At this 12 months’s Gamescom I received hands-on with Bytten Studio’s Cassette Beasts, an upcoming monster-taming open world RPG within the vein of Pokémon, which is much extra fascinating to me than the essential idea of Pokémon. That’s since you’re in a position to fuse collectively any monsters you ‘catch’, however moreso as a result of it is a monster collectathon the place you change into the monster, primarily fusing your self with bomb canine and hermit crabs with site visitors cone-homes.

I like the best way the sport does away with the overdone shonen story of eager to change into the perfect there ever was, and as a substitute places the highlight on its forged of characters and the relationships you kind along with your buds. It’s wanting mighty promising.

I performed roughly 25 minutes of an early construct of Cassette Beasts, the place I received to briefly discover the opening space of New Wirral, get into a few scraps and do some exploring earlier than issues ended on a spooky cliffhanger. It was a real delight, particularly as I used to be joined by Cassette Beasts’ artist, author and designer Jay Baylis, who not solely walked me by way of lots of the recreation’s sights but additionally talked me by way of all of it as I went about my enterprise.

One of the primary issues we chatted about as I explored the sport’s opening space – a pleasant little seaside city – was its premise. Sure, it is a monster-collecting recreation, however what makes it so totally different out of your Pokémons and Temtems? Well, it is an isekai (Japanese portal fantasy) for starters, nevertheless it’s not simply you who’s been thrust into this unusual new land; it is everybody you meet, and a part of the sport’s overarching story is discovering why this has occurred. This instantly raises intriguing questions and storylines, which makes a refreshing change from the standard “I wanna be the most effective coach!” schtick we’re all so used to with these kinds of video games.

“[The folks of New Wirral are] from actual locations on Earth, or their model of Earth, at the least”, Baylis tells me. “You know, they’ve their very own causes for wanting to remain and the way they really feel about the whole lot. You can play up the feelings of like, how they interpret the occasions of being caught right here and what meaning to them, and what they’ll get out of it.”

And the sport’s give attention to folks lies not solely within the wider story of why you’ve got been dumped on this land, but additionally within the monsters and AI companions you will come throughout in your journey. You see, you are not simply catching monsters in a ball, however recording them to a cassette tape, which then permits you to rework into them in battle. Baylis says it is much less like a “pet simulator” and extra like a “Power Rangers factor”, so if you’re remodeling into the monsters you’ve got taped, you are “elevating your self, which implies the main target is on folks.”

As to your AI companions, you will meet a bunch of parents in your adventures and kind higher bonds with them by serving to them full their private objectives. If you’ve got performed Xenoblade Chronicles 3 on the Nintendo Switch, it is a related factor the place robust interpersonal relations could confer particular advantages in battle.

For all the sport’s give attention to folks, you would possibly suppose that it is compensating for janky fight or poor exploration. Wrong and mistaken. The fights I took half in have been polished, with vibrant animations and an introduction to what’s inevitably going to change into fairly a posh, ahem, beast. Rather than bashing a monster to dying with the identical spell over and time and again, Cassette Beast’s weakest spells value nothing to make use of. Instead, they construct a meter – in any other case referred to as momentum – which costs your strongest spells so you possibly can unleash them in a fiery blaze of glory; or Bomb Bomb Blast in my case.

Baylis says the sport’s fight is impressed by Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, the place later battles will function standing results that alter your price of gaining momentum, and even strikes that “debug” your enemies and stop them from gaining momentum quicker. “We even have an elemental system, “, he tells me. “Rather than it being ‘water does twice as a lot harm to a fireplace monster’, it is like, water debuffs fireplace by extinguishing its capability to do further harm, proper”. And it goes even additional, as if fireplace hits water, it’s going to create a “therapeutic steam” which delivers “passive well being regen”.

I did not get to check out this elemental system, however I did get to potter away from the opening city and encounter just a few obstacles. Namely a carry that I activated by plopping onto a stress plate and a niche that I’d use a glider to swoop over. These could sound like small issues, nevertheless it was good to see some physics applied into the top-down exploration to present it some extra depth. Baylis talked about that the sport’s being made on the Godot Engine, an up-and-coming open supply engine that is allowed them to make a recreation that feels larger than a two-man staff. More than that, although, it is enabled them to riff off nostalgia and faucet into how they keep in mind these kinds of video games being after they have been younger’uns.

But the sport’s sunny demeanor hides a darkish secret. Right on the finish of the demo, I steered my character into an underground tunnel which quickly opened into an deserted subway station. Then actuality glitched and tore and blam! A menacing Archangel crackled into existence and with it, a sudden drop in environment from “Ah, that is good!”, to “Oh god, oh god”. The complete encounter jogged my memory a little bit of Undertale and the way its completely satisfied veneer hid a darker undercurrent. And it introduced me much more on board with the sport’s story and simply why everybody had been trapped in New Wirral. Clearly, there’s much more happening than recording monsters and I need to know extra.

A battle between myself, my AI bud Kayleigh, and the Archangel ensued. At first it appeared hopeless, with all of my assaults barely scratching the Archangel. Until Kayleigh and I fused right into a mega-powerful monster and batted them out of existence. Again, all of it performed into the sport’s give attention to folks, as Baylis defined that they needed to discover what it meant to fuse with an individual. What’s neat is that constructing relationships along with your social gathering members will imply tremendous fusions will get stronger.

The battle with the Archangel signalled the tip of my time with Cassette Beasts, a beautiful monster-collecting RPG with a character-driven twist. It stays certainly one of my highlights from Gamescom, not solely as a result of it was totally charming and nice enjoyable, however as a result of Baylis’ ardour shone by way of as I performed the demo alongside him. Keep an eye fixed out for this one.