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Just washed ashore in New Wirral, have you? Wondering what awaits you down the path in Harbourtown and beyond? Cassette Beasts, on its surface, may seem like little more than a redressed Pokemon-like. But don't let that potential first impression fool you - there's a lot going on here, much of it rather unique to Bytten Studio's fresh take on the genre.

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To help acquaint you with this island-out-of-time, we've drummed up a list of basic tips. Follow our advice, and you'll be making impressive inroads solving the mysteries of New Wirral in short order.

Updated on June 2, 2023 by Quinton O'Connor: We've gone back to this guide and added a few more tips to enhance your Cassette Beasts experience!

Rumor Has It

Cassette Beasts Gramophone Cafe

Throughout your adventure, the residents of Harbourtown will periodically have exclamation marks above their heads. Sometimes, this leads to side quests. More often than not, it involves rumors, which frequently regard the whereabouts of important characters.

Since you'll be taking on 12 Ranger Captains, eight Archangels, and a slew of other conflicts, these rumors can often make the difference when searching for pivotal NPCs. Simply put, some people in New Wirral are so well hidden, you'll have a very tough time if you don't routinely check for new rumors after accomplishing various goals. For instance, we've found that the NPC seated at a table in the Gramophone Cafe often has the scoop on more Ranger Captain locations whenever we've beaten one.

Keep Crumble

Cassette Beasts Standing Outside Gramophone Cafe

Some Cassette Beasts, including at least certain evolutionary possibilities for your starter, can learn a move called Crumble. It doesn't do any damage, and in fact, it does absolutely nothing if the opponents don't have any elemental walls up. But as you'll quickly learn, those walls, when they are up, can be a right royal menace.

Crumble not only breaks them in one blow no matter how many more hits they can take, but it even dishes damage proportionate to the strength of the wall at the time. We've taken huge chunks of health off of everything from random encounters to Archangels with Crumble - if you get it, keep it.

You Are Your Own HMs

Cassette Beasts Near An Electricity Line

In older Pokemon games, players acquire HMs - Hidden Moves - to teach specific Pokemon. These moves include breaking boulders with Strength, striking down trees with Cut, swimming the seas with Surf, and so forth. In Cassette Beasts, recording (capturing) certain monsters actually teaches you, the main character, how to perform various feats vital to progression through the story.

Rather than hitting you with Cassette Beast species names, we'll keep things simple. Look for a creature that speeds around like a rocket, a seal-like aquatic mammal, and even a pumpkin-like monster. This trio will let you blitz across the map (breaking boulders like Strength!), swim gracefully (albeit at the cost of stamina), and ascend walls like a plant. These and more will get you pretty much anywhere.

Traffikrab Expressway

Cassette Beasts Tutorial Fast Travel

New Wirral might not be the next big Elder Scrolls world, but it's still a sizable place. The island takes a long time to traverse by traditional methods, and there are plenty of barriers along the way if you haven't mastered certain skills yet. Thankfully, a friendly pal named Traffikrab will set himself up at various train stations as you unlock them, which become fast travel destinations similar to Gramophone Cafe back at Harbourtown.

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Even better, some of the train stations he opens up will be connected to seemingly unrelated locations, like a certain strange town Kayleigh's personal quest eventually points you toward. Utilize these to your heart's content, as there's no resource used when fast traveling.

Breath Of New Wirral

Cassette Beasts Rock Puzzle

Pardon the nod to Zelda in this one's header title - we realize Breath of the Wild wasn't the first game to do it - but not unlike that game's vast setting, New Wirral is a diverse overworld filled to the brim with puzzles. Some are as simple as moving one rock into formation with the rest. Others involve tapping into numerous HM-like abilities at once.

What they all have in common is that the tools you'll need are always somewhat close by. In the rock example, the stray stone is one 'screen' or so to the west of the rest. Whenever you see something puzzle-esque, be on the immediate lookout for things that can be brought over to unlock something. Also keep an eye out for levers, which can unlock gates or treasure chests.

Forget What You Know

Cassette Beasts Air Conduction

Cassette Beasts has a rather intense and at times complicated system for type-based interplay that frankly makes Pokemon's look barebones by comparison. That's not a knock on Pokemon - there's something timeless about a chart-based system in which various types will perform better or worse against others. It's somewhat simple, and it works very well.

It's just that Cassette Beasts is less interested in 'Fire is weak to Water, but strong to Grass, which is weak to Water' and more into real-world physics. Elemental attack types play just as large a role, because all the game's types interact with each other in more scientifically accurate ways. Follow the tutorials and practice as much as you need to hammer down the basics of your active party's move varieties. Don't try to memorize absolutely every interaction at once - it's generally unnecessary.

Center Yourself On The Ranger Center

Cassette Beasts Harbourtown on Map

Early on, you will be introduced to the Ranger HQ Center in Harbourtown. While you won't be able to tap into many of its services right at the start, this will change as you take the Ranger challenge and seek out captains to defeat in your quest to prove your strength to the organization.

Keep checking back here as you acquire Fused Materials to trade for all kinds of nifty upgrades with the kindly receptionist at the front counter. These upgrades will increase the number of restorative items you can carry, plus plenty of other perks, like the Gym Pass which lets you redistribute your main character's base stats. Base stat redistribution affects all of your Cassette Beasts' performance, so you can tailor your play style accordingly.

Save Fusions For Big Fights

Cassette Beasts First Archangel

Another early-game lesson worth further explanation regards Fusion, a mechanic which allows your active Cassette Beasts to fuse with your current partner's. As you might expect, this fused creature is quite strong, sturdy, and capable of delivering real damage to the opposition.

Save these for big battles. Archangels are ideal, but Fusion Beasts found in the wild (those eerie, shadowy, Umbreon-looking things in the overworld) can often get tough as well. As a general rule, most Ranger Captains aren't actually all that difficult by comparison.

Co-Opt A Co-Op Approach

Kayleigh, Meredith stand beside each other at the cafe in Cassette Beasts

Cassette Beasts may come across as a solely solo affair, and really, it's best to play it as such for a while to really get your bearings on the game. But the game is fully playable in co-op mode from about ten minutes into the main story onward. As much fun as it is to control both active monsters yourself every battle, it can be a whole new can of fun to see what a friend does with one of them in your stead.

If you're not sure how to make this magic happen, consult our step-by-step guide!

Played-To-Order

Cassette Beasts Game Modes

This is jumping ahead a bit, but Cassette Beasts features a bevvy of cool custom game modes designed to tweak the experience, primarily for veterans of the game looking for a neat twist on the established formula. You could dabble with this your first time, but we recommend holding off to experience Cassette Beasts in its 'native' form.

In any case, if you enjoy your playthrough we strongly encourage you to check out the custom game modes! They can really up the challenge in fun ways, and the random seed is especially intriguing.

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