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<title>How Cassette Beasts is Much More than a Pokémon Clone | Articles | Cassette Beasts Shrine | Leilukin's Hub</title>
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<h2>Introduction</h2>
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<p>Furthermore, there are things in <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> that you would not find in <cite>Pokémon</cite> games, at least in the main series games, thanks to Bytten Studio's creativity and passion that a gigantic corporate-owned franchise like <cite>Pokémon</cite> can only dream of.</p>
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<h2>Features that Exist in <cite>Pokémon</cite> that are Done Differently in <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite></h2>
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<h3>Monster Capture Mechanic</h3>
<p>One of the most notable differences between <cite>Pokémon</cite> and <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> is their mechanics to capture monsters. In <cite>Pokémon</cite>, you catch the creatures by using Poké Balls, but in <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite>, you do not actually catch the monsters, but you record the essence of the monsters into a cassette tape.</p>
<p>A common criticism of the monster collector genre is the ethical question of essentially enslaving creatures by capturing and subjugating them into obeying you, as well as enganging in dog fighting by making the creatures fight each other, to the extent that even <cite>Pokémon</cite> tries to tackle it as the main theme of the story of <cite>Black</cite> and <cite>White</cite>, though whether the execution is effective or not is debatable. <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite>' method of recording monsters solves this moral dilemma of the genre from the get-go, because you are not actually catching the monsters in the traditional sense. In fact, Jay Baylis, artist and writer of <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> had stated in <a href="https://youtu.be/P0L-5LLT9uw?feature=shared&t=106" target="blank">a Shacknews interview</a> that their idea of recording mosnters is intended to avert the issue of basically enslaving creatures in the monster collecting genre.</p>
<p>A common criticism of the monster collector genre is the ethical question of essentially enslaving creatures by capturing and subjugating them into obeying you, as well as enganging in dog fighting by making the creatures fight each other, to the extent that even <cite>Pokémon</cite> tries to tackle it as the main theme of the story of <cite>Black</cite> and <cite>White</cite>, though whether the execution is effective or not is debatable. <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite>' method of recording monsters solves this moral dilemma of the genre from the get-go, because you are not actually catching the monsters in the traditional sense. In fact, Jay Baylis, artist and writer of <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> had stated in <a href="https://youtu.be/P0L-5LLT9uw?feature=shared&t=106" target="blank">a Shacknews interview</a> that their idea of recording monsters is intended to avert the issue of basically enslaving creatures in the monster collecting genre.</p>
<p>Gameplay-wise, a notable improvement <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> has over <cite>Pokémon</cite> when it comes to monster capture mechanics is that in <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite>, when you are recording a monster, the percentage of success rate is displayed on screen. Furthermore, a monster that is in the process of being recorded cannot be knocked out, so you can deal more damage to the monster to improve your odds of successfully recording the monster. In <cite>Pokémon</cite>, you have to be extra careful about not knocking out the Pokémon you want to catch, and when you try to catch one, you can only hope that the RNG is in your favour.</p>
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<p><cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> actually provides an in-game type chart in the game itself. You can obtain the chart by opening the Ranger Guidebook, and the type chart can be accessed during your battles. In addition, when you are choosing your moves during battles, you can see the icons that hint on the effects of your moves against your opponent.</p>
<h3>Level System</h3>
<p>In both <cite>Pokémon</cite> and <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite>, gaining experience to level up is a core part of the games' progression. However, there are differences in their level systems.</p>
<p>In <cite>Pokémon</cite>, from Generation 1 to 5, only the Pokémon you send out in battle and optionally the Pokémon that holds the Exp. Share item will gain experience after winning a battle. This means that if you want to add a Pokémon you just caught to your party, you often have to grind for experience points for the newly-caught Pokémon to catch up with the levels of other members in your party. The games starting from Generation 6 solve the grinding issue by making Exp. Share becomes an optional item that will reward the experience points you earned to all non-fainted members in your party. Starting from <cite>Let's Go! Pikachu</cite> and<cite> Let's Go! Eevee</cite>, the effects Exp. Share are present from the start of the game.</p>
