Cassette Beasts: yo wanna check out my pokérap mixtape

[Kalir]

FAUCETEAR

Oh no it's sad!

Faucetear is a pretty fun take on a Water type that is mechanical rather than biological in nature. It's pretty much an animated faucet tap, with the pouty face obscured by the handle, angled just so to make it feel like a gloomy haircut. Their ability to use their water attacks is tied to their emotional state, and they are, as you might guess, prone to outbursts and easily startled, which means it'll often fire off its attacks without intending to just because EVERYTHING IS HAPPENING SO MUCH. Pokémon has a similar kind of deal with the ol' classic Psyduck, although that one is more built around psychic powers and headaches. And, of course, emotion-keyed powers are common well to go back to, although those are, again, usually linked to psychic powers rather than sheer water pressure. It's a cute twist on the idea here with Faucetear!

Faucetear is a pretty well-rounded critter that has a slight preference for ranged attacks. Most of its preferred moves are rather hefty in AP, whether that's Fog, Torrent, or the line's unique Waterworks move that delivers a powerful (if somewhat inaccurate) attack to everyone else on the battlefield. For best results, you'll want to pair Faucetear with A: a monster that is comfortable taking ranged Water hits like Adeptile, Blossomaw, or Plasmantler, or B: something with Dodge equipped so they can sauce up before Faucetear unleashes. And wouldn't you know it, all those critters are great at supporting an offensive teammate! You can still obviously use Faucetear as the supporter and keep Waterworks in the back pocket for fusions, but if you have a powerful signature move, why NOT use it as much as possible?

FOUNTESS

When remastering, Faucetear goes from a simple faucet to a shower head, but Fountess also styles itself like a fancy Victorian noble complete with floppy hat! Still sad though, and now it has even more to be sad about because it's also incredibly picky about manners, both its own and that of others. Just seeing someone else acting uncouth is enough to jack their pressure up. Except instead of a fainting fit brought on by ill-advised fashion, they just project a torrential spray of water in all directions. Can't imagine that's good manners either. In any case, Fountess is a very fun design for a monster, if perhaps not my particular bag.

Fountess' gameplan is pretty much exactly the same as Faucetear before, right down to seeing all its stats slightly improve. It unfortunately doesn't have much coverage outside of Metal, but it CAN, for reasons unknown to me, acquire coatings/camouflage/resistances to let it play with Lightning, and if you want to flex to melee attacks it's decent at doing that as well. Not a gameplan as fancy as its outfit, but it doesn't have to be. This is just a nice staple ranged Water attacker, without any notable weaknesses, and sometimes that kind of reliable certainty in life is nice. And hey, Waterworks is still around and still strong as an option if you want to get technical with building a team around Fountess.

 

[Kalir]

CLUCKABILLY

Hell yes this guy rules. Cluckabilly is another of my favorite monster lines, starting off with a strong first impression of a greaser rooster complete with razorblade tail and an exaggerated crest made like a troublemaker's hairstyle. It's a simple design once you really look at it, but as a Rock-a-Doodle homage of sorts, it gets across the message perfectly. And as anyone who's raised hens before can tell you, these birds are already mean as hell, and Cluckabilly's bestiary describes it as antisocial above all else, so that's pretty true to the real thing as well. The force of their clucking is apparently strong enough to emit shockwaves, which is... less true to life, but honestly, that's a funny image in and of itself.

Cluckabilly has pretty generalist stats, favoring offense and speed over defense. While it slightly prefers melee, both offense stats get the job done, so you should have no trouble using Cluckabilly as a flex attacker. While it's somewhat lacking in coverage, its base Air type plus the moves Metal Riff (of course) and Inflame give it enough of a set to answer most threats. It has a decent set of utility moves to work with, with Call For Help in its initial roster and a fair few status effects it can work with, like Unicast, Taunt, and Fog. Generally, though, you'll want to use its status moves to give yourself just enough breathing room to cut loose with your attacks.

ROCKERTRICE

Cluckabilly remasters into Rockertrice, which is a change I very much appreciate on almost every level. Not only does it become a much meaner creature, repping the deadliest kind of rooster known in mythology, it also becomes a much meaner punk, with the crest now just a straight up spiked mohawk, talons styled like plated boots, a tail pattern reminiscent of ripped jeans, and the cool beak piercing to top it all off. Making eye contact with a Rockertrice is a double-layered threat, both for the fact that it can petrify you, and for the fact that it doesn't like anyone making eye contact with it, so now you have a pissed off wyvern gunning for you and you can't so much as look away. There's no other way to put it, this monster design is just cool as hell.

Rockertrice retains its fairly generalist-leaning-offense stats and improves on pretty much everything Cluckabilly was going for movewise. For coverage, it's picked up a few new strong fire moves like Incinerate for melee and Rapid Fire for priority, plus Boil for Water coverage and a bit of burn. Of course, the first thing it picks up is Stony Look, allowing it to petrify enemies, turning them to Earth type and preventing them from doing anything but buffing defenses. Petrification has pretty low accuracy though, so for best results you'll want to shore that up. Still, once they're petrified, you can use either Boil or Metal Riff as you please to crush them before they get any further actions.

 

[Kalir]

PONDWALKER

I could absolutely see some people arguing that having a completely ordinary cartoon fish inside of a mecha-style goldfish bowl isn't really a "monster" design. I could also see myself calling those people wrong. Are you gonna tell me Krang TMNT isn't a good monster design? Get outta here. The exoskeleton here has a very authentic look to it, reminiscent of a simplifcation of the kind of heavy designs you might find in, say, Armored Core. Just enough detail to the bits to get you thinking about the mechanical innards. The weird "fin" propulsion on the back is a little weird, but Pondwalker actually swivels it around to face forward when it attacks, so it's more of a weapon than anything, which is neat. Finally, the bestiary uses Pondwalker's existence as proof that the monsters of New Wirral can't have originated there, given this creature needs a highly advanced exosuit just to traverse the island. There's a lot going on with this fish mech!

While Pondwalker is ordinarily a Water type, it has stickers to let it camouflage or gain resistance to Metal, Lightning, or Glass, depending on how you want to play it. Its stats are generalist to a fault, and it has a pretty decent set of moves to use Water, Glass, or Metal techniques, either for offense or support. It gets Metal Wall, Undertow, and Torrent in its level-up movelist, and it can get stuff like Glass Cannon, Charge/Battery, Gear Shear, Crystal Lens, Fog, Window, Revolving Door, Boil, Shrapnel, and even Self-Destruct. Basically, any kind of option the game would have for tricking out an aquatic mech, Pondwalker's got you covered.

