Cassette Beasts is a lo-fi take on Pokemon where you merge with monsters to battle, and it’s coming soon. Bytten Studio reveals that the open-world RPG will be coming to PC on April 26, and to Xbox and Nintendo Switch in late spring.

Cassette Beasts takes you to the New Wirral with a cassette player in hand, giving the RPG some of the retro vibes it craves. More than a source of ’90s beats, the clever doodah merges two monsters together to create something worthy for you to battle, and you’ll need to capture plenty of them to eventually return home.

When you’re not engaging in turn-based battles, you’re exploring the open world. Along with visiting sites, this will mean using monster abilities to reach areas you couldn’t before, solve puzzles, and locate dungeons. Just like Ash has Brock and Misty, you will have your own companions. There is also an incentive to help them achieve their personal goals, as this determines how well they can merge.

Combat is what you would expect from a creature collector, but you should keep elemental chemistry in mind as it will allow you to apply additional buffs or debuffs to your attack. It can even change your opponent’s elemental type.

Luckily, you don’t have to do it alone. Cassette Beasts has a co-op mode, so you can take a friend to explore the world and fight with them.

During, 19 years of pokemon now they’re stuck behind a $5 app they can’t afford.

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