same old story

Also shout-out to Ms. Amber and her voice actor (Allgra Clark) bc that voice is to die for

Warning: Eye Strain

Forgive the dual watermarks, I just really wanted to get a gif version of this piece done. Soooo two different things to get here it is!

I love Cassette Beasts, I have a near 100% file (Grumbles at the one achievement where I had to jump over someone) and have thoroughly enjoyed the game.

And this moment in the game, It's one of my favorites. Just this one line. Cause to me it felt like Miss Amber wasn't just talking about the in-game thing about using the cassettes to take these forms. It also felt like talking to the player... using the character as an avatar for THEM in the game.

So! Please enjoy this cobbled together gif, aaaand below the cut, the standalones without glitchy effects!

Enjoy!

Cassette beasts.

so i have played cassette beasts about halfway through, so spoilers are inbound.

for reference on where i am, i have just punched capitalism in the face, and know where every captain i need to defeat is. I just want to share my thoughts about the game so far.

-Ramtasm is a good boy. -Kayleigh is the Kaede of this game and i think she's awesome. -SPITZFIRE. ENOUGH SAID. -Meredith is my favorite party member so far. -Whenever i see Mothmanic all i can think of is angry Leif from bug fables. -I FUCKING LOVE NOWHERE MONARCH. -honestly fuck Morgante i don't trust them. -i think buffy is hot ngl. -Heckahedron is just an angry 4d cube. -Cat-5 is such a good pun and i hate it. -Eugene's honest personality and borderline self-destructive actions have captivated me/j -where the FUCK is Averevoir -i want more Alice-type puzzles with the bigger/smaller mechanic.

and that's about it. i love this game so far and i cant wait to see what comes next hi i'm back and i have slightly more info. -Ms. Amber is also hot -fuck man, this game is weird during the archangel fights -three for three with gwen ALSO being hot. maybe i'm just horny idk I HAVE BEATEN THE GAME -meredith is still the best imo -gwen what the fuck -aleph null is significantly less cool looking than the sum of it's parts. -i'm sorry morgante i didn't mean it heuhfuabkbefuai -i kinda love babbelith -who is mordread? -WHO IS MORDREAD -the new ranger recruit is definitely a furry -I WANT SUNNY AS A PARTY MEMBER SO BAD ASDKFGJHUNGAD -i want to learn the lyrics -fuck you averevoir. -i still have not beaten gwen for her afinity with being random is annoying. -i now have a gun T-Rex -i had this really weird dream that there was another hard to record beast, that looked like a brown otter badger. it was an earth type, and it's name was '???'

In Defence of the Ending of Cassette Beasts

I may write a proper essay to elaborate my thoughts on this subject better, but for now, I want to state for the record that I actually like the ending of Cassette Beasts and I think it fits the story and theme of the game.

Yes, it is bittersweet, but it is not a bad thing. A story being happy, sad or bittersweet does not inherently make the ending good or bad; what matters is how well the ending is set up, and how thematically fitting the ending is to the story. In my opinion, the Cassette Beasts ending achieves both.

Cassette Beasts' story has set up from the very beginning that the player character's goal is to find a way to leave New Wirral, and that the people who are living in New Wirral, including all the player character's partners, came from different worlds, with no one knows how to go back to their world until the player character and their party do in the ending. It makes sense that the player character's party expect they may never see each other again, because the game never says if there is a way to contact with someone else from a different world.

Even if you choose to romance a partner, every single romance option points out that you may have to split up when you return to your own worlds during their conversation where you choose to commit a romance with them, but they all also state that despite that, the time you spent together still matters (see my video compilation of the partner romance scenes). Not to mention, every partner has their own life before arriving at New Wirral, and it is neither realistic nor healthy to expect them to give up everything they knew in their world just for one person, even if you are the protagonist. So it makes sense that you and your romance option do not stay together in the ending, but that does not mean there is no point in romancing them.

Morgante says outright during your final battle against Aleph Null that humans have the ability to manifest their will to alter reality, to change the world and themselves, to the extent even cassette tapes are merely talismans to channel that will, which is proven immediately after when the player fuse with all their partners even though their cassette player was broken. Kayleigh echoes Morgante's words in the ending when saying goodbye to the player character that they do not need cassette tapes to manifest their will to change the world. Combined with the partner characters' growth during their time with the player character, the game opens up the hope the party can take what they learn from their time in New Wirral to make their lives better. This is the game's another way to reaffirm that even though you and your partners' stay in New Wirral may not be permanent, it does not mean your time in new Wirral does not matter, and returning to your world does not necessarily mean returning to the status quo either.

Cassette Beasts' story is not a choice-driven narrative (which is not a bad thing since not every game needs to have one); even choosing to pursue a romance with a partner does not change the story and just add some additional dialogue when you rest and a few extra lines in the ending (which is a good thing because I dislike it when the story or a character's "best" ending is locked behind a romance), so I am fine with the lack of option for the player to not returning to their world. That said, there is also an argument to be made that you, the player, choosing to continue to play the game, including the post-game is deciding that you still want to stay in New Wirral. Even Ms. Amber says after you defeat Aleph Null and discover the gateway to leave New Wirral that you do not have to leave right away. In that sense, the game's ending also serves as your farewell to New Wirral as the player.

I do not know if liking the Cassette Beasts ending is an unpopular opinion, because there is a possibility that not liking the ending is a case of vocal minority, but they are still vocal enough that I am compelled to write this post to defend the ending.

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR CASSETTE BEAST: POST GAME + ENDING

The ending to the game has always stuck out to me as surprisingly sad for such a goofy and silly game. After you leave, it's assumed that all of your friends go back to their realities and you never see each other again (Except for Barkley, who always follows the player.)

