Cassette Beasts: yo wanna check out my pokérap mixtape

[Kirin]

its Angelic Attack, Frustrum Cull

I love this so much. (Frustum culling is a 3D computer graphics concept that basically discards all objects outside an intended viewing area.) And of course it’s color scheme is RGB.

Feels like this guy and some of the other angels really need animated gifs or something to fully appreciate. I suppose I could probably find a YouTube compilation or something.

 

[Kalir]

ALICE
WONDERLAND'S EXILED QUEEN

The style changes don't stop, do they? Alice here has a design that looks almost kinda like a humanoid figure made from cutout art (with a special focus on the kind of art one might see on playing cards) but with a few details that add even more of the "incorrect" vibe we've come to expect of the Archangels. Like, say, the iconic heart replacing her entire face, or the isolated black wing sticking right out of her middle, or the foot that looks more like a lamp. In a way, it's like Alice wanted to represent herself as a beautiful princess, but only had the same kind of understanding of the concepts involved as a LLM. Which is cool (when it's done intentionally like this). However, despite what the name and title imply, this particular Alice has more in common with the Queen of Hearts than with Lewis Carroll's curious protagonist. As the incarnation of ego, Alice delights in having visitors to her domain, insofar as they can be toyed with to her heart's content and then freely discarded afterwards. To that end, her domain is full of the kind of hazards as depicted in her original story, complete with the meals that drastically change your size, and themed encounters with monsters like Queenyx or Ripterra.

Once you get to fighting her, she uses that same gimmick in the fight, changing "stance" each turn. Eat Me applies the Inflated status to herself, lowering her evasion but boosting her offense and defense, while Drink Me applies Deflated to her, doing the opposite. She's got a pretty versatile moveset including Call For Help (which summons the kind of monsters you found in her station), Waterworks, Mountain Smash, Sticky Tongue, Toy Hammer, and Guzzle Fuel as a way to deplete your AP. This culminates with her Angelic Attack, High and Mighty, which she uses just after Eat Me to literally crush your team with her body for massive damage. For best results in this fight, you'll want to be flexible with your moves, having both inaccurate powerhouse moves like the starters' signature attacks, and moves that can't miss like Galactic Beatdown or anything backed by Sure-Fire.

 

[Kalir]

ROBIN GOODFELLOW
MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Hell yes! Look at this creepy dude! Robin Goodfellow, also known more commonly as Puck, is a trickster fairy from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The depiction here primarily borrows from the appearance of the play's Nick Bottom, cursed by Puck to have the head of a donkey, but the depiction also pulls from the watercolor style of a medieval bestiary, like the good ol' Bayeux Tapestry. A more on-point vibe for the character you will never find, and I'm not even done with the praises yet. See, the bestiary does not mince words. Like Shining Kuneko, and unlike Alice, Robin Goodfellow is specifically highlighted as an Archangel with a singular, specific point of origin, the above-mentioned play. And that book he's holding? That's a collection of Shakespeare's works. Just like Kuneko, Robin Goodfellow, ordinarily a rather lighthearted scamp of a character, figured out that he was a construct from someone else's works. Unlike Kuneko, he lacked the opportunity to reconcile with their creator. Instead, he became embittered at his fate, already fully penciled. And misery loves company, so he set about finding someone much like himself to ruin the life of with this information, in such a way that only the incarnation of theatrics could do.

Incidentally, do you recall Viola, the partner with Spirouette that I wasn't willing to go over fully at the time, and who had a very Shakespearean dialct? YEAH THERE'S A REASON FOR THAT! Viola is the protagonist of another of Shakespeare's works, specifically Twelfth Night. In that play, Viola of Messaline ends up shipwrecked, and takes on the guise of a man in order to discover what has become of her brother Sebastian, who she got separated with after the shipwreck. Here, Viola's arrival on New Wirral, much like the incident that starts Twelfth Night, has her assume her brother must have washed up on the shores as well, which is why she refuses to join the player initially. However, Robin Goodfellow, taking the guise of Sebastian as a phantom, lures Viola to the shipwreck of the Titania to tell her the truth, with the book he holds as hard evidence. Unlike Robin Goodfellow, though, Viola refuses to hold that her fate is so written. After all, whose to say the player isn't but a myth in her own time's stories? Only fitting given who she is, honestly.

Robin Goodfellow puts her words to the test as he then engages you in a fight. Much like his appearance in A Midsummer Night's Dream, his preferred tactic is inflicting Sleep with Fairy Dust or his Angelic Attack, Fairy Horde, and then following up with the Night Mare attack that only works on Sleeping characters. Without a bag full of Sleep Cures or a team of monsters built to handle the effect, you'll quickly find yourself unable to act no matter how powerful you are. Fortunately, if you can shrug off the effect, Robin Goodfellow only uses Smack and Trick as his other attacks. It's a cool conceptual fight and one of the most impressive Archangel stories yet, if perhaps overly binary as a challenge.

 

[Kalir]

MAMMON
HEAD LANDKEEPER

The hits just do not stop! The depiction of Mammon seen here, composed of an artsy cutout collage of a human(?) face, honestly to me looks like the kind of cover art one might find on a dreary finance magazine whose central piece is about an "exciting" new strategy emerging in today's stock market. And, of course, that's exactly the kind of being Mammon is, and that name was absolutely not pulled out of a hat. "Mammon" has had its roots in language as far back as Aramaic and then some, representing wealth and money, and Biblical scholars likened the concept into an actual demon, a personification of greed and avarice that corrupts the hearts of humanity. There are countless depictions in popular culture of a being by the name of Mammon as some kind of wealth-affiliated demon or character, ranging from The Alchemist to Kill Six Billion Demons. Hell, even Mr. Burns lives at the intersection of Croesus and Mammon Streets. This version of Mammon, described as the incarnation of capitalism, represents the "discipline" of seeking increasing levels of profit at the Malthusian cost of everything else, including human suffering.

