Heartbeat

Heartbeat is a role-playing video game developed by TBD and published by TBD. The game was released on April 18, 2020, for PC and Mac, later being ported to the PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, XBox, etc. The game is in the same vein as games such as Pokémon or Digimon, following a young person who goes out on a journey to capture strange creatures, named Yaoguai, that roam the land.

Gameplay
Heartbeat is a third-person roleplaying game where the player fights monsters in real time. The game's fighting system is comparable to action-adventure games, though the regular attacks in the game don't have in-between frames, meaning the character cuts from running to slashing instantly with no pulling out the weapon or swinging the sword. This was done intentionally to make fights feel as if they are going a lot faster. Also during battles, the player is able to choose which Yaoguai they want to summon, though they can only have three Yaoguai out at a time.

As stated previously, the point of the game is to capture Yaoguai. To do this, the player must either challenge a Yaoguai or be challenged by one and weaken it before ending the fight, though the player can choose to knock out the Yaoguai instead. Once the fight is ended, a short cutscene will play where either the Yaoguai will accept the player as its new master or it will run away in fear, disgust, anger, etc. The only downside is that if the player chooses to tame the Yaoguai and they accept the player will not receive any experience points, gold, etc.

The game is semi-open world, featuring many different locations the player can go to, either as a way of earning for experience points, unlocking a side mission, or to just play minigames and have fun. However, despite this, there are some restrictions either to do with the story of the game or the limitations of the coding, such as something blocking the player's path or the player not being allowed to go to certain areas because they haven't actually been coded in.

Main

 * Julie (voiced by Tara Strong) - the main protagonist of the game who is an active and easily excitable youth that starts her quest to become a Yaoguai Tamer.
 * Maximus (voiced by TBD) - Julie's first Yaoguai who is a small cat-like creature that is very proud and stubborn. He wears a green cape and carries an épée with him.

Antagonists

 * Osidie (voiced by TBD) - the main antagonist of the game who is a solid black Yaoguai that is over a thousand years old and despises humans.

Yaoguai

 * Hydrophagite - a strange toad like Yaoguai that lives in the water.

Trivia

 * Only important cutscenes in the game are voiced.