So on the topic of Apples and Bananas I'm going to shill for an amazing game and how it is so well designed in both in it's strength and in mitigating it's weaknesses compared to it's main stream Banana.
And that game is
Cassette Beasts
So this is a review and TLDR it's an amazing Pokemon Like game that doesn't play anything like pokemon whatsoever. I suggest going in blind rather then read this review but if you don't mind some spoilers lets go dive into the game.
Cassette Beasts is made by a small indie team of like 2 peeps + some outsourcing where you are isekai'd into a weird world where everyone else is also an isekai and everyone can turn into weird monsters via cassette players and can change forms by recording monsters into cassettes. After the tutorial mission an eldritch being tells you (as you are the first ones to beat it) that the way back home is by beating up other eldritch horrors to get pieces of a riddle to find the way home.
So with that out of the way let's talk what makes this game great first namely, the combat and gameplay generally.
First let's start with tutorials. The game initially has basic tutorials for the basic stuff, but very quickly start teaching you mid and high level strats by being very clever and making Ranger Captains use solid and easy to implement strategies that any player can learn from and use. Things like exponential Invincibility buff, Melee nullification and revenge hits, range nullification, type changing, perma stun combos. And moves/passive abilities are transferabble to any compatible beasts and as such teh captains will give you a core component piece of their strategy if you win.
Secondly combat is deep. At first look likes doubles pokemon. But your moves are limited by how much energy you generate. Then you find out type advantages/disadvantages doesn't do extra damage, but inflict different, potent status effects . Then you find out moves and passives can be transferred between beasts and passive stacks as many times as you have room in your beasts. Then you find out the status effect includes changing the type for both enemies and players.
A consequence of how deep the combat system is is that you will run into challenges that use very powerful tactics with very different weaknesses forcing you to change your strat constantly in a cycle of self improvement.
Lastly the Combat and boss OST are bopping
Now let's go to the cons.
The story, dialog, and mini quest are really sparse. Unlike pokemon there's very little to keep you emotionally invested. You don't have partner pokemon, but forms to transform into. The characters simply can't reach the heights of say Cynthia or your rival or Leon as there's not enough material to get them to shine.
Additionally the MC is a literal blank slate. There's no meaningful choices and dialog to what choice is there doesn't change if you choose a second option.
But it does do one thing that Zelda Botw/TotK doesn't do well. Namely it goes out of it's way to hide the cons as best it can and due to the short play time it's mostly succeeds. It gives the illusion of story depth and development by rotating through many many characters with a little bit of dialog for each character.
All in all this is a great game and people should play it.
I rate it
10 Bopping songs out of 10
Merge via Editchan
Kiiinda comparing apples and bananas situation here.
The day someone program a Soul Game and its lore with gameplay like BotW/TotK, then you can rejoice all you want.
and that matters why exactly?
they're both r fruits at the end of the day .