Cassette Beasts is like a more challenging Pokémon with fun ideas

In my 30 years of life, I’ve played a lot of Pokémon.

I’ve nearly played them all, starting with Pokémon Silver (and going back to Yellow) and all the way to Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert, but I definitely have greater Pokémon knowledge than the average regular person. (My friends and I have spent nights doing nothing other than naming every Pokémon by memory.)

So when I say if you like Pokémon, you should try out Cassette Beasts, you should definitely listen to me.

Cassette Beasts, an 8-bit-style monster catcher on Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One, is an incredibly interesting and fun take on the traditional Pokémon formula.

There are definitely some Pokémon-like aspects to the title, but overall, it has a lot of unique ideas that keep me coming back.

Cassette Beasts has an interesting element as you’re not catching these monsters but recording them onto cassettes. When you play the cassettes, the character transforms into one of these monsters. Because you’re actually becoming the monsters, you have a typical Pokémon-style life bar, but your character also has an HP bar. This means there are two components to staying alive: all your cassettes are defeated (broken) in battle, or your character runs out of life. However, each battle is a two-on-two or two-on-one as your character roams the world with a friend. This partner can be controlled by yourself or a friend for couch co-op.

This aspect of the game adds an interesting element as you and your partner can achieve something called ‘fusion’ if you’ve created a strong enough bond with them — which naturally happens by completing the character’s quests. Completing character quests, fighting alongside them, and spending time resting with them — how you heal yourself and your party — can cause your bond to grow, and you can eventually romance the character.

Cassette Beasts only has 120 monsters, less than Pokémon’s original 150; however, there are 14,000 possible fusions in the game. Each Cassette Beast is modular and, therefore, easy to combine with one another. Some combinations have the same elements, but you can find great-looking fusions.

One thing worth mentioning is when you start playing Cassette Beasts, you’re dropped in a new world, but your character is actually from our world — in fact, every human character in Cassette Beasts is from our world, but they get sucked into this new world at different time points. This is a typical trope in a lot of anime called ‘isekai.’

One character says they’re from 1981, while a more modern one is from the 2010s. It varies based on the characters, which I liked because some characters are completely out of touch with the world.

Combat works similarly to Pokémon with different types of moves versus monsters with varying types; however, instead of moves just being ‘super effective,’ they affect these monsters in different ways. For instance, a fire-type move against an ice-type monster will cause it to melt, turning it into a water-type. However, an ice-type move against a water-type monster will cause them to freeze and be stunned for a turn. A metal-type move against an ice-type monster will cause the ice to break, lowering the ice-type defences, whereas a water-type move against an ice-type monster freezes, increasing the ice-type’s defences. These were interesting and I still learned more about them several hours into the game. However, a lot of it just makes common sense. For example, I knew that my electric-type move would equally mess up water types and metal types because both are conductive to electricity.

I like that different moves affected creatures instead of them all doing more damage. This brought a fun challenge and allowed me to develop different strategies. I would often melt ice types just to freeze them the following turn causing them to miss a turn.

My favourite aspect of Cassette Beasts is that you can increase the levelling of enemy monsters and make the AI smarter, giving you a greater challenge. Many have a problem with Pokémon being far too easy; however, allowing you to increase level scaling and AI for every enemy really changes things, and I wish it’s something that Pokémon adopted.

Cassette Beasts also uses Pokémon’s Hidden Machines in a new way. Instead of needing to have the monster on you (like in older Pokémon games), you just need to capture the monster capable of allowing you to swim, float, climb walls and more; however, there’s only one kind of Cassette Beasts capable of teaching the character these movement abilities. Further, these abilities also use a stamina bar that can only be increased by defeating the game’s bosses. I like this because it doesn’t require players to keep certain monsters on their team.

Speaking of the game’s bosses, while Cassette Beasts has its equivalent to gym leaders, there’s a whole story going on as well about great monsters called ‘Archangels’ and a man with a triangle head that seems evil and reminds me of Bill Cypher from Gravity Falls even with extradimensional powers. I like the story. It’s kind of interesting and adds an element of maturity. Characters can die; there seems to be a theme of betrayal and more.

There’s so much more to say, but to keep this short, Cassette Beasts is a fun Pokémon-like, and if you’re in the mood for a monster catcher, give it a shot. The game is currently part of Xbox Game Pass ($11.99/month), but is also available on Steam ($25.99) and Switch ($19.49)