Pillars of Eternity has some of the best worldbuilding I have seen in a videogame, coupled with strong character writing for the recruitable party members. Learning about the world both through experiencing its major events and the perspectives of the various characters drew me into the game from the start. What did not pull me in at first was the combat. Combat plays in real time with you being able to pause at any point in order to issue commands to you party members. I found this system incredibly clunky at first, but as I grew to understand it, it became much more enjoyable.

The elevator pitch for this game is "Monster Taming Metroidvania", a pitch that the game for the most part it lives up to. What one might not expect from this game, however is the very complex combat system, with every monster having an extensive skill tree to pick from, and a combo system that rewards well thought out team compositions. This complexity, however, is a double edged-sword; the system is very engaging if you find fun in creating highly synergistic team compositions, but if you're looking for a more casual experience a la pokemon, it may become a hindrance since even fights against wild monsters can be difficult without a strong team. Aside from the combat, the game largely is what one would expect — the metroidvania and monster taming genres work naturally well together, since the desire to find and capture new monsters encourages the exploration metroidvanias are known for.

As a game about collecting and battling various monsters, Cassette beasts will inevitably be compared to Pokemon, a comparison that I believe ends up favorably for Cassette Beasts. Whereas pokemon games have traditionally been linear, Cassette beasts is fully open world, with objectives being able to be taken on in any order. Additionally, Cassette beasts contains a surprisingly large amount of complexity within its battle system than one might expect. Fights being 2v2 allows for beasts to effectively specialize in more roles than just "hit hard", thanks in part to a variety of interesting moves including passives.

As far as story goes, Cassette Beasts is rather light, but I found it enjoyable, especially the companion characters who each have their own sidequests and backstories explorable through light social sim elements.