<p>In <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite>, levels are instead tied to your human and your companion characters, which means that in addition to base stats, the strength of the monsters you recorded are tied to your human character's level. This means that unlike <cite>Pokémon</cite>, after you record a low-level monster and add them to your party, you do not have to spend time in grinding the levels of your monsters just to make them catch up with the rest of your party.</p>
<p>Monster tapes have their own level system in the form of the star system. When you upgrade a monster's star level, they gain new stickers. When you upgrade a monster to 5 stars, the monster will gain an additional biography entry in the bestiary, and some monsters can be remastered (the <cite>Pokémon</cite> equivalent is evolution) into stronger forms.</p>
<p>Earning experience points means not only levelling up your human player and companion characters, but also upgrading the star levels of your monster tapes. Some monsters can be remastered when being upgraded to 5 stars. It is worth noting that experience points are shared between all your monster tapes as well, including ones that have been broken (or "fainted") in battle, unlike <cite>Pokémon</cite> where fainted Pokémon cannot gain any experience points at all.</p>
<h3>Field Moves</h3>
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<p>Both <cite>Pokémon</cite> and <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> have field moves — moves that are used outside of battles and often required to access new areas of the map and explore every nook and cranny.</p>
<p>From Generation 1 to 6 of the main series <cite>Pokémon</cite> games, field moves usually take the form of HMs, though some TMs also have uses outside battles. Both HMs and TMs are items to teach Pokémon moves, and these moves take up move slots. From Generation 7 onwards, <cite>Pokémon</cite> games remove HMs, and assign field moves to certain Pokémon that you can use outside battles, so you longer need to worry about wasting move slots of Pokémon in your party.</p>
<p>In Cassette Beats, it is your human character that learn these field moves by recording certain monsters. The game will provide hints to which monsters can give you these field moves through townsfolk gossips. Since it is your human character that uses these field moves, you do not need to worry about wasting any move slots in your monster cassette tapes.</p>
<h3>Monsters with Alternate Colour Schemes</h3>
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<p>The core plot of the main series <cite>Pokémon</cite> games, except for <cite>Legends: Arceus</cite>, is about a child going on a journey and become the best Pokémon Trainer in their region by claiming the Champion title. However, the main plot of <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> is about the protagonist finding their way back home after bring transported to New Wirral, an island that exists in a different dimension from Earth and where humans from various dimensions are also transported and strended on.</p>
<p>The protagonists of <cite>Pokémon</cite> games become the new Champion of their region by defeating Gym Leaders or Trial Captains, then the Elite Four and the current standing Champion. In <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite>, the closest thing to an equivalent to Gym Leaders is the Ranger Captains, and one of the main quests involves defeating all the Captains across the map, but even then, you do not beat the Ranger Captains and become a Captain yourself for the glory of becoming the best monster battler, but to prove your ability to help the Rangers Guild to protect New Wirral and support the island's community.</p>
<p><cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> has a more mature and adult story than <cite>Pokémon</cite>. As a franchise primarily targetted at children, the main human characters in <cite>Pokémon</cite> are children, so the stories of <cite>Pokémon</cite> games are mainly about children's fantasy adventures to be the best Pokémon Trainer. On the flip side, the main characters in <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite>, including your human companions, are adults, and the game is not afraid to discuss topics and issues relevant to adulthood, particularly through the stories of your companion characters. The story of <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> is also unabashedly left-wing with anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist messages, which I frankly doubt will get explored with such authenticity in a corporate-owned mega franchise like <cite>Pokémon</cite>.</p>
<p>In addition, <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite>' story can get genuinely dark at times, most notably in the cosmic horror presented by the Archangels, the eldritch entities that you need to defeat in boss battles to gather clues about a way out of New Wirral and return home.</p>
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<h2>Features <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> Has But <cite>Pokémon</cite> Lacks</h2>
<p><cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> is not satisfied with just doing <cite>Pokémon</cite>'s core mechanics in different ways, but it also adds features that do not exist in the <cite>Pokémon</cite> games, at least in the main series games as of <cite>Scarlet</cite> and <cite>Violet</cite>.</p>