SHARKTANKER

Curiously, the exoskeleton doesn't change much on the remaster! The base is still almost identical. It's just that everything else has moved or been adapted to seat the occupant as IT transforms from a meek little fish to a chunky looking shark! The weird swiveling propulsion system is now one of two fearsome-looking claw weapons, each equipped with high-pressure water pumps that allow Sharktanker to fight at any range. That's a really cute way to get around the "marine critter but it spits water" issue you find so often in monster collector games. And, of course, Sharktanker's design here is excellent, this thing absolutely could've been an action figure back when action figures were in vogue.

Sharktanker sees improvements to all of its stats, but its speed ends up neglected a bit in favor of melee offense. It still retains solid stats across the board and the above excellent spread of options for fighting, plus the addition of Bite (of course) and the Trap Jaw and Carnivore passives that synergize with Bite. It gets Sharp Edges in its level-up roster as well, and definitely sports the stats to make use of it. It's even improved its melee coverage, with Plastic Knife and Toxic Stab giving it excellent tools to deal with otherwise-intimidating Lightning and Plant types. There's really no wrong way to run a Sharktanker, it's a reliable addition to any team.

 

[Kalir]

POMBOMB

We've seen a lot of creative monster designs in this thread and will see several more, but sometimes, isn't it nice to just kick back with one of our best non-human buddies every so often? Pombomb and its like is as close as the devs will let themselves get to an "elemental animal" design, as a surface look is that it's just a dog with a fiery pattern and bent. It's a very cute dog meant to line up with one of those toy breeds, and the bestiary tells us that Pombombs are one of the most unconditionally friendly critters on New Wirral, which is a shame they're so dang prone to causing fires. I do like the tail, which plays into the "bomb" theme pretty nicely, but it's also a sharp divergence from actual Pomeranian tails which are VERY cool. Still, Pombomb is fine if you just want to have a fiery dog on your team.

Pombomb is a fairly well-rounded critter that focuses on ranged defense, and it has a movepool that splits the difference between its base Fire type and the expected secondary Beast typing. As a dog critter, it's got access to Dog Years to extend active statuses on a target. It also has Inflame as a basic Fire attack, and can inflict the Bomb status with Hot Potato. It's probably the first monster you'll find that uses Hot Potato. As you might guess, it plants a bomb on the target, forcing it to either pass the bomb off with a melee attack or take a MASSIVE 40% of their max HP in fire damage. If you want to add some extra coverage, Pombomb slightly prefers ranged attacks like Pustule Bomb and Coal Story, but it also has Boil for Water melee in a pinch.

SPITZFYRE

As you might expect, Spitzfyre as a remaster of Pombomb changes very little about the base form. The tail moves away from the bomb wick design in favor of looking more like a Pomeranian tail (with a cool fiery highlight on the edges), but it now gains a goggled helmet and scarf, which the dex says it needs to protect itself from the smoke it now causes from its high-intensity fire breath. Naturally, this is a really cute take on the aviation goggles old WWI era pilots would use, which even ties into the name a bit! For such small deviation from the original form, they put a lot of thought into the changes Spitzfyre did get!

However, this time when I looked at the base form stats, I noticed something I've been kind of ignoring for a while here: Spitzfyre's stat total (what Pokémaniacs might refer to as BST) is significantly lower than a lot of monsters, even those in its weight class for when you find it. Usually, monster stats are pretty well in line with each other across the board, but even before I started this review thread in earnest I noticed some clear differences. I'm gonna use Spitzfyre's space to talk about this since its basically got the same plan as Pombomb (plus some Air type attacks and passives like the self-buffing Liftoff).

Lobstacle, as I already discussed, is a super reliable brick of a monster specialized in building walls, and it has the stats to support this, with excellent HP and defenses across the board. It sacrifices speed to make this work, but hey, everything needs a tradeoff, right? The actual numbers for its stats are 160 for both defenses, 150 for HP, 120 for both offenses, and 90 for speed. Add that all together and you get 800, a perfectly reasonable BST by Cassette Beasts standards. If we crunch the numbers on a few other defensive monsters, we find Blossomaw, Galagor and Smogmagog have the same 800, which makes sense. Spitzfyre has a BST of 730, which is a LOT lower. And its stat spread is nothing amazing: it prefers ranged capability but has generally okay stats in its other areas. But if we're gonna look at similar ranged bulksters like Decibelle, Robindam, or even Pyromeleon sharing its typing, oops! They're all 800! Spitzfyre just so happens to have significantly lower stats than its competition. Hell, there's even a Fire type later on that has a similar stat spread to Spitzfyre but a BST of 830! (It's kind of a unique case that we'll cover later though.) Spitzfyre has no good reason to be drastically weaker than everything else around it, and the moveset isn't enough to carry it, just like pre-buff Coaldron wasn't going to ever be viable with only 8 max AP.

This is especially glaring because Spitzfyre's line is the signature tape of Barkley, the last partner you can encounter ingame. Barkley is a dog and comes from far further in the future than even Eugene, and is capable enough to use a cassette player to transform. They can't talk though, that would be silly. You can still fuse with Barkley by completing their quest, which involves Barkley seeking vengeance against the monster than ended his previous owner's life, and you can build relationship levels to make the fusion stronger, but I've always found Barkley to be my least favorite partner specifically BECAUSE they can't talk. Don't get me wrong, dogs are great and having one around is always nice, but I just start to miss the personality of the human companions, y'know?

Oh, and we're still not done with this entry, because now we're gonna talk bootlegs. As I've almost certainly mentioned, monsters in Cassette Beasts don't have "shiny" versions like Pokémon does. Instead, there's a rare chance to encounter a bootleg monster in any given instance where you'd find one! Bootlegs not only have different colors, they also have different types! Despite having lots of chances to catch a Pombomb prior to meeting Barkley, he starts play with an Ice-type bootleg Pombomb tape. This means that they can't grab some of the moves a Spitzfyre would ordinarily have even in their level-up list (such as Sure-Fire or Rapid Fire) but make up for it with access to a bunch of handy Ice moves like Avalanche, Blizzard, and Frozen Ground, plus a few other edge cases like the Glass-type Crystal Lens to counter Lightning enemies or Jagged Edge to support a dodge-and-parry playstyle. Bootleg monsters also have a higher chance for rare affixes on stickers, but those stickers can be applied to any compatible tape, so a bootleg isn't inherently stronger, just gives you more creative options.

