Today’s we’re going on a catventure! I mean, we’re taking a look at Cat Quest after all! Cat Quest is not only a lovely homage to classic RPGs but also a parody of the same. It not only mocks the genre but also adds its features into it to make a purrfect game for every pun-loving RPG-fan!
Developer: The Gentle Bros
Publisher: The Gentle Bros
Genres: 2D, Open World, Action, RPG, Indie
Release Date: August 8, 2017
Reviewed on: PC
Available on: PC, Switch, PS4, Android/iOS
Copy was purchased.
After a dark wizard has catnapped our dear sister, we find out that we’re a so-called Dragonborn! The wizard summoned dragons into the world and we’re the only one who can save the world from those nasty lizards! In Cat Quest, we’re able to roam the expansive continent of Felingard, fight monsters in real-time battles and not only upgrade our skills but also our equipment!
Combat:
Combat in Cat Quest is kept relatively simple. We’re able to attack enemies with a normal attack, using our physical strength, to deal damage but also recharge our Mana. Our Health-bar can also be protected with Armor that recharges over time when out of combat, similar to the Shield in the Borderland series, although not as quickly. To not receive damage, we have to watch out for the enemy-attack-patterns: Indicated by red scorch marks on the ground, we can see what spell they are currently casting or when the next attack is coming. We simply have to roll or walk away from that zone then, making combat quite dynamic!
We’re also able to cast spells that consume Mana but also deal damage on top of other effects based on the spell’s nature: Fire sets enemies ablaze while your Ice-Spell deals damage to them and causes them to attack and move slower. For Spells to be stronger, you need ability power. Both physical and ability power are gained through level-ups and items.
Just like enemies, we also cast our spells in different directions. The Fire Spell is an AoE-spell around you, while Lightning is a horizontal and Ice is a vertical attack. There are also other spells with different patterns as well as a Heal Spell but I don’t want to spoil too much. Different enemy-types can use different spells, although they all resemble yours. Hence you sometimes have to dodge the ice attack while still attacking enemies.
There are also enemies with special properties that allow them to not receive damage from physical, magical or certain elemental attacks, although making them weaker to the opposite. I personally liked this feature quite a lot as it made me change my spell-loadout in between fights in order to be effective while also making me walk and roll around a lot more in combat instead of just mashing one attack-button.
Questing, Levelling and Items:
There are two types of quests: Side Quests (which are completely optional but also really hillarious) and the Main Quest (which is the Story basically). These are most often either “Kill these monsters”, “go there”, “find that” or “talk to these guys” quests, which is relatively repetitive. Once you complete the quest, you’re most often rewarded with Experience and Gold en masse. But while I said that the quests are repetitive, I must say that the dialogues between the characters are pawesome! Also most quests only take about 2-3 minutes and always grant you a level up until level 60-something. At that level, you’d also have to farm a few dungeons to level up and proceed with the story.
There are 99 Levels, 62 Side-Quests and 12 Main Quests to complete and 52 Dungeons to clear, so you’ve got a handful to do in this game. On top of that, there are also about 66 armors and weapons available in the game which can be broken down into different sets.
A set would be the Squire Armor + the Squire Helmet + the Squire Sword. While the Armor-pieces enhance your armor- and magic-stats, the sword only grants you physical and magical damage but no armor. There are also other pieces in the game that grant you different boni like more health or just one stat bonus or even grant you one bonus while also giving you a malus that you need to make up for with other items or that you just take into account. Hell, there’s even a “Crappy Set” that reduces everything – and the more you upgrade the different pieces, the worse these items get!
Overall, you can customize your playstyle a lot with these items, although I would loved it if these “sets” had actual set boni like in other RPGs. That would have been a great addition to the game! Set boni aside, I love the combinations that are possible with these armor pieces and also really enjoyed the fact that you can see the armor and weapons on your catracter.
Dungeons usually harbor a few enemies, experience points, gold and chests. There are normal and golden chests, the normal ones contain items while the golden chests contain better loot but require a key to be opened. When you loot dungeons, you’re able to obtain multiple pieces of the same set. If you already have those pieces, your existing armor/weapon gains more levels and hence better stats. Usually, you’d have to go to a blacksmith and pay 50 gold or even 5000 gold for a chest that contains some loot. This, however, is a crap mechanic, in my opinion, as you cannot directly upgrade your armor. Meanwhile, spells can just be upgraded with gold at Arcane Towers without the hassle of playing a loot-box-minigame.
Presentation
Cat Quest really shines with its humour and the paw-ns (nope, a pun on puns doesn’t work) that are scattered all across the world. The Open World uses vibrant colours which is insanely cute! Also the overworld uses different colour palettes for the different zones/biomes while the dungeons always have a rather dark and enigmatic colour palette, which I found rather fitting. The music is okay but nothing special, in my opinion. It doesn’t really stick in your ear but there is no point in the game where the music doesn’t fit.
The world is nearly as huge as the devs’ cat-pun-repertoire, which makes it enjoyable to explore, especially as you unlock more ways of travelling later on, like “Water Walking” (cats don’t swim, they walk on water) and “Flying”, which renders you able to backtrack later on. Overall I really did get catventure-vibes from this game and enjoyed it through quite a few hours!
Conclusion
While Cat Quest has its flaws with the bad item-upgrade-system and the repetitive-ness of the quests, there are a lot more positive points to it as combat is superb, the puns and the humour is absolutely lovely and as the customization is also absolutely great! The World is HUGE and there is a lot of end-game-content to the game once you unlock Mew Game mode and play the game with different modifiers like having only nine lives, staying on level 1 for the whole playthrough, stronger enemies or even no armour.
So overall, I’m recommending this game to every lover of puns and RPGs who doesn’t want to play another dark and dramatic game but have a relaxed fun time in between Dark Souls deaths while groaning at least once in a while.
Meow!
Note: This is already my 50th post. Thanks a lot for all the comments and feedback on my other ones!
This post was first published on Indiecator by Dan Indiecator aka MagiWasTaken. If you like what you see here and want to see more, you can check me out on Twitch and YouTube as well.
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