also hanging out in OpenCritic's 2023 Hall of Fame with an 86. I'll probably play it at some point.

Sounds like the first good Pokemon game since Black and White 2.