 

[Kalir]

ICEPECK

Today, we have an Ice type monster that looks kind of like a cross between a snowman and those novelty drinking bird toys. Icepecks use their icicle beaks the same way other monsters might use horns, as weapons to fend off any potential predators, but unlike horns, that beak is pure ice! It apparently melts away in most climates, which is why Icepecks are only found near colder coasts or on the icy Mt. Wirral. Naturally, an icicle like that wouldn't form unless Icepeck was facing straight down, just like the drinking bird toys oh-so-frequently do to dip their beaks. It's a cute way to take it, although the rest of the design doesn't especially stand out to me.

Icepeck is a melee speedster down to the core, focusing on nothing but melee offense and speed. Its moveset is entirely built around this too, with Snow Rush as a solid Ice attack that lowers enemy speed, and plenty of buffing/debuffing moves to further secure the advantage in the exact two areas it cares about. Naturally, it uses Icicle Dart as a ranged option, why wouldn't it? That's practically a signature move of this line, even if it's a commonly available and useful option for a lot of monsters. There are some other ways you can play this monster, but before we get into those, let's take a look at its remaster.

CRYOSHEAR

Cryoshear is a monster designed from the ground up to look "badass", and it definitely fits the role. A cloak that completely covers its face and no visible body lending itself a ghostly appearance, sporting two razor-sharp ice blades, yeah that's a cool design. It even favors using the blades like scissors for its signature attack, an undeniably gruesome method sure to win fans. My big problem is this: what does this have in common with Icepeck? If you have an initial monster stage with a really cool distinctive feature, don't completely scrap that when it remasters! That feature is probably what got someone to record the monster in the first place! There isn't a single avian trait to be seen on Cryoshear, and if you wanted an ice sword wielding monster, we already have Faerious. Even Ratcousel kept a lot of what Muskrateer was going for. The disconnect just completely wrecks this line for me.

Now, if you want to talk about its gameplay niche, that at least is completely unchanged. Cryoshear combines the speed of Queenyx with the melee punch of Thwackalope, at the expense of every other stats except theoretically HP. It has very good coverage in melee typings, with Poison, Earth, Plastic, Metal, Fire, and Plant all available as options. And while it can use Sharp Edges for contact damage, it's not exactly built for taking hits. The ranger captain Gladiola instead elects to play with Jagged Edge as an alternative that grants a free melee attack every time Cryoshear dodges a melee attack. And, of course, the two can stack, so if you don't make sure you hit, or at the very least stick to ranged attacks only (provided there's no Fog in play from an ally), Cryoshear can rapidly cut you down without taking so much as a scratch.

 

[Kalir]

SPARKTAN

Sparktan here is a pretty straightforward Lightning type that still has a pretty solid amount of charm. The idea is simple: thundercloud monster, taking the form of an ancient Greek warrior with the armor to fit. It's got thunderbolts for arms, which flicker a lot more actively in its animations, and the cloud design is extremely simple, of just a purple mass of vapor. Contrary to the warlike name and design, Sparktans are actually pretty peaceful, and given the opportunity prefer to just vibe at higher altitudes and accumulate cloud matter. It's another one of those designs where there isn't much going on, and that's okay, because what is there does the job just fine.

Sparktan is about speed first and other stats later, slightly preferring ranged attacks to melee. While it obviously has plenty of Lightning moves to work with, it's also got some good options with Ice, Air, Metal, and Astral moves. Notably, its level up moveset includes Blizzard, giving it a way to avoid the accuracy issues that so often plague Lightning types the second they get hit by pretty much anything ever. Naturally, it also has access to weather-based moves like Avalanche and Fog, and with its speed, it's pretty good at getting those up and running. Plenty you can do with a Sparktan, that's for sure.

ZEUSTRIKE

Not a lot changes when Sparktan remasters into Zeustrike, with the biggest change being the addition of an imposing barbute helmet, as popularized by Star Wars' Mandalorians. It's a great fit if you ask me, because it's a simple, distinctive, and imposing design, that doesn't take away from the faceless appeal Sparktan had in the first place. Plus, that bit of extra cloud matter flowing from the helmet is pretty dang stylish too. Zeustrikes are a bit more aggressive than their earlier forms, and their pastime of choice is dueling other Zeustrikes high in the clouds above. To observers on ground level, these displays are indistinguishable from thunderstorms. Again, it's a pretty simple concept going on here, but it's done well.

Zeustrike is another speedster capable of keeping up with Queenyx and Cryoshear, and it has slightly better defenses than either (albeit with lower HP, so the tradeoff is minimal). It retains the same general playstyle as it did prior to remaster, of speedy generalist action with a slight preference for ranged combat and weather control. It's also pretty good at dealing with walls, bearing both Hurricane and Crumble as ways to blast them down regardless of their durability. It still has plenty of coverage as well, so it's another monster like Flapwoods, where you can't possibly be ready for everything a Zeustrike can do, even if it's not as powerful as more single-minded options.

 

[Kalir]

KUNEKO

So, on April 1st in the runup leading to the game's release, the devs for the game posted the following on Twitter (as it was known at the time):

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1642149827604541440

And at a glance you might think a monster like this is a pure nonsense joke. A catgirl, half-angel and half-demon, adopted by ninjas, seeking to master the four elemental shrines? That's a creation by Ms. Marianne Suzanne if ever I saw one. And straight up, no foolin', I am completely here for this concept. For starters, this kind of overwrought "cool factor" OC is a design that so often gets lampooned in its design, but never really taken seriously as a monster concept to explore, which Kuneko absolutely nails. Second, Kuneko exists as a character in New Wirral. To be specific, she is a character designed by Felix back when he was 12. Absolutely no explanation is given for why Kuneko alone, rather than any of the other characters he has worked on with actual professional skill, has come to life, but she has, and she appears to protect Felix when he gets ambushed, and then embarks on her quest to the four elemental shrines. Felix, feeling that she doesn't have to go on a half-assed quest he barely came up with in his early teens, asks you to go to the shrines with him to keep her safe.

She's not half bad in a fight, mind. All of Kuneko's stats are completely even, and she's Air type, so type matchups aren't a concern for the four shrine guardians. Her moveset is mostly melee-focused, with some utility like Air Wall, and what else but bE rAnDoM!! as the final move in her level up list. Yes, that is the exact spelling, be sure you get it right. bE rAnDoM!! allows the user to use any move in the game that's available with their current AP, but it chooses the move randomly, so it's similar to Pokémon's Metronome. Not exactly something you can build a strategy around, but that's never the point of bE rAnDoM!!, now is it. Oh, and she's obviously able to use feline-signature moves like Copycat.