<p>In this section, I am adding a counter for the things <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> has that <cite>Pokémon</cite> lacks, to further prove that <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> is perfectly capable of standing on its own apart from <cite>Pokémon</cite>. If Bytten Studios only want to make a <cite>Pokémon</cite> clone, they did not need to do these additional things at all, but they did it anyway. If this is still not evidence of Bytten Studio's passion for their game to build its own identity, I do not know what is.</p>
<p>Even if one day the <cite>Pokémon</cite> games decide to add any of the below features, it would still not change the fact that <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> had done them earlier.</p>
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<h3>Fusions of Every Monster</h3>
<p>The concept of monster fusions by combining the designs of two monsters together are popular in the <cite>Pokémon</cite> fandom, showing up in fan art and dedicated websites such as web developer Alex Onsager's <a href="https://pokemon.alexonsager.net/" target="_blank">Pokemon Fusion website</a>. However, in the official <cite>Pokémon</cite> franchise, fusions are exclusive to very few Pokémon to create alternate forms, namely Kyurem, Necrozma and Calyrex, all Legendary Pokémon, and they can only fuse with a specific few Legendary Pokémon.</p>
<p>In <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite>, monster fusions are a defining feature both in gameplay and the lore. Any two of the 141 monsters in-game can fuse together, thus there are 19,881 fusion combination in total. The nature and origins of fusion is also explored in the game's story and lore.</p>
<p><strong>They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 2</strong></p>
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<p>In addition to having canon LGBTQ+ characters, <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite>'s voice cast also includes multiple openly LGBTQ+ voice actors, such as Allegra Clark, J. Michael Tatum, Kayleigh McKee, Liz Morey, Marin M. Miller and Risa Mei. In fact, both Captain Skip and their voice actor Marin M. Miller are non-binary and go by they/them pronouns.</p>
<p>Looking for LGBTQ+ representation in monster collecting games? Instead of waiting for corporate franchises like <cite>Pokémon</cite> to give you scraps, how about looking at indie titles that actually has canon LGBTQ+ characters like <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> instead?</p>
<p><strong>They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 6</strong></p>
<h3>Voice Acting</h3>
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<p>The <cite>Pokémon</cite> player base has various methods of changing up ways of playing the games for fun or for a self-imposed challenge, with the most popular including the <a href="https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Nuzlocke_Challenge" target="_blank">Nuzlocke Challenge</a> and randomizers. These modes of playing Pokémon games are never part of the official games.</p>
<p><cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> include custom game modes that serve similar purposes as these fan-made game mods for <cite>Pokémon</cite>: permadeath mode, similar to <cite>Pokémon</cite>'s Nuzlocke Challenge, and randomisation mode. These custom game modes can be unlocked by completing the main story or through the <a href="https://wiki.cassettebeasts.com/wiki/Cheats#Unlocking_Custom_Modes" target="_blank">cheats</a>.</p>
<p><strong>They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 9</strong></p>
<h3>Level Scaling and Enemy AI Adjustment Options</h3>
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<p>A common criticism of the <cite>Pokémon</cite> games from long-time players is the lack of difficulty settings, and even the only pair of games that actually have it, <cite>Black 2</cite> and <cite>White 2</cite>, require you to complete the main campaign to unlock. Moreover, the open-world design of <cite>Scarlet</cite> and <cite>Violet</cite> has been criticised for the lack of level scaling in opponents' Pokémon.</p>
<p>However, the settings menu of Cassette Beasts already includes sliders to adjust the game's difficulty through the level scaling and enemy AI options from the get go, and does not require you to perform extra steps to unlock, so you are free to make the game easier or more difficult as you wish.</p>
<p><strong>They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 10</strong></p>
<h3>Built-In Mod Support</h3>
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<p>Frequent releases and rushed development schedules have taken their toll on the quality of recent <cite>Pokémon</cite> titles, resulting in cutting corners like empty maps, removal of National PokéDex, etc., and in the case of <cite>Scarlet</cite> and <cite>Violet</cite>, glitches and performance issues. Furthermore, as a multi-billion dollar corporate-owned franchise, <cite>Pokémon</cite> is primarily targeted at children and meant to be able to be enjoyed by everyone, so despite a few attempts to do something new, maximising profit is still prioritised over innovation.</p>
<p>Art that tries to appeal to everyone, even if not bad, tends to be bland and reluctant to take creative risks. <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite> is another evidence that indie games can be much more creative than AAA games.</p>
<p>Therefore, if you think you have outgrown <cite>Pokémon</cite> and looking for a more sophisticated and mature monster collector game that actually treats the player like an adult, go play <cite>Cassette Beasts</cite>.</p>
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