DLC for Cassette Beasts
Charge your oversized flashlights and steel your nerves for "Pier of the Unknown", a new DLC for Cassette Beasts! This DLC download includes: A new storyline to seek and unravel A spooky new location with three carnival-themed attractions to uncover and explore TWELVE new monsters that can only be found and collected within Brightside Pier Five new character costume options This new addition to Cassette Beasts brings the total monsters to 141, meaning you can now unlock 19,881 fully imagined fusions!
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This was a really good expansion. It wasn't as big as I expected, however, I think that what it does provide is serviceable enough to flesh out an already excellent game.
With this DLC, you get 3 new dungeons, a boss fight, and approximately 20 new creatures to add to your collection. The new hub is themed after an amusement park, and the new character guiding you through the park is equally likable and appealing. The creatures are also pretty great and add some new mechanics to play with.
It is short, as I was able to beat it after a couple of hours, and there is not much else it adds from there which is the biggest disappointment. It's understandable why they had to do this, since not everyone will want to purchase this DLC so it can't have any tangible changes to the original game, but I would've liked to see more of an effect on either the lore or story.
Despite all that, it is still a fun time and a great addition to an equally excellent game. If you loved the original and are okay with spending the money, this will give you more of that great experience.
With this DLC, you get 3 new dungeons, a boss fight, and approximately 20 new creatures to add to your collection. The new hub is themed after an amusement park, and the new character guiding you through the park is equally likable and appealing. The creatures are also pretty great and add some new mechanics to play with.
It is short, as I was able to beat it after a couple of hours, and there is not much else it adds from there which is the biggest disappointment. It's understandable why they had to do this, since not everyone will want to purchase this DLC so it can't have any tangible changes to the original game, but I would've liked to see more of an effect on either the lore or story.
Despite all that, it is still a fun time and a great addition to an equally excellent game. If you loved the original and are okay with spending the money, this will give you more of that great experience.
I don't regret buying this, as I absolutely loved the base game and still managed to get enjoyment out of this DLC. That being said, I can't deny that I'm a little disappointed. While Brightside Pier has a great aesthetic—love the whole abandoned amusement park theming—it ends up lacking many of the aspects I loved about the base game: fun characters, a lively world, and battles against actual people. Gwen is a pretty decent character, with her story being a neat addition to the base game's narrative, but she's not really enough to single-handedly carry this whole experience. The Pier just feels kinda lonely and boring, and while I understand the former was likely the intention, I personally don't think it works well with Cassette Beast's general vibe.
There is a big focus on platforming and exploring unique dungeons, and while I did like the concept of these dungeons, I really do not enjoy the platforming in this game. The camera angle, physics and I guess general floaty-ness combine to make precision platforming a pretty unpleasant experience. This was a small issue I had with the base game, but it becomes exponentially bigger here with the sheer amount of platforming thrust upon you.
The new beasts are kind of neat, however it honestly really bothered me how they're not given numbers—the remasters aren't even listed in the right order. This probably won't matter to most people, but it ended up hurting the appeal of collecting them all for me.
It was also a bit of a shame that there was no new vocal music this time around, though I'm willing to let this slide as I imagine the singer either wasn't available on short notice, or it was simply too expensive for a lower cost expansion.
I also kind of hoped this would maybe add some new fun bonuses to the base game island similar to Pokemon DLC, like new basic challenges or fun things to do with characters, but in retrospect that might have been an unreasonable expectation.
All in all I'd still recommend this to fellow Cassette Beasts lovers, but I really hope if they do future expansions, they capitalise more on the stronger aspects of the game.
There is a big focus on platforming and exploring unique dungeons, and while I did like the concept of these dungeons, I really do not enjoy the platforming in this game. The camera angle, physics and I guess general floaty-ness combine to make precision platforming a pretty unpleasant experience. This was a small issue I had with the base game, but it becomes exponentially bigger here with the sheer amount of platforming thrust upon you.
The new beasts are kind of neat, however it honestly really bothered me how they're not given numbers—the remasters aren't even listed in the right order. This probably won't matter to most people, but it ended up hurting the appeal of collecting them all for me.