In fact, Mammon is the most active Archangel in the affairs of New Wirral, albeit through its agents, the Landkeepers. These guys effectively serve as the Team Rocket analogue of the game, lurking around as parasitic real estate dealers, and they're the main target of Eugene's personal sidequest. The way he describes them at first makes them sound like vampires (right down to not inviting them into your house) and he's not exactly keen on dismissing that assumption, but the fact remains that throughout New Wirral, these shells of Mammon are lurking around, trying to install their predatory system wherever they can. You and Eugene track down and break into their offices all over New Wirral until one of them invites you to the Landkeeper HQ, which isn't a train station like every other Archangel lair, but a submerged stone tower of Mammon's own design. Here you actually have the chance to speak with Mammon, who continues to set themselves apart by speaking much more cordially than every other Archangel yet seen, including not talking in all caps. In fact, Mammon claims that its desires and those of humanity, including Eugene, are one and the same. It even likens Eugene's single-minded devotion to his cause of justice as similar to that of his Landkeepers' single-minded devotion to infinite financial growth. Only fitting, after all, since capitalism works best by making you feel like you need it, like it's the natural order of things.

As an opponent (because that speech isn't enough to stop you or Eugene from fighting them), Mammon carries their theme harder than any other foe, with the most unique moves in the game. The only universal attack they have is Copper Chop, which is just part of their toolkit in setting up to bulldoze you through sheer wealth. Market Freeze applies an Ice Coating to you, letting Copper Chop break down your defenses, and Leverage boosts Mammon's offenses at a cost to their defenses. Similarly, Loss Leader is a powerful attack that costs them a bit of health to use, and if things get too dicey for Mammon, they can always self-heal with Too Big To Fail. They're not alone in the fight either, with Margin Call summoning a Jormungold to its side. And finally, there's its Angelic Attack, Market Crash, depicted by what else but a stock market graph arrow plummeting onto you for bighuge damage.

The devs have had an Archangel Mammon of sorts appear in Lenna's Inception too. In that one, the Chairman operates a bank that provides such profitable business that they are able to deprive the ruling kingdom of its guards and treasury in one fell swoop, and wields such weapons as Bull Market (firing a stampede of golden bulls at their foe) and Consolidation (the usual Ganondorf tennis match but consisting of a giant wad of coins that break off and can be collected after each hit). Those might not be the actual names of those attacks but I'm gonna call them that because it fits, y'know? The point is, there is so much cool stuff here that adds up to one of the best love-to-hate Archangels in the game.

 

[That Old Chestnut]

Yeah, out of all the Archangels, Mammon is my absolute favorite.

 

[Kalir]

LAMENTO MORI
DREAMS OF DEATH

Another standalone Archangel that isn't connected to anyone's personal sidequest (since we've now covered all of them). Lamento Mori's style goes more for Renaissance-era medical diagrams, as a distorted skeletal being with a strange star-like emblem between its antlers. Kinda looks like Khepri in that way, now I look at it. However, the comedy of Lamento Mori is of a very different flavor to me, because this Archangel, the "latest" incarnation of the fear of death, has customized its train station layer into a non-Euclidean Lost Woods style maze, where it drops any possible visitors and then proceeds to taunt them with death threats the whole way through (customized gravestones at the return room included of course). The path to get out of the maze is the Konami Code, as revealed by two torn pages stained with blood. The upshot I have of all of this is that Lamento Mori, despite being a relatively powerful Archangel for its age... is functionally just a teenage edgelord trying to look cool and badass. Everything about its depiction ingame says as much to me and I find it incredibly funny. Tiny nerd baby that just so happens to be a towering super skeleton.

This carries over to its fighting style too, of course. Its got by far the least focused moveset of all the Archangels and no cohesive strategy in it, purely operating on the vibes of "what looks the most like skeleton death attack". Which means their basic moves are all stuff you can already get, like Beast Wall, Bone Cannon, Life Absorb, and Ritual, which is kind of like a stall build if you left out all the damage over time. And its Angelic Attack is not only just a burst of high single target damage, it's just called "Death Ray". Apparently this is one of the first Archangels the devs designed and they were still getting their sea legs for how to make fights work, so while conceptually that all sounds like it fits together, Lamento Mori is one of the easiest Archangels to defeat. Anyway I love this dip.

 

[Kalir]

BABELITH
TOWER OF IGNORANCE

Last of the Archangels you can fight without it being a whole plot relevant thing! Babelith camps out at the very top of Mt. Wirral, one of the most inhospitable areas in the entire game where literally no one has any reason to go unless they're looking for trouble. From there, they fulfill their role as the incarnation of ignorance by saying whatever the hell entirely wrong thing they feel like. Their design is pretty cool for this concept, being a sketch of a tower with a kid's level of quality, but honestly I think having a horrible David Dees style photoshop would fit the vibe a lot more (and I completely understand why that wasn't used as inspiration because don't look up David Dees at work the dude was antisemitic in some extreme conspiracy theorist ways). The kid sketch style works really well with the mishmash of elements that are just kinda... there, without a good reason. It's got four simple L shaped legs and similar fingers (which don't show up on dark mode very sad), a mouth where its stomach would be, it's got a hovering crown and moon... really the whole mess, and it is a mess (affectionate), drives home the style quite elegantly.