Now, before we move on to the remaster, let's discuss how the conclusion of the quest shakes out. Kuneko's a goofy goober, but she's no fool. She knows Felix's gut reaction to her entire existence is embarrassment and dismissiveness. Imagine what would happen if you met your creator, be they divine or not, and their gut reaction is to wince and look the other way. You might feel a little insulted, right? Well, Kuneko did. And she had enough power to act in defiance of this, as represented by...

SHINING KUNEKO

Attaining the form and power of an Archangel, Shining Kuneko is the final super form of Kuneko, and is about as badass as you can make the original concept. Her eyes, hair, and wings all glow with a brilliant energy, she hovers above the ground without beating her wings, and even levitates her signature kunai before her. It's not a huge amount of difference from her base form, so I'm gonna use this space to talk Archangels a bit more. Most of them, when you encounter them, have such a drastically different artstyle that they make it abundantly clear they are Not Normal, they are above and beyond the regular funny guys you can record and fit in. Shining Kuneko is a very nascent Archangel, but I expect that if allowed to remain in that form for long, she might go to a style very much like the original sketches shown in Felix's notebook. Which honestly? Missed shot there. Let me fight the 12-year-old's OC sketch, cowards.

As a monster and an Archangel, Shining Kuneko obviously becomes an Astral type, since she's mastered all four elements. Her stats are similarly equally boosted, with each one sitting at a healthy 140, giving her an above-average BST of 840. As before, she's got the generalist moveset to use it too, with special focus on Astral, Beast, and Air elements but plenty of options for other forms of coverage. Finally, Shining Kuneko has a unique move known as an Angelic Attack, something every Archangel gets and uses when they hit max AP. In her case, it's the move Cosmic Kunai, a punishingly-strong area attack that hits the entire team, instantly wrecking any walls in its way. Of course she has a voice clip for this move why wouldn't she. Anyway this is the best April Fool's joke ever I love it thanks. Kuneko good critter!

 

[That Old Chestnut]

yyyyyyYES

 

[Kalir]

DJINN ENTONIC

The last part of the core game bestiary is nothing but single-stagers, so we're gonna have leaner posts for a while, but what they lack in quantity, they make up for in quality. Djinn Entonic here is a really cool take on a genie, giving it a modernized look that would fit right in with a smaller animation studio's passion project. Instead of emerging from the traditional oil lamp, Djinn Entonic instead comes forth from a cocktail shaker, and is dressed to match with a snazzy bartender's vest and bowtie. I especially like that the drink it sports on its tray is, according to the bestiary, family friendly and in no way affecting the age rating of the game. Maybe they know Valentina from Super Mario RPG. The head is also neatly stylized, being just a brilliant mote of light with two simple triangle eyes. As an appreciator of both genies and bartending outfits, this is a solid design that was a common pick on my team for my first playthrough.

Djinn Entonic is an Astral type that tends to have Glass moves as its backup choice (of course). It has well-rounded stats, trading away melee power and ranged defense to have comfortable stats in every other area, and its favored method of combat is inflicting Confusion on its foes. Confusion isn't quite as overpowering as it is in Pokémon, mind you: it just says half the time, the victim will randomly choose its move from legal ones it can make, rather than committing to what it chose and who it targeted. Djinn Entonic starts out with Moonshine as a lightweight ranged attack to cause this, but it also has a signature attack, Djinntoxicate, which costs 4 AP but hits pretty dang hard. Naturally, it's also capable of using Haunt and Ritual to keep it alive and out of harm's way for a while. It's got a very similar gameplan to Triphinx, now that I think about it.

 

[Kalir]

ARKIDD

Hell yes I've been looking forward to today's critter. Arkidd wears their whole identity on their Power Glove, with bright popping primary colors and a classic robot style that tells you: this is a video game console given locomotion and autonomy. The usual habitat of Arkidd is, of course, Falldown Mall, where they do basically everything you'd do in a video game anyway: run around lots, jump on other monsters, and just generally be rad as hell. Even their idle stance sees them hopping back and forth with unrestrained energy, not unlike an early fighting game's character stances. By now, it should be no surprise that in the fiction of Cassette Beasts, the monsters there specifically come from the concepts of humanity and its culture given form, which explains why there have been very few monsters that are just a mundane elemental animal. Why do they form here, and why like this, and why can they be recorded? Nobody knows? But here is a personification of gameing, and we must solemnly hope they never learn how to use a gun. I love this thing.

If there is one stat that truly defines what it means to be a gamer, it is speed, and Arkidd lives and breathes that lifestyle with the highest base speed stat in the game at 250. Aside from melee offense, its other stats are pretty low, but when you can be guaranteed to outspeed anything else you face and know you can take the first turn, who cares? Arkidd is a Lightning type that favors the Charge/Battery combo for offense, much like Cat-5 before it, but it also has plenty of other moves to work with, particularly Plastic moves like Toy Hammer and Plastic Wall. It's also able to use Echolocation, a very strong move for Lightning types to offset their weaknesses and a great tool for any speedster hoping to get some setup in place before anyone else acts. Y'know, all standard business as usual. If you want to get REALLY funky, Captain Codey makes use of a bootleg Glitter Arkidd as his signature critter, and with it he tries to control the typing of your monsters so he can set up instant kills, turning your critters to Glass with his teammate's bootleg Glass Apocrowlypse and then finishing it off with Air attacks for resonance stacks. Of course the hacking expert would use a bootleg version of Arkidd. I would be disappointed if he didn't.

 

[Kirin]

Just FYI all the images in the thread just broke because inari.aerdan.org isn't responding at the moment. Hopefully a temporary problem?

 

[Kalir]

I'd assume so. The sysadmin is pretty on the ball about these sorts of things, but if it keeps up I'll shoot her a message and see if she can't wrangle it back into working order. In the meantime, the main reference point I'm using for all this data (aside from my own experiences and preferences obviously) is the dev-maintained wiki, so if you really need your fix of cool monsters (or want to see some of the other characters I've discussed) you can browse there.

 

[Violentvixen]

DJINN ENTONIC

I absolutely love this.

 

[Kalir]

UNDYIN

I'm just gonna say it: Cthulhus are played out. Ineffable horrors from the deep are fun at first, but when they all end up looking like the exact same "goblin with squid head" I start to think about whether they ever teamed up with Edgardo. Undyin is a nice take on that general idea though, combining that concept with "vengeful ghost of a murdered bride" which remains pretty underexplored. Apparently there's also some Jenny Greenteeth in there too, which I can kinda see. The broken harpoon is pretty cool too, it looks like it was the weapon that originally killed it, but then became the weapon they use to murder any souls unfortunate to step on their extremely hidden tiles in the Cast Iron Sea. Seriously, they're annoying as hell, you can hardly even see their glowing yellow eyes under the waves. Anyway, cool monster design, not exactly my style, but sure to delight any fans of ghosts, deep sea creatures, or ghostly deep sea creatures.

