Cassette Beasts: Pier of the Unknown DLC Review: A Short And Foggy Pierside Fright

Hit indie creature collector Cassette Beasts, developed by Bytten Studio and published by Raw Fury, has its first DLC, Pier of the Unknown, ready to take its bold adventurer from New Wirral Island to the fog-covered Brightside Pier. While the spooks are short-lived, this DLC provides enough new content to be worth the price of admission.

Get Your Halloween Mixtapes Ready

Now, with 90% more OSHA violations per ride!

If this is your first time hearing of Cassette Beasts, or you happened to stumble upon this review and are wondering what all the fuss is about, it’s essentially a mixture of Pokemon and Persona that injects a mysterious, slightly ’80s vibe into the tried-and-true monster-collecting formula. You wind up washed up on the island of New Wirral, where the click of a button on a portable cassette player can transform you into one of the island’s numerous odd creatures. The adventure moves ever onward as you tackle eldritch beings called Archangels in a tale of mystery and surrealism as you uncover secrets of the island on your quest to find a way home for yourself and the many displaced denizens of New Wirral.

Pier of the Unknown starts when a strange row boat winds up docked at the beach near Harbortown, and you’ll find that this thing has some spooky kind of auto-pilot, because traveling on it will take you to Brightside Pier. Sunny, this pier is definitely not, as it’s constantly raining, foggy, or both, all set to a soft, melancholic music box theme ever-present on the pier. Looking around, you’ll come across the local clown and sole speaking denizen of this haunting place, Gwen. You’ll shortly be tasked with getting all the attractions back in working order since their engines apparently are being a bit fussy and uncooperative.

Of course, this doesn’t come too easily, as you’ll need to gather some prize tickets to exchange for admission tickets, letting you into one of the three attractions, which you can do in any order. Sure, Gwen could just hand you the admission tickets, but that would be no fun! No harm in poking around the pier, assuming you’ve had your tetanus shots and brought along some spare tapes.

For better and worse, you retain any abilities you’ve netted from the main journey in New Wirral. You’ll want to be around level 40 to ensure the best experience here, as that’s about what level everything here is floating around. In addition to the enemies you’ll face, there’s some precarious platforming here. Still, later abilities definitely can neuter the challenge, so I tried to minimize using them to see how hard the platforming is in the three mini-dungeons. I’ll be the first to admit that the platforming in Cassette Beasts is sometimes a bit finicky, but overall, it’s manageable. Brightside Pier, however, is just a bit more strict, as there are many jumps you’ll barely be able to make without abusing later game mechanics.

Eventually, I started getting the hang of it, but it still seems a bit too strict for what’s supposed to be a harmless romp into the spookier side of Cassette Beasts. I don’t hate the platforming in Pier of the Unknown, and it’s far from ball-busting at any point, but I feel it just needs a bit more wiggle room to catch yourself with if you’re running without the full mechanics kit that late-game Cassette Beasts offers.

Tune In For The Dark, Damp, and Dreary

I mean, the sign says “Fun,” so I see no reason not to come on in. What’s the worst that can happen?

The DLC offers three major zones that will definitely feel larger on the inside than they appear on the outside. There’s the puzzle-forward Witch’s House, the platforming-heavy Funhouse, and the Cosmic Zone, which’s a fine balance between the two, with all three of them culminating in a boss fight against one of the three misbehaving engines. These individual areas felt unique enough that I enjoyed seeing which ones brought what to the table. They’re each filled with monsters you’ve likely seen before and a healthy dose of new critters. From the circus performer-like Charlequin to the haunted book Hauntome, there’s a nice amount of unique and spooky newcomers. I enjoyed the new costumes added in, and while it is a bummer that no new vocal tracks were added, I still liked the new tunes, especially that haunting music box piece that plays outside on the pier.

The new bosses, however, were hit or miss for me. They were too indistinct from each other and just felt like the same fight three times in a row. All three encounters had essentially the same attacks and strategies, and any late-game player will have a healthy amount of cheesy techniques to dispatch them quickly. Even with the three of them having Machine Curse, which neutered my Robindam’s Roll Again and Automation passives by reflecting attack damage onto me, I found another strategy that quickly circumvented the minor inconvenience.

Initially, I had some complaints focused toward all three of them having the Machine Curse ability that shafted with my Robindam’s Roll Again and Automation passives by making them backfire on me, but I was so late-game by this point that I had other ways around it, or could even just face-tank the damage in general. After some debate, I considered it fair game and even came to appreciate them shaking up my usual somewhat cheesy tactics, even if it was short-lived. I still wish the three Infernal Engines were actually distinct from each other, as they seem like a neat idea that wasn’t left in the oven long enough. There was even a lore explanation as to why these engines exist the way they do that I feel lent more than enough room for some unique and harrowing tales to be told from the perspective of these damnable machines. Of course, I can’t spoil the final boss, but I will say that it was a damn good sendoff for the DLC and is best enjoyed unspoiled.

It’s a shame that, once you’re done with the three areas and the final boss, there’s really little to do. There’s a secret monster hidden in the warehouse area, but that requires you to find every single prize ticket, and after that, you’re done. It lasted me about an hour to two hours; the first hour was spent running through the whole scenario, and the other hour was spent cleaning up the extra stuff. It’s criminally short, but admittedly, I don’t know how else you’d expand on this DLC. It’s never advertised as a sweeping, giant area, so I don’t feel it needed to ding it very bad for its length, but I do have to note it as the biggest shortcoming of the content next to the same-y boss fights and lack of vocal tracks during Fusions. Do I wish there was more? Hell yeah, I do! I love Cassette Beasts and sincerely hope this is just Bytten Studios testing the water with grander plans in store.

A Shorter Mix, But Still Solidly Spooky

DLC can vary wildly in length, and just because the added content is short doesn’t always mean it’s not worth checking out. Cassette Beasts: The Pier of the Unknown is, unfortunately, far closer to the lean side. But beyond its brief runtime and some same-y boss fights, it still managed to tick off most of the boxes of things I was looking for. There are a few interesting new monsters to transform into, Archangels to battle, and some challenging platforming to make this eerie expansion a worthwhile experience for the spookiest month of the year. That said, here’s hoping this is just the first hint of potentially larger DLC to come in the future, because the short length certainly has me wanting more.

Final Verdict: 3.5/5

Available on: Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, PC (Reviewed); Publisher: Raw Fury; Developer: Bytten Studio; Number of players: 1; Released: October 4th, 2023; MSRP: $6.99

Full Disclosure: A copy of Cassette Beasts: Pier of the Unknown was obtained by the reviewer