In fights, Babelith primarily uses the Confused status effect, which as we've discussed before can force an opponent to use a random move they have the AP for at a random (still properly aimed, i.e. damage moves towards enemies, helpful moves towards allies) target. It mostly does this with its False Illumination attack, but it has Wonderful 7 to inflict Confused or a lot of other status effects as well. It's got a bunch of other options to work with, mostly themed around the whole Tower of Babel vibe (Brick Blast, Crumble, Crystal Lens, etc.) but it does have one very unique quirk: almost every turn, it will also use the move Bad Joke, which does nothing but make a terrible pun related to some monster or another. It's a cute way to represent the whole "treats truth and lies as equally irrelevant" sort of deal it has going on, although it's entirely for flavor and I think it kinda misses. Still, pretty decent.

 

[Kirin]

almost every turn, it will also use the move Bad Joke, which does nothing but make a terrible pun related to some monster or another.

Well that's just delgihtful.

 

[Kalir]

[6:41 AM]Sophibeans: I think @pendra. brought up a really good point about Babelith, in that it is posed like a saint
[6:42 AM]Sophibeans: One arm raised in a gesture of benediction, the other holding a reliquary
[7:59 AM]pendra.: Yes! Like, it's described as a lighthouse, it wears a crown that may well be a symbol as well as a literal object, and its posing is saintly!
[7:59 AM]pendra.: its pose marks it as a mockery of wisdom. a crude cartoon of a sage.
[8:01 AM]pendra.: specifically, also, it isn't just a gesture of benediction. it is a gesture of declamation
[8:08 AM]pendra.: babelith is poised, at all times, to speak. but they know jack shit.
[8:11 AM]pendra.: https://i0.wp.com/culturacolectiva....-art-hand-postures-meaning-1.webp?w=451&ssl=1
[8:11 AM]pendra.: like so

Oh I REALLY like this bit.

 

[Kirin]

Now that it's mentioned... it *does* look like it's constantly poised to say "Well, ACTUALLY...."

 

[Kalir]

THE AMBER LODGE

An Archangel can be a building. An Archangel can be a building real good. The Amber Lodge is made in the same kind of style as most of the other buildings you could enter in New Wirral, albeit considerably glitzier and with a rectangular halo orbiting it. The design isn't especially out there for an Archangel, and I believe this to be part of the point. See, at one point during the plot of the game, the player character is sent away from New Wirral against their wishes, to a dead world with nothing in it, and it's only the appearance of the Amber Lodge there that gets the player out of trouble and back to New Wirral. The inside of the Amber Lodge is about the same as the outside, with a few people lounging around talking about nothing in particular, save for the "hostess"...

Ms. Amber here, described as the "face" of the Amber Lodge, is the only way that she communicates with you. And unlike every other Archangel, which speaks with full-screen all-caps and projects distortion across the screen to represent how outside of your scope they are, Ms. Amber talks the same as literally any other NPC does, with an expressive portrait and a dialogue box. All of this helpfulness and willingness to accommodate the player leads me to believe that if the Amber Lodge is an incarnation of any one thing, it is hospitality. In fact, this is one of only two (technically three) Archangels you do not fight in the entire game. Still a weird alien entity and all, but one that's trying to make sure that you are comfortable in dealing with it. I don't think fighting is even in her nature.

There isn't much I can say about her right now, and the design is pretty plain while still being appropriately "alien", so we will simply leave off further discussion of her until the next Archangel update. The Amber Lodge is pretty important to the central plot, but that discussion really has to wait until we meet the central plot's most important figure.

 

[Kalir]

ALEPH
RED KING OF CONQUEST

This particular Archangel might look rather plain, but he is anything but. Aleph here is the final opponent one must defeat to clear Cassette Beasts' main story, and he's visible from almost the very first instance, escaping the scene as the first train station housing the nearly-destroyed Morgante is unearthed. His design is simple for his role, being simply a humanoid in a British military uniform with a reflective triangle for a head. That simplicity belies the message of the character, which is to say "war sucks and is the root of all problems in the world". Throughout the game, as you defeat Archangels, every time you do, Aleph is there on the scene, and "recruits" the defeated Archangel by warping them through that triangular portal he has for a head. Eventually, he starts clueing in to the fact that you, the player character, are there every time this happens, and he shows up in the middle of Harbourtown to offer you a deal: free passage off the island in exchange for staying the hell out of his way. This is a deal you can't refuse, because he doesn't wait for you to accept before teleporting you to a Dead World.

Once there, the Amber Lodge turns up and explains the whole story of Aleph for you. Aleph, as the incarnation of conquest, took on the role of many a conquering ruler in his day (with specific examples he himself cites as Agamemnon, Alexander the Great, and King Arthur). He also had an entourage of other Archangels with him as he did this, including the Amber Lodge, Morgante, and the child he once had with Morgante (and then later slew because conquest is like that), Mordread. His gameplan on New Wirral is to build a new band of Archangels with which he can continue his campaign across all of reality. To put it in his words: "YOUR MOST POWERFUL THOUGHTS WOULD BRING US TO LIFE, AND IN RETURN WE'D TRAVEL TO YOUR WORLDS TO ACT OUT WHATEVER FANTASIES YOU CONCOCTED FOR US! ADVENTURES... WARS... EXTINCTION EVENTS... YOU PEOPLE LOVE THAT STUFF THE MOST, AND SO DO I!" Naturally, such a concept doesn't agree with anyone in your party, even though he offers to leave your respective worlds alone, so you throw down with Aleph at the final hidden Mer-Line station, Night's Bridge Station, which holds the only way out of New Wirral.

