CASSETTE BOY

I really enjoyed the game itself. The 2D/3D gimmick is fun. 9 times out of 10 if I got stuck, the answer came down to exploiting the whole "things stop existing while you can't see them, and then start existing again when you can" thing, which I appreciate. The story was light but interesting enough, and I didn't see the twist at the end coming until I was right up on it. It worked just fine on Steam Deck. Overall I'd give it... a 8.5/10. Why the "not recommend" then? Well, it seems like the current build of the game has a debug flag set or something, so as you play it notes every button/key you press into a pair of log files stored in the cloud save directory. Since there's only ~1MB of cloud storage space allocated to this game, you quite quickly hit that ceiling and lose cloud save function. Clearing out those logs every time you're done playing and then start-stopping the game gets things working again, but it's so annoying to do that, especially on Steam Deck. クラウドセーブの問題を直してください！ This is still not fixed as of v1.2.0, despite what the dev says.

Cassette boy is really trying to punch above its weight. It wants to be a genre-bending wow-inspriring game, in the likes of *Fez* or *Tunic*. But unfortunately it's clunky, confusing, and obtuse. The core idea is that objects don't exist when you look at them, which is cool! And there are a lot of interesting puzzles that it uses this for, like to delay the flight of arrows, or keep buttons down held. But it seems to be applied inconsistently, and a lot of puzzles end up feeling samey or tedious. It's got a cool 3D graphics with the gameboy palette, but it kind of makes things muddier and harder to discern objects. It's not always clear how to progress, and often you have to do a lot of re-tracking the same steps to trigger required events. Combat is kinda clunky and underwhelming. You can use geometry to make enemies disappear, but that doesn't usually do much. Every nice thing I want to say kind of has caveats. I sspect this is a solo project, but I haven't reached credits and the studio's website doesn't have many details. Sucks, I think this game is cool but has a lot holding it back

No spoilers** *Builds a PC* *downloads steam* *sees this game for $12* Cassette Boy being one of my first games off a clip is Wild. I freaking love this game. The devs making this game really hit that puzzle/adventure feeling I’ve been longing. I saw a 30 second clip of this vid on social media. Wild. I freaking love this game. The amount of game feels like a $20 not $12. I liked the music score and the art style off the cuff. Yet, 10 hrs in and I feel like I’m 3/4 of the game in. It has that old Zelda feel with the combat, but sometimes combat is completely optional. The puzzles in areas feel mind blowing sometimes it’s like no way that wouldn’t work in another game. The portal puzzles are optional for collecting useful progression stuff. I never needed a guide to play this, it’s one of those games if you can’t figure it; take a break or a different perspective (he..he). Overall this has been a really enjoyable experience. 10/10 if you like Fez, Zelda, paper Mario, superlimanal, Talos Principal PLAY THIS GAME

I don’t take joy in giving a “Don’t recommend”, but as pleasant as the first hr was, it just felt like “where to go next” was too random. I’m not saying all games, especially games like this that are going for a retro look and play, need yellow paint and task lists, but there were already a few times where I did something and then in order for the next “quest” to unlock I had to go to the next room and then back.

Many potentially good things can come out of a thing that for some reason didn't want to address what intrinsically it was built to do. A game with an interesting premise might serve well for a fascinating experience, but here the standard falls flat into a sea of contentions, which unfortunately span many aspects of the game. It doesn't take long to see. The idea of making things nonexistent is good, yet it's not entirely true. Everything has an existing state, meaning that they have to persist in their previous form when they could be seen. It turns out plenty of things still exist when they can't be seen. The things that "block vision", hence render to nonexistence, are not tied to everything in the world, elucidating to the fact that the core mechanic does not play a huge role in the game. For whatever reason, the game also has an RPG system. It has no purpose. It doesn't tie in with the rest of the game. What's worse is that the enemies are truly not capable of moving around, and if they do find a way to attack the player they dish out a lot of damage, sometimes attacking abysmally far away with no consequence as the illusory hitbox reaches pretty well. Enemies hidden behind walls can be rendered nonexistent, yet this doesn't accomplish anything as they still must be seen to be destroyed. The color palette, although tasteful, inevitably hampers the experience more, making it difficult to see what is going on where the player is standing as he blends in with everything on the screen. This applies also to levels of heightmap which don't have any indication that the height has changed other than by using the ability to rotate the view. This visual insight might suggest that perspective plays into the game mechanic of changing what is real, like merging height 2 and height 1 platforms into the same height, yet they are totally persistent and perspective has no power to change that. Which isn't a problem as long as nobody is expected to mentally discern the difference in something is visually the exact same. There are times when audio mixing gets really bad. Multiple loud sounds combined boom into the headphones. The game could be better but it's too hampered by little things that distract from the identity of the game and turn it into a new entity, one which is confusing and dilutes from the initial interest that was placed upon me. So there's no reason to finish as long as the game I'm not seeing must not be real.

I expected more from Pocketpair. I did enjoy the puzzles, but there were too many rough edges for me to give this a good review. Main story was nice, but tracking down the Ancient Coins wasn't worth the reward, there's a pit of 100 trials that was absolutely awful to play and no worthwhile reward past floor fifty, and some annoying minigames to boot. The story was a bit odd, and tried to do the minimalist dialogue approach, but I don't think they pulled it off very well. If you're going to play, my advice is to enjoy the main quest and not look in every nook and cranny for additional content, since the content that is there to find is unpolished and tiring without reward.

見えないものが存在しない2Dゼルダライク パズルゲームとしては難易度控えめで、独自システムメインというよりは、アクションアドベンチャー寄りの内容 進行フラグが複雑でどうやったらゲームが進むのかわかりづらい 画面を回転させる関係で迷うのにミニマップがない オートセーブがないのでうっかり死ぬとギミックやり直し 個人的には古臭さが目立つ内容であわなかったです

キーボードの操作方法が悪くてしかも操作方法が変えられないためコントローラーがない人はおすすめしません

This game was a very fun experience throughout its entirety. The puzzles were a fun challenge; difficult in some aspects, but that's coming from someone who doesn't normally mess with puzzles, so the average player shouldn't have too much trouble. The only negative I can say about this game is that the combat, albeit expected, was way too bow-heavy. The sword and bombs are cool and all, but once you unlock the bow, you have no need for the former weapons. Aside from that, very glad I caught wind of this game and would like to thank the team behind it for a few good hours of fun.

Feels like a combination of traditional Zelda adventure with Fez-style camera rotation puzzles, except that it doesn't come to the exploration highs of a Zelda or the "ah hah!" moments of Fez. Combat feels serviceable, and the puzzles feel serviceable. Writing and music is cute and fits the theme of everything going on. This is one of those "potato chip" games where you can pick it up and complete it over a lazy day, enjoy your time with it, and never really think about it again. I would recommend it to anyone looking for something in that vein and is a fan of light puzzle adventures.