It was also a bit of a shame that there was no new vocal music this time around, though I'm willing to let this slide as I imagine the singer either wasn't available on short notice, or it was simply too expensive for a lower cost expansion.
I also kind of hoped this would maybe add some new fun bonuses to the base game island similar to Pokemon DLC, like new basic challenges or fun things to do with characters, but in retrospect that might have been an unreasonable expectation.
All in all I'd still recommend this to fellow Cassette Beasts lovers, but I really hope if they do future expansions, they capitalise more on the stronger aspects of the game.
This review contains spoilers
I had a blast playing through this DLC and it was worth every minute I waited (since June haha) and every penny I spent! The moment I arrived on the pier the atmosphere was immaculate. Every area has interesting gimmicks (that I kinda cheesed due to having Averevoir Flight) and absorbing atmosphere (espicially the space area which brought to mind that one stage from Kirby and the Forgotten Land).
Gwen was a very intriguing character that gave off suspicious "hiding something from the player" vibes from the start. I'm not complaining, but I knew she was an Archangel from the moment I saw her. Her backstory with being conditoned by Morgante and Aleph to create the Infernal Engines out of humans was the highlight of the DLC for me. Gwenivar's design went so hard for me and my heart broke for her during the second phase of the fight due to her construcing stopping her from making more Infernal Engines as preventing her from having any friends as they all left her after The Alephgante Incident. I will gladly visit her at Brightside Pier again (well I kinda have to since I still have to find more tickets and record Umbrehella)!
Also, Joel Baylis strikes again with banger tunes ranging from the unsettling music box themes of the Pier to the guitar-shredding Infernal Engine battle themes to the melancholic piano of the second half of Gwenivar's fight. Truly a jack of all trades.
Two major complants I've seen about this DLC is that it's too short and Shelby Harvey has no vocals during the boss fights. IMO the second one is more of a QoL thing, I'm not sure if she was available to record vocals for the boss themes so maybe that's why she didn't appear. The first one was kind of expected as there was only a 4 month time frame between when this DLC was announced and when it was released, but just because it is short doesn't mean that it is bad. I feel like this DLC was a treat from Bytten Studio as part "thank you for supporting our game" and part "we haven't given up on Cassette Beasts just yet" considering that this is only the first DLC and the devs are working on multiplayer (as of when I'm posting this review).
Gwen was a very intriguing character that gave off suspicious "hiding something from the player" vibes from the start. I'm not complaining, but I knew she was an Archangel from the moment I saw her. Her backstory with being conditoned by Morgante and Aleph to create the Infernal Engines out of humans was the highlight of the DLC for me. Gwenivar's design went so hard for me and my heart broke for her during the second phase of the fight due to her construcing stopping her from making more Infernal Engines as preventing her from having any friends as they all left her after The Alephgante Incident. I will gladly visit her at Brightside Pier again (well I kinda have to since I still have to find more tickets and record Umbrehella)!
Also, Joel Baylis strikes again with banger tunes ranging from the unsettling music box themes of the Pier to the guitar-shredding Infernal Engine battle themes to the melancholic piano of the second half of Gwenivar's fight. Truly a jack of all trades.
Two major complants I've seen about this DLC is that it's too short and Shelby Harvey has no vocals during the boss fights. IMO the second one is more of a QoL thing, I'm not sure if she was available to record vocals for the boss themes so maybe that's why she didn't appear. The first one was kind of expected as there was only a 4 month time frame between when this DLC was announced and when it was released, but just because it is short doesn't mean that it is bad. I feel like this DLC was a treat from Bytten Studio as part "thank you for supporting our game" and part "we haven't given up on Cassette Beasts just yet" considering that this is only the first DLC and the devs are working on multiplayer (as of when I'm posting this review).
Fantastic new beast designs and a nice little area. But too short to really warrant a must buy and return to the game. I'd bump this up to 3.5 stars if you play this during your playthrough as it will feel like a nice addition. Love that cussy.
Fun little DLC, a bit short but its basically just one big dungeon so it doesn't feel like it overstays its welcome. Neat new little dudes as well, which at the end of the day is what monster catchers are all about
7/10
7/10
It's short, but this is more like the dungeon length and design I wish the maingame had. Either way, more Cassette Beasts is more Cassette Beasts.