In the fight, Aleph's tactics mostly involve doing big physical damage with his signature multi-hit attacks, Death By 1000 Cuts or Death By 10,000 Cuts, fueled by his Prismatic passive that gives him a random coating every turn. He also uses Sharp Edges and Sharpen to further amplify the damage he deals, and his Angelic Attack, Deus Ex Calibur, is just more of the same big chunky damage, albeit this time with a single hit. The swords displayed for these attacks are the same as your fusions might be able to access with the sorta-procedurally-generated Fusion Powers, so every sword he uses is customized for whatever his current typing is, and that's pretty cool. Nothing you haven't dealt with before, and if you're keeping up with your defenses you can handle him okay... but that fight isn't the end of it. The Fusion trick your teams have used throughout the many encounters has impressed him, so he elects to give it a try with his own crew, resulting in...

ALEPH NULL
ETERNAL WAR INCARNATE

I TAKE BACK MY OFFER.

I WILL VISIT YOUR REALITY FIRST. I CAN SMELL ITS SCENT ON YOU...

AN UNBLEMISHED TIMELINE, ALREADY ON A PATH TOWARDS DESTRUCTION.

WHAT A MARVELLOUS PLAYTHING IT SHALL BE.

Yeah that's right. The final boss fuses with every other Archangel you've beaten up to this point except Morgante, where they then fight your entire team atop the Mer-Line out of New Wirral. See how many design elements you can spot from the different Archangels here! If you haven't fought a specific Archangel, their particular changes to the pattern will be gone, leaving only Aleph Null's triangular head, and red-coated sword body. And you pull out all the stops to match, as you don't just have your usual partner with you, but every partner you've recruited. It's an extremely climactic scenario, pulling out all the stops to face the most high-stakes dangerous foe you've ever met.

It gets even more over the top as Aleph Null decides to hit you where it hurts, breaking the cassette player you've been using to transform and robbing you of the monster forms that are your weapons. Once that happens, all seems lost, until Morgante chimes in and offers her aid. After all, why wouldn't the spirit of rebellion stand firm against the entity that is eternal war? Her aid gives you and your party the ability to summon her with a team-wide fusion, resulting in...

MORGANTE GESTALT
SPIRIT OF REBELLION

This is the form you take against Aleph Null for the final smackdown. It is still undeniably Morgante as the core, including her moveset, but now colored (literally and figuratively) by the humans that have invoked her. Her moveset is the same as in her rematch form, but this time, every move except Coda Morgana is named for a certain party member: Your Conviction, Barkley's Energy, Eugene's Courage, Felix's Creativity, Kayleigh's Melody, Meredith's Wit, and Viola's Determination. It's a little sad that basically everything from when you first hop on the train to fight Aleph Null is scripted with no real chance of failure, and all you need to do in this fight is use Coda Morgana to win, but that doesn't mean it's not COOL AS HELL.

Aleph, in all his many layers, is an extremely unsubtle critique of empire at its worst, and I love him for that. He's a fun villain that starts out campy and gets more and more threatening as he starts revealing what he can do, and the final showdown of Cassette Beasts is absolutely beautiful. I love this game.

 

[That Old Chestnut]

Look at my king all dressed in red
I-ko, I-ko, un-day.
I betcha five dollars he'll kill you dead,
jock-a-mo fee na-né.

 

[Kirin]

ALEPH NULL

I literally said “haha, yes, of course!” when I saw this powered-up name. Beautiful.

 

[Kalir]

OH YEAH BY THE WAY THIS GAME GOT THE MULTIPLAYER UPDATE SO THATS COOL

 

[Torzelbaum]

It's got four simple L shaped legs and similar fingers (which don't show up on dark mode very sad)

But you should be able to see them if you open the image in a new window.

 

[Kalir]

HELIA
PROCESS OF FUSION

Still a few more Archangels to discuss here. Helia's design isn't that outlandish by Archangel standards, as they're really only some more 3D graphics (albeit with harder borders than Mourningstar) depicting a solar light surrounded by two orbiting rings decorated with eyes. There's two major inspirations here: first, the Bohr model of atoms, with the nucleus surrounded by orbiting electrons, and second, the class of angel known as a 'throne', with the wheels of eyes. It's a really elegant blend here that honestly feels more like a standard collectible monster than basically any other Archangel we've encountered. Helia is only discovered postgame, as part of the event that starts spawning Anathemas as Unstable Fusions across the land. The Rangers, you included by this point, find the source as a secret Power Station hidden in Dino Quarry, which looks to be a research lab full of discarded notes on fusion, both of the monster sort and the nuclear sort. You do fight her at first, but afterwards you can get some answers about the situation at hand, so Helia is at least one of the nicer Archangels.

Helia is unique among Archangels in that she actually has a typing, which is obviously Fire. She also possesses NO unique moves: lots of thematic moves like Galactic Beatdown, Shooting Star, Incinerate, Meteor Barrage, and Radioactive as a passive. Her Angelic Attack is Fusion Power, which works basically exactly like it does for players, being a big heavy attack with a Burn rider because of course she does. Player Fusion Attacks, of course, can inherit typings and properties from the fusion itself and can be single or team targeting, but that's not especially relevant here. When fighting Helia, you're joined by Captain Penny Dreadful, which is actually kind of an issue since she likes to run a Queenyx with both Gambit and Delegate... so she'll happily throw her single turn of Gambit to your fusion and let you take the penalty for it. THANKS PENNY.

 

[Baudshaw]

I'm half-closing my eyes writing this, because I don't want to see any spoilers. For context, I'm level 22/23, and I just finished the mall dungeon (I haven't been to the cultist town or the autumn area, and I beat 1 leader).

I like the soundtrack quite a lot (although the vocals are a bit odd), and the beasts themselves are really cool. The plot and characters are good, and the gameplay is quite challenging, even when you know all the type matchups. The game focuses a lot on the overworld, but I feel like it's more concerned with making cool navigation puzzles than actually making a realistic world.

