Recent reviews by BeanMachine

This game is exactly what it sets out to be: a raiding roguelike, both unbearably cute and a rock-solid challenge. The perfect game for 2-player coop with your best friend or for a relaxing night to yourself. It does make me a bit sad that you can only advance the story playing offline, though I understand why. Absolutely worth putting on your wishlist.

TLDR: Loaded with both charm and depth, Cassette Beasts is a snappy, vibrant RPG that knows exactly what it wants to be and executes with style.

What it does right:

- Instead of individual monsters leveling up independently, the player characters have levels of their own, which is then applied to every monster form you take. Furthermore, move sets are totally customizable, letting you, for instance, raise a monster with the intent to cannibalize its moves for a monster you like better. Together, these make it incredibly easy and rewarding to experiment, since it takes almost no effort to get a new monster up to speed.

- The writing is solid, exactly the kind of lighthearted-but-not-irreverent you might expect from a creature RPG. The jokes land, the characters are likable, the moments meant to hype you up do, and occasionally it pulls out some genuine philosophy.

- The open world works surprisingly well for the system; you're heavily encouraged to run around, solve platforming puzzles for secrets, and record every beast in sight to unlock new traversal mechanics. However, you don't run the risk of missing anything, as rumors in town will highlight major objectives on your map, and you're not actually required to hit every major objective in order to reach endgame. Put together, this means that at virtually all times there'll be a new point on the map that you haven't checked out yet- probably several- so there's no risk of getting lost or bogged down.

- The music. It's really good. I still have Wherever We Are Now stuck in my head.

Things I don't love:

- The personal quests for each of your partners are great fun, but notably the relationship mechanics for each partner but the first are locked off until you've completed their personal quest- which locks off some important combat abilities. For the early game, it's a little wonky trying out new partners for this reason.

- There are only so many overworld sprites, so the game frequently will use a basic beast's sprite for what is actually an encounter with its evolved form. Furthermore, this may be an error on my part, but some monsters don't have overworld sprites, and thus can only appear as add-ons in a fight with a different enemy. This tripped me up for a while when I was hunting for Bestiary completion.

That's pretty much the worst I could muster for this game. It's a good game.

Closing thoughts:
Ultimately, Cassette Beasts doesn't wear out its welcome- if you're not interested in beating every Ranger Captain or completing the bestiary, you can easily chew through this game in 20 hours of zero fat, just pure fun. There's also a large postgame should you want more, but be warned that aside from some superbosses, it's rather grindy and unimpressive unless you're the type to really enjoy hunting for alt-color variants of monster forms.

This is one of the best creature RPGs I've seen in a long, long time, and if you have any interest in the genre, do yourself a favor and give this a try.

Short version: A gorgeous game oozing with charm that'll give your brain a light workout. For 20 bucks, you could do a lot worse.

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Long version: Most video games employ some form of resource loop, especially those with a crafting system. Potionomics is a perfect example, with the game's resource loop being "convert ingredients into potions, convert potions into money, convert money into ingredients, and each conversion takes time, of which you have a finite amount". The game, therefore, is centered around optimizing and accelerating this loop to stay ahead of the curve. If the potion contest rolls around and you're not ready, you'll be running back to an earlier save with your tail between your legs- you have tons of prep time, but not unlimited time.

The island of Rafta is bright and gorgeously realized, with a flavorful cast of NPCs who pull double duty as crucial vendors and buddies to hang out with. The character writing is constantly charming, frequently goofy, and sometimes genuinely insightful. None of the NPC plotlines are that subversive- they're pretty unilaterally a 10-rank "introduce the character->unexpected quirk->character has problem->character will solve problem on their own terms" affair, but it's cute enough that it doesn't stale- and the drip feed of new abilities they give you sweetens the pot dramatically.

Potion crafting is probably where most players will spend the lion's share of their playtime, staring at a cauldron trying to figure out how best to balance the ratio between green and yellow magic. Generally, brewing is less a question of "I wonder what'll happen" and more of "how do I best get value out of what ingredients I have on hand"- the game makes outcomes quite clear in advance. Getting a fancy new ingredient added to the shop made my mind race, and the feeling of freedom at unlocking a newer, fancier cauldron was always a rush.

Once your potions are ready, you can take part in a haggling minigame to pump the value of the potion further, and this is arguably the game's highlight. The card game battle system feels great to wrap your head around, and cards are varied enough to allow for a variety of (varyingly effective) unique playstyles. This haggling minigame comes back at the "boss fight" of each week, trying to convince the judges that you're the best potioner around. These contests are stylish, snappy, and almost over too soon.

If the game has an issue, it's that the difficulty increases linearly while the player's ability increases quadratically- not only do you unlock new tools, moves, additional brewing slots, and what have you, but the average player, well, becomes better at the game as they play it. This compounds further when mechanics such as gardening and the vending machine let you start automating steps in the resource cycle, making time even less constraining. Factor in random events that let you leapfrog way out ahead of the curve, and ultimately the game starts out fairly challenging, but past the midpoint, most opposition is little more than a speed bump- especially since the game does not continue past the final boss, obviating the need to stockpile ingredients or money in late game. Overall, the game demands competence from an early stage, but never quite manages to test the player's mastery.

Any further comments would devolve into splitting hairs- the game could really use a filter option to sort your potions, the music is wonderfully relaxing, value-boosting events prooobably shouldn't stack like that, Muktuk is the best- but honestly I think this game is overwhelmingly worth a try if you're into both cute witches and number puzzles.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll rant intensely that that is NOT what an 80% chance means.

This game is a lot of fun, but is also very complex. It has its reputation for a steep learning curve for a reason, but if you can get past that by playing bot matches (or having a friend help you as I did) it's most definitely worth your time.