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I have beaten 50 carriages of Magikrab's Gauntlet in Cassette Beasts. In other words, I have completed "The Midnight Train" side quest.

I was already around level 180 when I started the Gauntlet, while the Gauntlet starts at level 50+ and then gradually levels up as you progress, so it wasn't too difficult.

However, due to the random encounter nature, bosses can catch you by surprise with their gimmicks. For example, one of the bosses I encountered was Poppetox, whose gimmick punishes AoE attacks due to the Effigies. I had Kayleigh with me when I encountered Poppetox in the Gauntlet, and both our starting tapes, Umbrahella and Decibelle, have the Echolocation sticker, which gave us the Multitarget status at the start of battle, so for 3 to 4 turns (Kayleigh's Decibelle's Echolocation sticker has the +1 Duration attribute) we took damage from our own attacks. Ouch.

(Magikrab's Gauntlet spoilers below)

There is also the boss for Carriage #50, Magikrab, who battles like an Archangel due to the Summoned Power status, He will summon random monsters with the Ghostly status as backups. It took me two tries to defeat him.

I brought Meredith with me when I fought Magikrab. In my first try, we did not fuse, and his Angelic Attack and one of the summoned monsters ended up defeating Meredith, including her human form, while Magikrab was still not close to being defeated, so I had to retreat and then battle again. I chose to fuse with Meredith this time and the battle became much easier.

Bytten Studio recently hosted another Reddit AMA session on 20 November 2024, the day Cassette Beasts' Version 1.7 Gauntlet Update was released, this time on the official Cassette Beasts subreddit.

I took the opportunity to ask Bytten Studio if they had any thoughts on the players' reception to the game's story ending:

Do you have any thoughts about the players' reception to the game's story ending? I actually like the ending, but there are players who dislike the ending and are rather vocal about it, so I wrote a post on Tumblr to defend it (spoilers in the link obviously for those who haven't beaten the game).

Jay Baylis, the writer and lead artist of Cassette Beasts, responded:

I think it's always tricky to conclude a story - we had a particular idea of how the game would end from the start and the kind of story we wanted to tell, and I can see that it might not work for some players. I think that's OK - I'd rather that then write something that is safer or more crowd-pleasing that doesn't have as much of an impact, if that makes sense?

I was, and still am, very pleased to learn that they already had an idea for what kind of story they wanted to tell and how they wanted to end the game, because as I said in my follow-up response to Jay's reply:

Totally makes sense. I would much prefer creators to have a clear vision for what kind of story they wanted to tell as well as how they wanted to conclude the story, and stick to their creative vision, instead of just trying to play safe and please the crowd. The more I played and explored Cassette Beasts, the more amazed I was by how much thought was put into making the game.

Not to mention, the story is one of the most underrated aspects of Cassette Beasts. Now that I got confirmation that Bytten Studio had a vision for how they want the game to end from the beginning, I will continue to defend the ending of Cassette Beasts to the grave.

In fact, I just did that in the Reddit AMA thread itself, when someone else asked about the ending in a separate comment that happened after my comments:

I was genuinely surprised at the end when everyone did decide to go their separate ways and return home, instead of staying together after bonding all game. Was the ending ever different?

Bytten Studio did not respond to this question, but I did my duty as one of the staunchest defenders of Cassette Beasts' ending by replying to the comment myself:

I'm not one of the developers, but when I asked earlier did they have any thoughts on the players' reception to the ending, Jay stated that:

" …we had a particular idea of how the game would end from the start and the kind of story we wanted to tell"

So I'm guessing no, they had always intended the story to end that way.

To be honest, I was never surprised that the party decided to go back to their own worlds. In fact, I find it to make perfect sense. After all, the game has set up from the very beginning that the player's goal is to find a way to leave New Wirral, people do not end up in New Wirral by choice, and people ended up staying on New Wirral only because they could not find a way to leave before the player came along.

The partner characters are in the same situation — they have made it clear in their dialogue and personal quests that they all came from different worlds, and they had their own lives, friends or families before being transported to New Wirral and separated from their former lives against their will, so it makes total sense that they would choose to return home if there is an actual opportunity to leave. In fact, Viola, who still hasn't found her brother even in her personal quest, points out in the ending that wanting to see her brother again as why she still chooses to leave. Even if you romance any of the partners, they would also make it clear in dialogue that you may have to separate when you find a way to leave New Wirral.