Overall, however, it's good, and I'm hoping to beat it by the end of the month.

 

[Kalir]

I'm super glad you're enjoying it! After this particular writeup, I should be done with spoilers, per se, for a while.

THE MER-LINE

Even as the fast travel mode, Arch-an-gel! The Mer-Line isn't just this one traincar (although that is their bestiary entry); it is the entirety of the train station buried under New Wirral... or, perhaps it might be more accurate to say that New Wirral rests atop the Mer-Line. The visual design isn't the most interesting part about the Mer-Line at all, far from it. There's lots of interesting parts to be found here: this is the only living Archangel you never once fight in the course of your time in the game, for example. Or that the Mer-Line doesn't have a "cry" the same way every other monster and Archangel does, but instead persistently activates the rumble feature on your controller if you're using one while viewing its bestiary page. And while it doesn't personally attack you, it DOES have the responsibility of bringing in new Archangel arrivals every time you're about to fight one. But the most interesting thing is that the Mer-Line almost never directly talks to you: on the rare occasion they must address the player, they do so with their servant...

MAGIKRAB

That's right! All this time there was a secret third remaster of Traffikrab that you didn't know about! Magikrab as a character isn't much different from the above stated role, in that they are a servant to the Mer-Line. As a monster, they're actually the original form of Traffikrab from before traffic cones were a thing! I do think the wizard hat is a pretty decent replacement, but it just doesn't mesh as well with the eye and carapace as the traffic cone does. Still, if you want a Magikrab buddy as your own teammate, you can get one! It's very hard though: you have to record a specifically-Astral bootleg Traffikrab! Once you do, it will eventually remaster into a Magikrab, becoming a potent hybrid offense monster with reasonable ranged defense and a slew of new Astral moves to play with, including Shooting Star, Meditate, Ritual, and Galactic Beatdown. Not that there's a lack of options for that, per se (Shining Kuneko comes to mind) but hey! Magikrab's cute.

 

[Baudshaw]

I made a strange choice during this game

Spoiler: Spoilers

I didn’t know the partners had unique bonuses, so I just swapped the ‘signature beasts’ around. For example, I had Kayleigh’s signature beast and Meredith’s signature beast on the same team. I was just swapping things around.

 

[Baudshaw]

Spoiler: Endgame

The fusion material shopkeeper is the actual champion?? And married to Ianthe? That’s funny

 

[Kalir]

LENNA
HERO OF ANOTHER STORY

Hey, doesn't this Archangel look familiar? Yeah, that's the protagonist of Bytten Studios' previous game, Lenna's Inception, available as a postgame fight. The design here is more or less a direct 1:1 translation of Lenna into the Cassette Beasts artstyle. Which means none of the usual breaking of artstyle we get from Archangels but that's not what she's here for. It's just a cute callback to their previous game which I actually did an LP of go check it out. To summarize her role from that game: the land of [INSERT PROCGEN WORLD SEED NAME HERE] was supposed to be saved by Lance, the Hero of Fortitude, but due to assorted shenanigans including [checks bestiary] the game cartridge being launched into space and corrupted by a cosmic ray, Lenna ended up being the protagonist of the tale instead... despite being the Archangel within that birthed the eight Archangels responsible for guarding each dungeon. It's complicated. Either way, Lenna's appearance here is basically a way to say that Archangels don't necessarily have to be hostile to humans, and can even live as humans if they so choose. Or be a cameo thats fine too.

She fights you, but primarily to see whether you're worthy of the mantle of "hero", as opposed to just because you're existing in line of sight and should die for it. Amusingly, her playstyle is very much like that you'd expect from a Zeld-em-up protagonist, with little-to-no eldritch tricks. She prefers melee offense, with her main weapon being Heroic Blade, but she can also use her lighter to Inflame, her shield for a Parry Stance, throw a bomb with Hot Potato (which is a really strong combo in and of itself) and summon her pet allies with Whistle For Help, getting either a Cluckabilly, Jumpkin, or Scampire. She still HAS an Angelic Attack of course, in her case the area ranged attack Power of Truth. In the game she came from, that was what she needed to quest into the eight dungeons for, in order to access the endings.

 

[Kalir]

TRAPWURM

We now return you to our regular monster breakdowns, going to the Catacombs update additions shortly after the game's release. This update added a small cave area with a few unique foes to add to your roster, the first of which is this weird serpentine thing, Trapwurm. There's a lot of different design elements going into here that I'm not entirely sure fit well together, to be perfectly honest. Like, yeah, having a snake that faces its mouth upwards and open kind of like a crocodilian bear trap is a very fun concept, and it ambushes you on the field much like Undyin does for fights, but it also looks... very weird for it to be walking around on two legs despite being coiled up, and the jaw is just kind of sticking out of the weird jester outfit immediately in the middle of the coil. I dunno, this one just doesn't spark joy for me. I can see what it's going for and appreciate it conceptually, but I'm just not feeling its execution.

Trapwurm is focused heavily on melee offense, to no one's surprise, giving it a statline not unlike Mascotoy. Despite being Earth type, its signature attack is the existing Beast move Bite, now with the guaranteed Trap Jaw passive to disable the target's evasion on a hit. It also has Custom Starter and Sharp Edges, much like Miss Mimic does, to really lean into the ambush feel of its playstyle. It also has passable defenses to work with and no shortage of tanking options like Provoke and Shield Bash, so it's plenty durable. It sacrifices ranged offense and speed to make the playstyle work, but hey, that's totally fine.

