Have you ever had a game on your radar that just slipped you by for a while until for whatever reason, you finally cave and give it a try? That was Cassette Beasts for me. My first exposure to Cassette Beasts was when Daxel and Valraven played it together on Stream a couple of years back. I thought it looked really cool at the time and I liked the gameplay I saw. I didn’t actually get it until recently though, just in time for its second anniversary. And it’s easily one of the best creature battler rpgs I’ve ever played.
Seriously, this is one game you don’t want to sleep on. If you enjoy games like Zelda and Digimon, you’ll feel right at home here. Bytten Studio put a lot of love into their passion project here and it shows. So what is Cassette Beasts?
The main plot of Cassette Beasts kicks off with the player being literally dropped onto New Wirral and wanting to find a way home. New Wirral is an island filled with strange creatures and unique characters, one of them being the games first partner character Kayleigh. Kayleigh explains the situation and tries to bring us to Harbourtown before we get stopped by a Traffikrab. We then get a cassette player and a starter monster after answering “sweet” or “spooky”. We then become the chosen monster as we fight alongside Kayleigh who turns into a Sirenade.
That’s right, we transform into the monsters instead of capturing them as is typical. This is one of the many deviations from the standard formula that Cassette Beasts employs. Acquiring new beasts to transform into requires recording the ones we encounter on to blank tapes, which can be found or purchased. These tapes can be plain or come in a variety of different kinds that are more effective with certain types of monsters. A few different kinds of monsters will grant new traversal abilities once recorded. For example, later on a tutorial of recording gives us a Dominoth tape that unlocks the ability to glide. Other abilities include swimming and dashing, which lets us explore more of New Wirral.
Which brings me to something else Cassette Beasts does differently, that being type matchups. Monsters and the moves they use come in a variety of different types, ranging from the typical fire and water monsters, to more unusual typings like plastic and glass. These types have interactions that go beyond just “effective” and “not very effective”. For example, a plastic type Traffikrab hit by a fire type attack will “melt” and become a poison type. If the now poison type Traffikrab is hit by a fire type attack again, it will ignite and take extra fire damage each round. These interactions can sometimes go both ways as well. A fire type monster hit by a poison type attack will be “fueled” and gain an AP up status. AP(Action points) being what monsters spend for most attacks. Under normal conditions, only two AP is gained a turn so careful management of it is a must for the harder encounters.
Most battles will involve players controlling two monsters in a fairly standard turn based system. The second monster being whichever partner is currently following the player. Each partner has their own signature monster which they get bonuses for being, and their own questline. For example, Kayleigh from earlier has a personal quest that sends the player to investigate a cult. Completing these quests lets players build a relationship with the different partner characters and unlocks the ability to fuse with them. Fusion, which uses a meter that fills each turn, causes the two monsters to fuse into a more powerful form with all the attacks and typings of its individual parts. This can lead to some interesting interactions with different type matchups. After fusing with Kayleigh for the first time, the game opens up and we can go almost anywhere we want.
New Wirral isn’t the biggest map ever but it’s surprisingly packed with detail. There’s a variety of environments from beaches to abandoned malls and more to explore. Harbourtown acts as a hub where the player can rest, buy supplies and potentially hear rumours leading to new quests. There’s always something to find and I’m pleasantly surprised by how good it all looks for a sprite based game. The monsters are all wonderfully and creatively designed, ranging from cute to bizarre and I love them. I also love the art for the various characters in the game, each one with a unique design and personality to match. Without spoiling anything, I also appreciate the direction they took with the Archangels, which are the main antagonists. Each Archangel embodies something different and comes with a different artstyle and gimmick. Which leads to some very unique boss encounters.
As mentioned earlier, Cassette Beasts released in 2023 and just celebrated its second anniversary. In those two years, the game has received a number of updates from bug fixes to new monsters and features. The most recent update is the 1.8 update released just earlier on April 7, 2025. This update adds new post-game content in the form of new partner character Sunny and her signature tape Pawper along with an associated questline. The game also has paid DLC in the form of Cosmetics and Pier of the Unknown which not only includes a whole new questline, but also new monsters like Charlequin. Pier of the Unknown sees the player visit the mysterious circus like Brightside Pier after finding an empty boat on the beach. There, they are greeted by the enigmatic clown Gwen, who asks them to help defeat the “engines” running the attractions. Brightside Pier is eerie and has this haunted feel that makes it pretty distinct from anything else in the game. Having played it for this review, I was fascinated by how bizarre it was and how different the puzzles were. The chilling music that accompanies the locale adds to the sense of dread and the feeling that things aren’t as they seem.
Speaking of the music, that’s one thing Cassette Beasts really nails. This game has a fantastic soundtrack and songs like Same Old Story, Face Down or even the more laid back Wherever We Are Now have become staples on my playlist. The addition of vocals to some of these tracks adds to the experience, although many of the battle ones require fusing before they can be heard. Still, even the instrumental versions are really good. The composer Joel Baylis did a fantastic job and I can’t recommend it enough. This is one of the very few video game soundtracks I actively searched for on Spotify.
Cassette Beasts is an amazing game and well worth the price of admission, especially if you grab it on sale. I was quite surprised by how much fun I ended up having with it. Definitely add this one to your wishlist if you like rpgs or creature battlers. Hopefully it’ll continue to receive more support in the future or maybe we’ll see a Cassette Beasts 2. Either way, I’m down for more adventures in New Wirral.
