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Overall Score: 7/10

PROS
The Gameplay
Cassette Beasts' battle system is wonderfully deep, allowing the player to meticulously craft any number of surefire strategies to ensure victory against the numerous adversaries present on New Wirral. To speak of the island itself, exploring it is a satisfying process not unlike a Metroidvania; several of the creatures that the player can "Record" and add to their teams will grant the player new abilities that open up new possibilities for traversal and puzzle-solving. Additionally, these abilities are permanent additions; you'll always be able to use them, regardless of whether or not the creature in question is in your party, or even still in your collection.
The Soundtrack
This game's soundtrack is phenomenal, featuring multiple songs with both vocal and instrumental variations that the game often swaps between dynamically in response to the player's actions. The first vocal theme you hear is practically guaranteed to make you stop playing for a minute or two, just to vibe. Personally speaking, I've wound up with at least three of the game's songs stuck in my head, on loop, and I'm certainly not about to complain.
The Characters
The game's cast of characters is a memorable collection of all-too-relatable personalities, and nowhere else does that fact shine brighter than in the six partner characters that fight alongside you on your journey. Each of them (yes, even the dog) has their own painfully familiar struggles that the player is able to be alongside them for and see them grow past in an extremely cathartic experience. And, for the hopeless romantics (such as myself) out there, yes, you're able to grow closer with your companions through your shared experiences and hardships, and, if you so choose, even romance one of them (aside from the dog, for reasons that should require no explanation), regardless of your selected gender.
Unfortunately, this does bring us to...
CONS
No game is perfect, but there have been games with enough upsides and few and small enough downsides that come close enough to ignore the issues they had. Unfortunately, while Cassette Beasts does have few negative points against it, the ones that are there are too glaring to avoid mentioning.
The Grind
If the player wishes to see all that the game has to offer, and isn't simply rushing towards the credits, they will inevitably have to go off the beaten path and grind to get there. This, unfortunately, holds especially true for witnessing the culmination of the companion characters' story arcs, as their bonds with the player grow as a result of experience points gained from battle (in a system that I can commend for preventing players from simply blitzing through all of the partners' conversations, but this feels like it went too far in the other direction). If you're like me, and want to see the most from all of these characters that you can, you'll be in for a number of extra hours pushing through battles that, after a point, do get repetitive, despite the well-put-together battle system.
And then we have the big one,
THE ENDING
This should go without saying, but there are spoilers below.
At the end of your journey, you've likely latched onto at least one of the companion characters, or quite possibly grown fond of all of them. Regardless, at the end of it all, you'll eventually shut down the game, and you won't see them again within their original context. However, as if the player wasn't already aware of this fact on some level, the game makes this painfully clear with the way it ends. The story begins with the player, much like 90% of the characters they'll meet, stranded on the island of New Wirral, far away from their homeworld, and plays out as a search for a way back home. Thus, it doesn't come as too much of a surprise when you do eventually find one, and, after some difficulty, get the opportunity to use it. However, this is where the problem comes in; after all the time that the player has spent getting attached to this world, and its characters, they're told that going home will be a one-way trip. It doesn't matter how long you spent growing closer to these characters, or even if you romanced one of them, they inevitably part ways with each other and with you in a scene that, personally, left me feeling more annoyed than moved. The sole exception is the aforementioned dog, who will follow you back to your homeworld (and while Barkley is great, the other characters are easier to relate to for obvious reasons, and more compelling as a result). While I do understand what they were going for in writing this ending, it didn't land well for me, and I know full well that I'm not alone. It's this ending alone that took off at least a full two points from the game's final score, in my book.
Regardless, there is always the realm of headcanon, if you find the ending as unsatisfying as I did. Overall, I do still recommend the game, as it's an excellently made experience, and though the negatives of it do hurt, it didn't erase the good times that I had with it.