WYRMAW

I'm similarly iffy on Trapwurm's remaster, Wyrmaw. The design clearly flows a lot more elegantly than it does for Trapwurm, with the jester's collar and bells being a clear part of the whole "trap" angle its playing for, and it's now grown? a flag out of its snout as further bait for prey. The bestiary says it has to go for that angle more than before since it's too large to hide underground, and while I get that Trapwurm was supposed to lean into that a bit from the start... I dunno, it still feels like kind of an out-there pick for an extra element on an ambushing bear trap snake. I do think Wyrmaw pulls off the execution a little better since it doesn't have unnecessary legs under the whole thing. The tail and fins also look pretty nice, and I like that the tail stabs forward in tandem with a bite whenever Wyrmaw attacks. Why limit your options?

Wyrmaw, like many two-stage remasters without a branch, does exactly what its predecessor did but better. With plenty of Metal and Earth options for staying alive under pressure plus heavy offense to keep the pressure up, the only thing I think Wyrmaw is really missing is a good way to capitalize on the Trap Jaw passive. None of the attacks it uses have any major accuracy issues except for, amusingly, the 50% proc rate of Trap Jaw itself. Only real options it has are AP Steal and Hypnotize, and those are nice options, but I was expecting something more like... Stab In The Dark, y'know? Ah well, at least they make a nice partner for someone else to pull those shenanigans while it locks enemies down.

 

[Kirin]

Feels like a bastard child of Sandaconda and Stunfisk, especially with the Earth typing! Different enough design to still be its own twist on the ideas though.

 

[Kalir]

FERRICLAW

The dilemma of spiders: they're absolutely ridiculous (affectionate) real world critters that make for an amazing inspiration for monsters, but because they are so real and Tolkien got so traumatized by one he put a giant murder spider in his most influential work, the fear:commonality ratio is more skewed for them than for almost any other creature in existence. As such, monster collectors that feature spiders have to skew them pretty heavily away from the real world basis. So to that end, we have the Metal type Ferriclaw here, which is more beetle-like than spider-like. While I do like the beetle body and the head consisting solely of paper-like hair concealing almost all of the face, the obvious selling point is the mask-like helmet it wears. The bestiary says that the inspiration is a multicultural phenomenon known as a "death mask" such as the famous likeness of Tutankhamun, which Ferriclaw takes as a decoration from the buried civilizations it happens across as part of its habitat. So it's a tomb-raiding spider! That's cool!

Ferriclaw is a melee attacker with a few extra twists to it. For starters, it favors ranged defense over melee, but it has the unique Tripwire passive that grants it a chance to use the next move in the list when an enemy uses a melee move. The default answer most Ferriclaws use is Sticky Spray, which disables the enemy's ability to dodge (and opens up Ferriclaw to mulch them with Stab in the Dark). It can also use Web Wrap as its other unique move to inflict the Tape Jam passive, preventing the target from switching tapes while its active. Not that that, y'know, has any major effect in single player, but for PVP gameplay (hey multiplayer exists now) it's considerably stronger. As far as coverage goes, Ferriclaw's preferred elements are Metal, Poison, and Beast, but it's got plenty of coverage options to work with.

AURICLAW

Auriclaw is perhaps one of the most straightforward "the previous monster but bigger than before" remasters in Cassette Beasts, but the details make it stand out. In particular, the mask changing from rusted iron to shining gold is described as a kind of "alchemical metamorphosis". How lucky are we that we get two different alchemy-using monsters in the game that fulfill completely different roles and can work together on the same team and even fuse together? A more subtle detail is that Auriclaw grows another set of limbs compared to its predecessor, thus giving it the eight limbs necessary to qualify as a spider. Aside from that and the even spookier hair, Auriclaw is basically exactly what you expected from Ferriclaw but bigger and shinier.

Since Ferriclaw already got the offensive gameplan fully lined up, Auriclaw instead springs for an array of passives to make it better at its job. Bloodlust and Sturdy Armor keep it in play and reward it for staying in play, much like Manispear, and it has Vengeful Curse to punish people who just barrel past its weaker melee defenses, much like Queenyx and Kingrave. It also naturally picks up Grounded, which is a bit strange since gold isn't actually a resistor so much as it is corrosion resistant. And picking up a natural Poison Resistance passive on a spider monster makes too much sense. Oh well, I can kinda see what they're going for here and I can't argue that Grounded is more valuable from a meta standpoint for Auriclaw than Poison Resistance.

 

[Kalir]

PICKSIE

Oh this little guy! Lookit! This is Picksie, an Earth type that could represent a lot of fae folk but is most specifically meant to emulate a Germanic dwarf. And don't get me wrong, the Tolkien-inspired depicition of dwarves, monolithic though it is, is certainly an entertaining one, but nobody said dwarves have to be burly, bearded, and hard-headed. Picksie leans a lot more towards a kind of hybrid between LGM style aliens and elves, with its spindly limbs and massive elongated ears (kind of rabbit-like now I look), but given its propensity for tunneling through caves and catacombs to look for treasure to loot and use, it's unmistakably like a dwarf as far as personality goes. Curiously, Picksie is regarded in much the same way as monsters like Averevoir and Anathema are, as a static encounter that gets sighted in New Wirral and can be tracked down, but unlike them, Picksie is very shy and will flee if noticed, including during the initial discovery of the monster. Only fitting for something like this, really.