Undyin ties with Galagor for the highest HP in the game at 200, and favors ranged offense as its second main stat, with everything else being pretty average. You can play it as a bulky ranged attacker pretty easily, with Two Heads to give it free Multistrike at the start of a fight, plenty of Water options, and even Inflame for some reason. Sadly, most of its coverage is melee, so it can't use that ranged stat for everything. However, it's also extremely able to put that high HP to use in a supporting role, with Blood Donation, Nurse, and Vampire letting it keep both teammates at high health, and Ritual to extend its own lifespan. Who'd have thought THIS would be Cassette Beasts' answer to Pokémon's Chansey? No lie, this may just be one of the best healing monsters in the game.

 

[Kalir]

SPOOKI-ONNA

Sometimes I get so excited over sharing Cassette Beasts with others and using Pokémon as a comparison point (usually unfavorably) I think I give the impression that I dislike Pokémon. I don't. I dislike PARTS of it, and many of those parts are things I don't see changing for the game any time soon AND those parts are comfortably ameliorated in Cassette Beasts. And, rare though it is, I find there are times when Pokémon does something better than Cassette Beasts did. Unfortunately for today's monster, Spooki-onna, this is a day where Pokémon took the win.

Spooki-onna isn't a BAD monster per se. It's like Thwackalope, where it is basically a 1:1 imagining of an existing cryptid (in this case, the Japanese youkai yuki-onna, or "snow woman") as interpreted by the style of Cassette Beasts. And as far as wholesale monster imports go, a yuki-onna is certainly a high-level choice. Spooki-onna even does the exact kind of thing in New Wirral as its inspiration does in real life: hang out in the harshest colds of Mt. Wirral to lure unwary climbers to a frosty doom. Which is my problem here, really: what exactly does Spooki-onna have to set itself aside from the yuki-onna?

You might remember my comparing Southpaw to Lucario earlier and correctly handing Southpaw the design win. Well, here's Pokémon's take on the same mythological creature that inspired Spooki-onna in the form of Froslass. And honestly, Froslass immediately sets itself apart by virtue of clearly being a creature mimicking the form of a yuki-onna rather than just straight up a snowy lady. The ends of the "kimono" have a very natural kind of pattern that put me more in mind of the fins of a fish than actual clothing, and said fins clearly have very little substance to them compared to the solid round head. It's also an ice/ghost type, so you just KNOW this sucker is gonna be draining the life of the unfortunate souls to cross its path. Between the two, Froslass feels like an actual creature that would have inspired a myth as illustrated by Spooki-onna, if that makes sense.

Fortunately, Spooki-onna's middling design does not extend to its gameplay niche. It's an Ice type with a strong specialization in weather moves, with its level-up list containing Avalanche, Blizzard, and Fog. Its stats are heavily skewed towards HP, but everything except speed is still decent enough for them, so they work best by effectively hanging out and making the battlefield much more favorable for its partner over time, compared to the faster support of monsters like Apocrowlypse. Plenty of ranged coverage options as well, so if the situation calls for more firepower, Spooki-onna can handily flex to attacking with Ice, Lightning, Air, Fire or Astral as needed, all pretty solid options that make it hard to completely avoid getting away from Spooki-onna scot-free. In short, it's a pretty reliable addition to any team no matter how you play.

 

[Kalir]

KHEPRI

This is gonna be a fun one to talk about for a lot of reasons. In the previous update, I dismissed Spooki-onna for JUST being the Japanese yuki-onna when they could've made the critter so much more distinct. Today I'm going to take a monster that is even MORE directly inspired by its origin and praise it for being really creative. Because the above monster is Khepri, who some of you might know from Egpytian mythology as...



The god of the rising, morning sun, Khepri (seen here with his buddy Thoth) was commonly depicted with the head of a dung or scarab beetle. Considered an aspect of Ra focused on renewal and the creation of life, Khepri's beetle-headed visage was also commonly depicted as the beetle alone holding aloft the sun, inspired by the dung beetle's practice of rolling around balls of dung. It is that second form that Cassette Beasts' Khepri chooses to take as a form of inspiration, which even there has its own unique twists to fit the style of Cassette Beasts. A simple dung beetle rolling around a literal sun would already be a cool idea, but Khepri here floats vertically upright, with its single eye staring outwards from what would be the top of a beetle's body... exactly where the hieroglyphic art version would need an eye to see the reader. The sun it sports is held aloft by two golden horns, and it hovers in place with its legs all extending downwards from under the wing shells, making them better suited to moving around while upright like this. It is, effectively, the classic artistic depiction of Khepri, turned to life and then given the features it would need to act as a living creature. And that's SO COOL. This is the kind of reinvention of myths Cassette Beasts does best, which makes it especially funny that Khepri is just a 1:1 existing myth already.

Khepri is also really interesting from a mechanics standpoint, featuring the highest ranged power in the game at a solar level of 300 and the highest ranged defense at 250. Which makes it uncontested in terms of ranged fighting: you are not going to defeat Khepri in a shootout. However, unlike every other monster in the game, Khepri has only a single point of melee offense, which not only requires it to use JUST ranged moves with absolutely no backup, it also makes them uniquely vulnerable to Fog (they only have a scant few Air moves to bypass that) and Close Encounter (you need to clear that status effect or Khepri is dead weight). Further, all of Khepri's other stats are pretty weak, with speed being only a 79 and the other two defensive stats only being 100. It does have Rapid Fire as a priority move, so raw speed alone won't cut it, but Rapid Fire does take 5 AP to use, so you can still counterplay it pretty smartly. It's cool to see a monster with a heavily minmaxed stat spread like this which still has plenty of counterplay.

 

[Kalir]

AVEREVOIR

So Cassette Beasts doesn't really have "legendary" monsters in the same way Pokémon does, but it does have some monsters that exceptionally rare monsters that take more work than average to discover. The first of these in our bestiary was actually Kuneko, but Averevoir is the first one that doesn't remaster. It's actually the monster responsible for killing Barkley's owner, and you can only first encounter it with Barkley at your side. It also grants the final field-traversal ability, upgrading the Dominoth wings you already had with a much stronger flight ability, letting you re-ascend to about twice your jump height from where you started. And to top it all off, the plant held in its beak is said to cure any illness and grant eternal life, but Averevoir is such a rare find that nobody has ever gotten their hands on it to confirm. Certainly important enough to count as a "legendary". The design isn't especially complex, based on the "liver bird" that's a founding myth of the English city of Liverpool, but it's juuuust imposing enough to lend it that special air. About the only weird part is the strange plinth it's standing on, which comes to life as part of its signature passive...

