A month ago I discovered via Reddit that the indie game Cassette Beasts would soon be coming to mobile, with no release date announced at the time. There wasn't much news in the meantime, until a few days ago when the dev team (Bytten Studio) tweeted that the game is coming to the App Store on June 4th!

In case you're unfamiliar, Cassette Beasts is an open-world monster collector/turn-based battle RPG à la Pokémon, but with a couple of twists on the formula: Rather than capturing and storing a creature in a ball, you record its essence onto special cassette tapes, which you later ‘play back’ to transform into that monster yourself.

You also get to meet and form relationships with partner characters who can join you on your travels and take part in dual battles with you.

But the real fun comes when you start fusing monsters together. Any two monsters (i.e. you and your partner after transforming) can be merged into a unique and fully animated new fusion battler that combines of all the original creatures' types, states, and movesets.

It's like a temporary evolution for any given battle rather than a permanent change from leveling, and there are thousands of potential combinations to experiment with.

Watch the original trailer to get a feel for what the retro vibe of the game is like:

You can pre-register to auto-download Cassette Beasts when it releases on June 4th. The download itself is free but the full game unlock will be $7, with another $3 IAP for the ‘Pier of the Unknown’ DLC pack.