Picksie is a very versatile all-rounded with good stats everywhere but a special preference for speed, as well as two signature moves. The first, Treasure Dig, attempts to procure a material during the fight which the winner can claim, not unlike Pokémon's Pay Day move. It's not guaranteed, but it can turn up some pretty nice things if you're bold enough to use it during a fight against an enemy that's tougher than you. The second is Gemstone Wall, which not only works like an Earth-typed wall, but also grants the user an extra AP for every turn it's up! These two moves together give Picksie a kind of snowballing feel, where it builds up defenses and resources over time for itself or its ally before cutting loose with a heavier move. And Picksie has an extremely versatile movepool to work with, so it has a lot of possible ways you can play it.

 

[Kalir]

CHARLEQUIN

With that, we're done with the numbered monsters in the game. This new friend, Charlequin, comes from the Pier of the Unknown DLC, which doesn't give any of its monsters numbers, so I kinda have to go off the cuff to decide which critters I review where. I'm starting with Charlequin because it, more than any other monster from this DLC, feels like the flagship friend. I mean, it's a goofy little clown, representing the pierside carnival. Can't get much more cut and dry than that. It's charming enough on the surface for being a clearly defined "clown" that still has enough identity to be some kind of weird poltergeist critter rather than just a human in a colorful suit. But this clown isn't just a performer, it's also a precision bomber! That cute little button badge above its right star eye? That slides down over its eye when it's attacking, where it raises that long sleeve like it's firing a Mega Buster at its enemies. It's ready to launch fireworks and incendiaries at its foes, all while dancing and cavorting like a goofster of the highest order. That's really fun! I like Charlequin!

Charlequin is by default a Fire type, with an obvious focus on ranged combat. However, while it certainly does the Fire type gimmick well, with moves like Gasoline Spray to amplify Burn damage, one could actually consider this the closest thing we have to a natural Glitter type! It always carries a Prismatic sticker that randomly applies a coating at the end of every turn, and it has the unique move Sticker Trick, which replaces the last move the target used with the sticker Booby Trap, forcing self-damage if used. Of course, it's just as skilled at goofing off as it is at fighting, with Bad Joke and bE rAnDoM!! among its level-up sticker set.

BLUNDERBUSK

My favorite thing about the Charlequin line is that the remster question is really just a coulrophobia check. You get asked about the purpose of a clown, and can answer that they're either meant to entertain or to terrify. If, like me, you don't have coulrophobia and consider clowns to be funny and kinda misunderstood, you get Blunderbusk, which is a pretty drastic shift despite still being recognizable as the same being. It's now got a kind of candle look to it with the thick mop of hair and flame decoration (not an actual flame, it doesn't move at all) and it replaces its legs with a large bouncing ball. I do dislike that the cool star-eyes-and-scope motif is gone here, but it makes up for it by clarifying that the eyes are LITERALLY gone, it does not have eyes. It is still described as very accurate despite both this and the constant wobbling one does to stay balanced atop the ball. Blunderbusk has the heart of a true performer!

Blunderbusk has a very straightforward stat spread, being an anti-melee opponent with equally strong HP, melee defense, and ranged offense. Its moveset remains the same as it did for Charlequin, with its level-up sticker set mostly having setup and support options rather than more attacks. Things like Neutralize, Elemental Wall and Self-Destruct to make taking it down harder, and Hot Potato to deal with enemies trying to get around its strong melee defense. It's a nice reliable clown for your team, and that's nice.

FRAGLIACCI

Fortunately, if you DO have coulrophobia, you get rewarded with possibly the best name in all of Cassette Beasts. Fragliacci takes the clown motif of its predecessor in a completely different way, using it as a decorative framing for its new body, which is unmistakably a cannon. The "face" is now painted atop a cap that flips open as Fragliacci bends down to fire from the cannon, and the rest of its body is a gangly contorted mess that only debatably supports the firing here. It's a very unusual direction to take a Killer Klown, but one I'm absolutely in favor of. Slasher villains are scary and all, but imagine this thing hanging out in an abandoned carnival, off in the distance, painted-on leer flipping out of the way as it prepares a shot to turn you into dunk tank material. That's the kind of creatively creepy I want to SEE in a murder clown! I ended up with Blunderbusk from my first Charlequin on principle, but flavorwise, I'm a Fragliacci fan all the way.

Naturally, Fragliacci is all offense, pouring most of its stats into ranged attacks but being no slouch with melee damage either. The stickers it gets on level up are all offensive as well. It's got Rapid Fire, Ricochet, and Glass Cannon to give it lots of ways to hit enemies hard, plus Sure-Fire and Multicopy for setup shots if needed. And while the Charlequin line doesn't really lack for coverage with ranged attacks, Fragliacci is perfectly capable of using a pretty decent variety of melee moves as well if the situation calls for it, including Plastic Knife, Boil, and Copper Chop. Fragliacci understands the fear in your heart, and wants you to wield it as a weapon to demolish your foes. Thanks, Fragliacci!

 

[Kirin]

The theming there reminds me of Blacephalon, a Fire/Ghost Ultra Beast that's Pierrot in its design with explosion- and fireworks-themed moves. But since that's a one-off high-power 'mon with no evolution, this gets to play around with the concepts more.

 

[Kalir]

LITTLERED

The other major flagship monster for Pier of the Unknown is Littlered, which takes from exactly the inspiration its name evokes in its design. While it clearly has arms politely held together in front of it at all times, it actually uses the giant bow as its "limbs" for attacking, which is cool! It plays into the flavor of the monster pretty well: Littlered is described as something at a crossroads of personality, outwardly polite and amiable but with a bloodthirsty "inner beast" lurking beneath the surface. The glowing eyes peeking out from the hood also help to play into that angle, that's a staple spookycute look for a reason. The ears under the hood are the real deal too, and twitch every so often, so what we have here is a kind of fusion between the titular Little Red Riding Hood and the vicious wolf that serves as the story's antagonist.