When dropped to half-health or below, Averevoir immediately pops its Tower Defense passive, gaining a significant boost to its already-strong defenses and changing from its default Air type to Earth. That, plus its very high speed and easy access to Grounded for Lightning resistance, makes it an ideal partner for getting a strong early lead. It's able to get plenty of other resistances to keep itself alive, and loads of wide-range area attacks that fit its "towering presence" quite well. If Averevoir has a weakness, its the non-passive moves available to it: with a stat spread like theirs, I'd prefer support moves rather than attacks, but its support roster is surprisingly limited. It has Revolving Door to steal walls and Fog to shutter ranged moves, both nice, but both situational. It is nice to see that so far, the game's "legendaries", even with a higher BST of 840, are hardly overpowering threats requiring their own tiering to make work. On the whole, Averevoir is a pretty well-designed critter, if perhaps not one I'd go out of my way to use.

 

[Kalir]

GLAISTAIN

It's only here, within spitting distance of the end of the core bestiary, that we finally find a natively Glass-typed creature, and what a cool example of the type we have here! Glaistain, based off the Scottish glaistig fairy, is another legendary monster, initially found solely in the halls of Glaistainbury Chapel, at the high end of Cherry Meadows. It's not even possible to reach it without the aid of some advanced movement abilities. The look of multiple shards of stained glass, arranged in the form of a winged being with an ominous hooded glare, is about as cool as you can get with a basis of a Glass type monster. As far as its personality goes, the description of Glaistain is somewhat lacking, saying it merely challenges any foolish enough to awaken it, but the inspiration of the glaistig is a much more traditional sort of fey (and therefore much more interesting) that usually takes the form of a beautiful woman and can be either helpful or hamrful depending on the tale. It would be cool if there was more to Glaistain's nature to play into that fey vibe, but I can't deny that it's a neat critter on its own.

As mentioned in other typing breakdowns, Glass is a kind of situational and weak type. It's only effective against Lightning (which has about three other types that can insulate it), and it's susceptible to Resonance stacks from Air moves. The only other interaction is if a Beast or Metal attack hits it, which scatters glass shards around the arena, harming any melee attackers while they're out. The good news is that Glaistain doesn't care that it has a weak type. It possesses high speed and offenses, and the movepool to support it, making it a threat to any opponent it comes across. With both offenses at an excellent 160, it's able to use that full movepool against whatever defense their opponent lacks most, and with the utility options of Window and Revolving Door, it doesn't even have to care about walls. And if you're up against a human player who may switch tapes (as may be more likely when multiplayer comes in), Glass Bonds lets them deal chip damage every time they transform, making rapid switches a scary proposition. Your best bet if up against a Glaistain is to hit it at least as hard as it's hitting you, as it lacks the defenses or HP to take more than a few solid strikes before going down.

 

[Kalir]

MISS MIMIC

Hell yeah mimic monster. Mimics are a really fun monster design that is perfectly funny taken on its own as "the treasure box is also a mouth" but which sees a lot of creative interpretations. Off the top of my head, we have two Pokémon designed around mimicking Pokéballs to confuse their prey, Golden Sun making the treasure chest a shell for a hermit crab like arthropod, Jimmy and the Pulsating Mass devoting an entire dungeon to mimics with all the tomfoolery that implies, I could go on all day. Miss Mimic uses the item locker the rangers on New Wirral use for stockpiles as its head, from which extrudes a number of bladed limbs and a very insectoid body, presumably primed to open with a full body divekick. Of course, Miss Mimic can replicate other valuable items for her disguise as well, but item lockers are the only variant we see ingame. I wonder if the coloration and pattern would vary more depending on what she's mimicking? Naturally, you can only find Miss Mimic by opening the item locker she's disguising herself as, but she has a habit of whispering encouragingly to anyone approaching the locker, and it's a pretty obvious ruse for you and your partner once that happens.

Even if you're prepared to start a fight with Miss Mimic, she's still going to get the jump on you. Not only does she boast incredible melee power and respectable speed, she also has FOUR initial stickers where everyone else is lucky to have three and usually has only two. Aside from the default Smack, there's Pre-emptive Strike to start the fight with an instant bop, followed by Custom Starter to activate Sharp Edges, so not only are their further melee attacks even scarier, but you get the message loud and clear of DO NOT TOUCH HAPPY FUN LOCKER. Naturally, Miss Mimic leans hard into melee offense with moves like Plastic Knife and Toxic Stab, and she's Metal type so she's capable of breaking down defenses of a lot of enemies with type advantage. Probably her funniest trick is the one-two combo of Flirt, a status move that lowers the target's evasion, with Stab in the Dark, a 0 AP move with ridiculously high power and equally ridiculously low accuracy. There's a lot of fun ways to represent the fighting style of a mimic here! Now to fuse it with a Fungogh for Ultimate Mimicry Gameing...

 

[Kalir]

ANATHEMA

Can you believe it? We're at the end of the base game bestiary now! And what a cool note to end on, too. See, fusion has always been a thing throughout Cassette Beasts, where any two monsters can fuse together to become one bigger, stronger monster with the powers of both. Anathema is kind of a prototype of that fusion system, so to speak. Astute observers may notice elements of a few other monsters in its design, and according to the lore it's a fusion of a Manispear, Masquerattle, Folklord, and one other conspicuously unidentified monster. This didn't work for a lot of reasons, but the two big ones are that fusion beyond two partners is pretty unstable and difficult, and all the provided sample monsters were already dead. Which means we've got something a lot like Frankenstein's monster, or Raremon from Digimon, going on here: a horrid thing made from disparate corpses that can hardly muster an identity its own. And just looking at Anathema, you can see it wasn't a clean construction.

This carries over to its gameplay, too. With Self-Destruct, Random Starter, and Desperation on deck, it very much gives the vibe of something that doesn't know what it's going to do, just that it wants to hurt others the way it hurts. It's a chonker stat-wise, a Beast type with plenty of HP and melee offense, and similarly strong stats everywhere but speed. Its movelist for offense and support is pretty varied, but everyone that encounters Anathema knows it most for its signature move, Fission Power. See, most fused monsters can use a Fusion Power if the parties involved are synced enough, giving them a big punchy finale attack that costs 10 AP. Fission Power is quite the opposite: Anathema splits itself into two copies, each with half the health of the original. Which means now you have two monsters bearing down on their enemies with no regard for self-preservation, just pain. There's a lot of ways to do the "has science gone too far?" style of monster, and I think Anathema does a pretty great job. Of course, you ain't seen nothin' yet, because next week? We start looking at the Archangels.