It also makes sense that Barkley is the only partner who follows the player back home, since he is a dog who lost his owner, and thus has no one else to go back to.

(Cross-posting my Bluesky thread praising the writing of Cassette Beasts that began with quote posting and responding to Jay Baylis, the writer and artist of Cassette Beasts. By the way, Jay liked my post that quote posted him!)

The writing is one of the most underrated aspects of Cassette Beasts IMHO. I love stories that are not afraid to explore mature topics, but are still ultimately optimistic. This is one of many, many reasons Cassette Beasts is my ultimate favourite video game.

I love how the partner characters not only have distinct personalities with their own character arcs, but also how many of their arcs are also intertwined with the main quest.

I also like the ending and IMO it is a good example of how a story can conclude in a bittersweet note but still make sense to the story, both in terms of plot set-up and the themes and messages.

Players who dislike the ending may be a vocal minority, but they're vocal enough that I was compelled to write a post on in defence of the ending. I will defend Cassette Beasts' ending to the grave.

(Originally posted on Tumblr)

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.

Godot engine being the new target of the anti-woke Gamers(TM) crowd for jokingly embrace the idea of "only woke game developers use game engines" with a rainbow emoji makes me appreciate the fact that Cassette Beasts, my favourite video game ever, was made with the Godot engine even more.

When I was searching for Cassette Beasts on Marginalia Search in hopes of finding more Cassette Beasts stuff on the independent web, I came across Boiling Steam's review of Cassette Beasts. The review is generally positive, but I disagree with most of its criticisms. One of their criticisms of the game, however, stood out to me:

Lastly, the game features some stronger bosses called the archangels - they have a very different look than your regular monsters, and they feel out of place in the game, design wise and tone-wise. When you fight them, it feels like you stepped into a horror game, very far from the pokemon-y atmosphere of the rest of the world. That may be the biggest design flaw of Cassette Beasts.

This bothers me greatly, because this goes beyond disagreement, as this argument crosses into the "completely missing the point" territory. The Archangels are intentionally designed to be weird and not looking like they belong. They are eldritch horrors, and Cassette Beasts' main story is just about the mysteries surrounding them as much as the player character's quest to return home, so being weird is literally the entire point of the Archangels!

Not to mention, perhaps the biggest mistakes for a Cassette Beasts player to make is to expect it to be just a Pokémon clone. This is why I wrote a huge essay on my Cassette Beasts shrine with more than 4,700 words to list all the reasons Cassette Beasts is much, much more than a Pokémon clone. How is Cassette Beasts having eldritch horrors that are not "Pokémon-y" a bad thing?

I intended to respond to Boiling Steam's review to argue against their criticism of the Archangels, because I cannot stand seeing such a bad argument in a review on a publication website that is meant to be taken seriously given it has also been featured on other big gaming sites and letting it go unchallenged.

Therefore, I look at Boiling Steam's contact page, and tracked down its Mastodon toot sharing its Cassette Beasts review. I replied with the following:

You said the Archangels are maybe the biggest design flaw of the game because they feel out of place, but here's the thing: that is literally the whole point of Archangels.

The Archangels are eldritch horrors, so they were intentionally designed to be weird and do not look like they fit in the rest of the world. Cassette Beasts' main story is not just about the player character's quest to return home, but also about the mysteries surrounding the Archangels, so calling Archangels being out of place a design flaw is thoroughly missing the point of the Archangels.

Not to mention, you should not expect Cassette Beasts to be just like Pokémon, since Pokémon did not invent the monster taming genre, so Archangels are great for telling and reminding players of not expecting Cassette Beasts as just a Pokémon clone.

In fact, I find the Archangels are one of the absolute best and most fascinating elements of Cassette Beasts, and them not being Pokemon-y is a good thing.

Presenting a design choice of a piece of media that seems "off" when it is literally the creator's intention is one of my least favourite things to encounter in media review and analysis, and Boiling Steam's criticism of the Archangels in Cassette Beasts is one of such textbook cases.

Every time when I see a Pokémon fan complain about The Pokémon Company or Game Freak being cowards for not making their favourite gay ship canon, I want to tell them: "Please stop begging for corporations and corporate franchises to give you scraps and instead play Cassette Beasts which has actual unambiguously canon LGBTQ+ characters, and you can choose to pursue a gay romance yourself too".