This distinction carries over to Littlered's gameplan. It's a Beast type, of course, with a perfectly rounded stat spread and a sticker pool based on the fundamentals of the Beast type: Bite, Zoomies, Copycat, et cetera. It also can get the Berserker and Carnivore passives, so that "inner beast" nature is definitely reflected in gameplay. It doesn't have a lot else going for it until the remaster, which is another one with a "default" version and a version that requires a certain sticker.

ROSEHOOD

The weird thing here is that the "default" form here, Rosehood, is actually harder to get if playing blind, since the sticker needed for the other remastered form is Carnivore, which Littlered begins play with! So if you want Rosehood, you have to go out of your way to remove Carnivore first. Obviously, Rosehood is the much more straightlaced "friendly flower-picking girl" archetype, but even that gets a bit of a twist as the remaster goes from Beast to Plant type! The design is also pretty cool even as it goes more straightforwardly humanoid, since the dress kinda looks like an actual flowerbed with wildflowers growing from it. It does sadly lose the prehensile ribbon this way, but the flower basket as a new "weapon" is a silly enough change that I'm willing to accept it.

Both of Littlered's remasters go in very different directions, with Rosehood favoring support given the boosts to HP and speed, while still being able to contribute on ranged offense if needed. It gets Nurse and Poison Pollen as default level-up stickers, and has no shortage of other support tools from the Plant type to work with, including Doc Leaf, New Leaf, and Leech. It doesn't completely disregard its roots either, with access to Dog Years and Blood Donation still letting it use Beast's support tools for the better. This is a pretty cool conceptual combination of the Plant and Beast types!

SCARLETEETH

Naturally, staying with the vicious bestial aspects of Littlered ends up with you playing as the wolf of the story, depicted via Scarleteeth. The actual "wolf" body here is kind of unimaginative, especially the uninspiring lack of a mouth considering the standout feature of the wolf to begin with. That said, the tattered hood is really cool. The glowing eyes peeking out from the rags are now just spooky rather than spookycute, and the ears of the monster now are clearly separate from the place where the hood's old "ears" were, now clearly housing some manner of bone spikes. The arms are funny, too, since they look less like actual human arms and more like the rags themselves tried to form arms of their own. Maybe this thing only has two legs normally! But again, when attacking, Scarleteeth doesn't bite or claw or anything, it just... slams its arms on the ground. Missed opportunity, that. If you're telling me that this is a vicious animal form so dangerous that taking this form means giving yourself over to raw bloodlust, I expect it to live up to a name like Scarleteeth!

At least Scarleteeth's gameplay backs up that image. It's a fierce opponent with solid defenses and melee offense, lending itself well to just staying in the fight chowing down on enemies and racking up healing and stat boosts as it dishes out pain. Like, if you really wanted to, you could just give this thing Smack, Bite, and a truckload of passives that keep it in the fight as a danger to enemies, and I can't even say that'd be a bad playstyle for it. Technique is for people who have thoughts beyond "KILL", which Scarleteeth clearly doesn't. And if nothing else, making the "expected" progression to a Little Red Riding Hood critter be the wolf that killed and ate her grandma is cool on a conceptual level.

 

[Kalir]

MINORTOM

There's a few other monsters here, more than were added in the Catacombs update at least. Minortom is a fun one, being a space-themed robot consisting of nothing but a goofy rocket ship with legs and a spring-loaded head coming out of the top. It's not actually able to fly around in space, but it really really wants to. It's from a distant future Earth, having outlived the creators that mostly just had it for a theme park attraction. Nothing especially fancy here, just a good simple design from a good simple concept. Not every monster has to be tricked out with all sorts of thematic doodads. Minortom does exactly what the design needs it to do, and that's totally fine.

As a combatant, Minortom is a Metal-type melee heavyweight, sacrificing speed and ranged stats (although the ranged movepool they have doesn't hurt) to maximize its bulk. It does have access to Close Encounter, so it can self-target with it to use its much stronger melee offense on its impressive ranged roster. It's also able to use its strong defense stat offensively with the move Brace For Impact, which calculates off of melee defense and hits really hard for the AP cost at the risk of self-damage. There's a lot of cool things you can do with this monster for such a straightforward gameplan and statline on the face of things!

MAJORTOM

As predictably dull as the remaster's name is, Majortom is another one of those "exactly what you signed up for" remasters, and I do mean that as a compliment. The rocket goes to a more realistic looking space shuttle complete with two-stage rocket, and the goofy sci-fi antenna robot head has been slightly stylized with a blocky visor and headset. That visor slips down when it's about to attack, so it's another fun "targeting visor" design here. Majortoms are exactly as straightforward an upgrade in lore as well as in aesthetics, having upgraded their fuel tanks to the point where they can now reach low orbit, finally realizing the dream of every Minortom out there. I can't help but find that adorable. I do feel like space travel stuff is starting to come back into vogue of late, so Majortom probably has more than a few fans, and while I'm not gonna go that far with my praise of it, I will say that I like what this critter has to offer.

Majortom sees upgrades to all of their stats, but speed gets the biggest glowup, taking it from among the slowest of monsters to a much more average layout. The additional moveset from levelup is pretty expected across the board: Close Encounter, Galactic Beatdown, and the slightly morbid Self-Destruct. The very first sticker it gets, though, is Liftoff, a passive sticker that gives a boost to AP generation and speed... after three turns pass. Which is ADORABLE! You can literally count down the turns like 3, 2, 1, Liftoff! Majortom has enough survivability to last that long too, what with Astral Wall, Raise Shields and Sturdy Armour available in the Minortom moveset. Pack on a few high-power, high-cost moves like, say, Brace Ior Impact and Galactic Beatdown, and you're in business!