 

[Kalir]

MORGANTE
SPIRIT OF REBELLION

When you start Cassette Beasts, you probably are expecting the main antagonist of the series to be either someone like Pokémon's various villain teams, or a single human with goals that oppose yours. But that's not how we do things in Cassette Beasts. On your introductory patrol of the Harbourtown region with Kayleigh, you find a sudden increase in tectonic activity, followed by the appearance of, improbably, a subway station emerging from the earth. Kayleigh, despite being the one to introduce you to the setting, is just as confused and cautious as you are, and it's for good reason, as the first thing you encounter in that subway station is this alien form, broken and battered, mysteriously extruding from the ground and with an aura of "wrongness" that makes even perceiving it painful. Kayleigh only has time to warn you that this being is an Archangel and way above your pay grade before she attacks.

See, when the first people were stranded on New Wirral, they initially called the creatures they encountered "angels". Y'know, in the old school biblical sense, ineffable shapes and swords of flame. The biggest and baddest of those, which everyone immediately knew to stay well away from, those were appropriately called "Archangels". These days, the monsters of the island aren't called angels anymore, but the name Archangel stuck. These fights are completely different in every sense of the word: not just the obvious divergence in visual style, but in terms of their playstyle, their ability to speak and think, and their metaphysical implications for the setting. Morgante is the first one you fight in the demo, and she makes for a hell of a first entrance, not just because of the aforementioned arrival, but because she is a level 100 threat at a point where you and Kayleigh won't even have double-digit levels yet. The only reasons you get out of the fight alive are because she was critically wounded by someone we'll meet later just beforehand, and that you and Kayleigh pull out a last-ditch maneuver for full survival and do your first fusion! And once you defeat Morgante, she makes a "deal", so to speak, with you: if you help her in whatever nebulous goals she has (not that you get a choice in the matter) she will reveal to you a way to leave New Wirral.

I don't think anyone here will disagree that Morgante is a perfect introduction to the concept of Archangels as seen in Cassette Beasts. The high-contrast black and white look is always a favorite for representing these kind of eldritch horrors, as is the broken half-face (with the break having a rather crownlike pattern) and the disjointed limbs. This conveys a being of almost regal power within whatever alien domain they keep. And Morgante, despite being the first Archangel you face, is arguably one of the strongest in the game, with her Angelic Attack, Coda Morgana, dealing 9999999 damage in a game where a hit for 400 is cause to pop off and/or freak out. Not that she can hit with that level of power when you first find her, but you encounter Morgante three different times throughout the story. There's the first fight above, where she has a mere fraction of her power, a second encounter at the pinnacle of the story that I won't get into yet, and one final appearance in postgame as a full-power rematch. Unlike the other monsters having purely numerical entries in the bestiary, the Archangels instead get a designation in the format A##. So the first, broken version of Morgante you encounter is A01, her postgame rematch (depicted here) is A02, and the form we're not discussing right now for Reasons is A03. We'll continue down the list for the rest of the Archangels, which serve as one of the major boss fights you can seek out throughout the game, alongside the ranger captains.

 

[Kirin]

Just an FYI that due to the transparent background, if you have TT on light mode you lose half that character design due to white-on-white issues, and in on dark mode you get the same problem with black-on-black.

 

[Kalir]

I replaced the image to use the bestiary background, so it should work now.

 

[Kalir]

POPPETOX
MASTER OF PUPPETS

And already with the second Archangel we encounter, we've got a drastically different artstyle and look! Once you defeat Morgante, she offers you a song that gives clues on how to leave New Wirral, but to make the song clear enough to hear, you have to track down and defeat other Archangels, which opens up more fast travel locations as they're all found in buried subway stations revealed with puzzles. Poppetox is likely to be the first one you meet, as their station is located in Harbourtown Park and only requires a simple "place the stones to complete the circle" puzzle. Similarly, their station is bereft of the gimmicks that most other stations have. Their fight and appearance certainly don't lack for charm, though, as Poppetox bears the look of a stop-motion animation complete with grainy film filter, and immediately attacks, declaring you to be "more playthings for my collection". In fact, I've heard people say they wish the could record and play as Poppetox, although I completely get why recording Archangels isn't allowed.

Every Archangel fight tends to come with their own especially unique gimmicks to the fight, with Poppetox stepping into the ring alongside two effigies, one representing the player, and one representing whichever partner you have with you. As you might intuit, attacking the effigies does nothing but rebound that damage to whoever they represent, and Poppetox always starts the round by switching places with one of the effigies (the one helpfully highlighted by a spotlight). Even once you figure out the gimmick, the fight still requires you to stick to single target moves and aim them smartly. Poppetox has no such restriction, and spends most of their time fighting you with multi-hitting melee moves and some debuff passives like Trip to lower speed, or AP Steal to advance its own AP march. Remember, Archangels build AP up steadily until they hit 10, at which point they let loose with a potent Angelic Attack! Poppetox's signature attack is Feedback, which has it split its skull open along the seam to emit an unearthly screech (so cool), dealing heavy damage and causing flinching... assuming you learned nothing from the Morgante fight and didn't wall it up.

Incidentally, every Archangel, in the bestiary entry for them, is listed as an incarnation of some aspect. For Morgante, not that you can see it on her first appearance, she's the incarnation of rebellion. For Poppetox, obviously, they're the incarnation of puppetry, with the bestiary indicating that it was "birthed by human society's desire to create simulacra of themselves." We will, naturally, get into what this means for the Archangels. Just not right now.

 

[Kirin]

That’s not just a grainy filter, but some old-school low color depth pixel dithering! Mr Puppets there has just four shades of gray to his name. Given Morgante was black and white only, I wonder if this will continue to be an archangel theme, or if the others go in completely different directions.

The regular beast sprites don’t have tons of colors since they’re cell-shaded, but it looks like most still sport at least a dozen.

 

[Kalir]

MOURNINGSTAR
SERPENT GOD

Oh we have a fun example today. Mourningstar, as the incarnation of devotion, is designed from the ground up to be an archetypal JRPG boss monster, specifically pulling from the PS1/PSP graphical style of low-res bright colors. Angelic wings alongside a demonic horned skull head, legs more like light shining from a cloud layer, and the snake around its torso (that is the Archangel's real head)? In most other fights without the proper buildup, it would feel kind of hokey, but in the context of Cassette Beasts, it's a really cool design, very striking. But as a rare change of pace, the most striking thing about Mourningstar ISN'T the monster design.