This is made even more heartbreaking if you were dating someone before you left. But after talking to the Mer-Line, it's clear the game is pushing you to leave. It's sad.

... But it doesn't have to be, does it?

Ms. Amber says you'll go to whatever reality you set your mind to. But what if everyone's hearts were set on staying together? And when everyone opened their eyes, all your partners were there too because you didn't want to leave each other?

Obviously the story is about New Wirral being a learning experience. Kayleigh accepting she's not a bad person for getting roped up in a cult, Felix finding his inspiration again, Eugene overcoming his fear of not being useful, Viola understanding that being a story character doesn't make her less real, Meredith learning to make friends and be accepted, Barkley finding love after his owner passed away...

... But I just think they all deserve to be happy together. After all, it's not everyday you get to transform into monsters and fuse with your best friends.

IDK call me sappy for thinking of the best-case scenario but that's how I headcanon the ending LOL.

minor lenna's inception/cassette beasts spoilers but

i know lenna being the "secret" postgame boss is just a fun cameo largely detached from the story, so they don't need to give her any deeper pretext to be there than giving you a sort of postmortem Hero's Test. HOWEVER,

i can't believe lenna went to a world where people have the technology to SHAPESHIFT INTO MONSTERS and paige had to stay home. do you think lenna told her. maybe amber didn't tell either of them because she could sense what a can of worms that knowledge would be to paige

and in the world of self indulgent thought man wouldnt it be fun to contemplate an au where lenna & paige get isekai'd to new wirral before everything happens with aleph. i actually think there's a really fun concept in lenna, being "the hero of another story", coming in as a late-game mentor for cass in their Hero Era. lenna's inception is a pretty neat, closed arc for her, but i think mentoring another hero from a different world is fertile ground for her. idk. maybe i also just want to see married paige and lenna. i think paige deserves to experience fusion. i also desire the impeccably weird vibes that would come from lenna & paige interacting with ianthe & wilma. idk i think lenna and ianthe could have some really long conversations

Fossilization — He Whose Name Was Long Forgotten (Transylvanian Tapes)

FOSSILIZATION - HE WHOSE NAME WAS LONG FORGOTTEN by FOSSILIZATION

Death has assumed numerous forms in humanity’s collective imaginary, and while the fossil is certainly evidence of something’s passing, we tend to use it ambiguously, as objective proof of death and as a way to summon the thing that once was. Big mock-ups of dinosaurs in museums of natural history, the curving forms of ammonites in beachside mineral shops, fragile mosquitoes trapped in hunks of amber — all of them invite us to see the beasts in motion, to eradicate the unthinkable sweep of time that separates us from lives turned to stone. São Paulo-based death metal band Fossilization tunes into the fossil’s manifest connections to demise (if not annihilation), and also into the object’s weirding relation to time. Long-ago, but present; distant but also in your palm, or looming before you. “Neanderthal Tomb,” the opening track of He Whose Name Was Long Forgotten, is almost too on the nose, its livid urgencies summoning one of modern humanity’s most archaic, atavistic kinfolk, and the figure of the tomb, into which all Neanderthals eventually tumbled. Species extinction? In our time of pandemic and accelerating climate change, maybe that’s not so distant a phenomenon, after all.

Fossilization plays an old-school sort of death metal (fittingly so…), which frequently slows to mid-tempo and doomy paces — no surprise there, since both members of the band also play in Brazilian doom project Jupiterian. Thiago Oliveira (guitars) and Paulo Pinheiro (drums) stick with their principal axes in Fossilization, but their playing demonstrates that they can also hurl themselves along with the most furiously fatalist of the many 1990s revivalists currently circulating grim noises via small-batch cassettes. He Whose Name Was Long Forgotten is smartly sequenced, allowing the band to strut, sprint and crawl to strong effect. “Blight Cathedral” commences with grand, elephantine riffing, deliberately expanding the drama of the music until the inevitable onslaught of blasts and growls sends the song an intense churn. The tape’s closing sequence is especially well staged, in which the title track’s chaotic intensities bottom out into the noisome, sluggard thump of “A Deplorable Epoch.”

There’s nothing particularly new here, but what else might you expect from a band called Fossilization? The music is cavernous and crunching, evoking a scrim of unpleasantly moist dust that renders a choking, claustrophobic sonic environment. “Neanderthal Tomb,” indeed. But the band plays with great verve and precision — it’s not easy to march in time with doom’s great, galumphing footfalls, then in the next measure to unleash the morbid, murderous energies of a song like “Blight Cathedral.” The duo’s backward-looking perspective accords with its interest in death metal’s traditions, the genre’s musical cathedrals to misery and rot. Somehow Fossilization manages to evoke any number of originary forms, but also to bring its brooding, gruesome songs to thunderous life.

Jonathan Shaw

Suddenly the 46 tooth cassette I had in previously seems tiny! This 50 tooth beast is where it's at (for now)! It's bigger than Amber! #spokeydokeybikes #hashtags #repairshop #servicing #oopnorth #cycling #cyclinglife #gigantichoofinggertbigcassettes (at Spokey Dokey Bikes) https://www.instagram.com/p/BvjQfx9FcVO/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=b58etmh8q636

I did not know that Allegra Clark is part of the voice cast of Cassette Beasts as both Ms. Amber and Clémence until I saw the credits after beating the main story, and it caught me off guard. I was like, "OMG, Josephine Montilyet is in Cassette Beasts too?!"

It is impressive that Cassette Beasts has a voice cast that includes multiple well-known voice actors, especially for an indie game. Bytten Studio could have just used unknown actors only or avoided adding any voice acting to Cassette Beasts at all to save costs, especially consider that the game's inspiration Pokémon does not have any voice acting for the dialogue in the main series games.

While not all dialogue in Cassette Beasts is voiced, those voiced lines help to bring the game and its characters to life.