See, Harbourtown isn't the only settlement on New Wirral, just the main one. There's another one in the eastern hills, atop Autumn Hill to be exact, called Mourningtown. Originally, it was just another one of the early settlements on New Wirral, and one of only two major ones to survive monster assaults. But by the time you make landfall, Mourningtown has become an insular cult community, following the teaching of their leader Dorian, and hang on, lemme pull up the file photo of the guy...

Yeah, great. This guy uses his charisma to change Mourningtown from the friendly community that Kayleigh got to New Wirral with into a single-minded cult focused on unearthing the train station where Mourningstar resides. Of course, Dorian is in it for the power such a being would possess, but you tell me whether Mourningstar would play far. Yeah that's what I thought. After unearthing their lair, Dorian approaches and pledges his allegiance and begs for some power. Mourningstar answers with their Angelic Attack, Judgement, incinerating the non-transformed Dorian in a single strike. Which makes Mourningstar the only Archangel in the game to score an on-screen kill! Needless to say, you and Kayleigh (who is the only person they'll allow into Mourningtown) immediately saddle up and take Mourningstar down before it does any more harm.

As a fight, Mourningstar primarily relies on ranged offense, using Broadcast to turn the single-target attacks like Shooting Star and Thunder Blast into area moves. It also has the ability Temptation, which deploys a special Apple Tree wall that can either heal or poison the attacker with every move it blocks. Don't need a lot of finesse to get past that, especially if you already know some of the tricks to dealing with walls, but it does give Mourningstar an edge nonetheless. But again, the draw here isn't the fight, it's that this is the first Archangel we've covered (aside from Shining Kuneko) to really have a claim to the story of a specific character. Almost every partner in the game has their first relationship point (the one allowing fusions) from encountering an Archangel, with Barkley being the sole exception since he's just after an Averevoir.

 

[Kalir]

NOWHERE MONARCH
KING OF NOTHING

Today, we're looking at an Archangel that's built to look like a kind of Fleischer-era cartoon cryptid. The Nowhere Monarch has a crown-shaped head, kinda like Bart Simpson, with a single toothy mouth, and no visible eyes... save for the one hidden under its furry mantle, which it reveals only for its Angelic Attack (more on that later). It also has stripy limbs that freely morph to tendrils that it attacks with normally, to add to the cartoony style. It's a pretty simple design for an Archangel, but I like it! The Nowhere Monarch lurks within the depths of Falldown Mall, home to critters like Arkidd and Mascotoy, and it's said to be the incarnation of consumerism. See, you can't get into Falldown Mall until Meredith asks you to go there with her to get a vinyl for her favorite indie band. But after turning the entire ruined mall upside down looking for it, the only thing you turn up is an alternate reality version that hasn't got any special connection for Meredith. The Nowhere Monarch chooses this time to drop the team into its station, boasting of its castle full of emptiness. See, the idea here is that people could do so much with their lives but they give it all up for mere tokens and baubles that don't do anything or enrich anyone, and the trash-laden Falldown Mall, full of things that people COULD enjoy but don't, are its kingdom. I dunno I think the message is kinda off here but I do get what they're going for.

The Nowhere Monarch can spawn its subjects, the Nowhere Peasants, with the Call to Arms move. They aren't quite as unique as their sovereign, but the combo of the big bomb head and the darling little slipper shoes is a fun image. Individual Peasants aren't very strong and can only use Smack or Spit as basic attacks, but they can, as you might guess from their appearance, be used with its Angelic Attack, Bomb Voyage, to run in for a heavy damage suicide move. This is pretty much the only thing the Nowhere Monarch really does as an outstanding attack, aside from its unique Slippery Grip move that causes the target to flinch. They'll also use Trick to inflict status effects once there are the max of two Nowhere Peasants in play. Which... yeah, that's not much more interesting either.

No, what's really interesting here is that in earlier versions of the game, it was possible to record the Nowhere Peasant! You needed to use a tape that had a guaranteed rate of capture for this to work (i.e. postgame only) and there were a lot of bugs if you actually managed to record one. After all, the Nowhere Peasant has no type (and can thus only use generic moves by default), no bestiary entry, and would crash the game if a fusion was attempted. So there wasn't really any reason to do so beyond proving you could. Still, it's a cool fact, so I'm sharing it here.

 

[Kirin]

If it weren’t for the fact that his main color is red, that guy could totally be a Blue Meany from The Yellow Submarine.

 

[That Old Chestnut]

If it weren’t for the fact that his main color is red, that guy could totally be a Blue Meany from The Yellow Submarine.

I feel like the fact you meet it after getting to the record store isn't a coincidence.

 

[Kalir]

HECKAHEDRON
NEOPLATONIC SOLID

If this image looks a bit plain to you, that's only because the full beauty of Heckahedron requires the ability to perceive 4-dimensional space to really understand. Still, even the limited 3-dimensional view has a kind of blunt charm to it. It's hard to convey, but as Heckahedron rotates in place, its sides also twist and converge in on themselves, as their separate planes become unbound only to rejoin later. The design here conveys something you might see on a coding layout intended for research and/or development rather than any finished style, which only makes sense. Like the Nowhere Monarch, it does have one detail you can't see here: a pixelated eye in the same three colors seen here inside the cube, which only becomes visible with its Angelic Attack, Frustrum Cull. As far as the flavor goes, Heckahedron is a younger Archangel and the incarnation of mathematics, specifically the hubris of scientific thought. It... really doesn't have much of a personality besides finding your meager 3D existence to be flawed, with an intent to "right all your wrong angles", but that's fine. Sometimes an unknown entity can just be a cube.

Heckahedron doesn't have a very cohesive gameplan or any special gimmicks when fighting it, unfortunately. Most of its moves appear to be built on "its a cube lol", with Brick Blast, Damage Roll, Sharpen, and Sharp Edges. The two buffs give the impression of wanting to do melee offense, and Frustrum Cull at least is an area melee attack, but Brick Blast and Damage Roll are both ranged! Missed potential, that's what's going on here. At least the station it resides in has a lot more personality, since it loops indefinitely in either direction, but you have to get the flowing water in the channel before the station gate to loop through and start the waterwheel above it. There's also a few logic puzzles inside, including a "only one of the three signs is correct" lady and the tiger style puzzle. Guess it's more interested in brain teasers than combat.