What do you get if you mix Skyrim with The Legend of Zelda, and then throw in a bucketload of cats?
Cat Quest is an adorable 2D RPG developed by The Gentlebros, the studio which also made Slashy Hero. The developers say they’ve been inspired by games like Skyrim, The Legend of Zelda, and Final Fantasy, so the game has a lot to live up to. Lucky for Cat Quest then, that it has nine lives to do just that.
Cat Quest takes place in Felingard, a land of mighty mountains, big lakes, vast forests, a sizeable clowder of cats… and dragons? The feline hero of this particular story happens to be a Dragonblood, a prophesied saviour that will rid Felingard of dragons, once and for all! But all he wants to do is save his sister who has been catnapped by a crazy and generic villain by the name of Drakoth. On the journey to save his sister the hero helps several villagers with various problems, rids dungeons and caves of monsters, obtains a lot of cool loot, and encounters a host of different enemies.
This is a very simplified RPG, containing just the basic elements necessary: leveling up, allocating skill points, upgrading weapons and armour, choosing classes… sort of. See, all the classes like mage, ranger, tank, rogue and so one are tied to whatever clothes the hero is wearing (certain items of clothing gives bonuses and penalties to specific skills), so the hero can, for all intents and purposes, play all the classes himself. This makes sense since our hero is a lone wolf, and doesn’t add any companions to his party.
Simplicity doesn’t mean that the game is bad, however! Far from it. There are a lot of things in this game that work very well. Like the combat system, which is an absolute delight. Again, it’s simple but efficient. Dodge with X, attack with square, perform magic attacks with bumpers and triggers; it works like a charm! A combination of dodging, attacking, and magic is usually necessary during most encounters, as enemies have a damage radius, in addition to a magical attack that follows a certain path – either left to right, criss-cross or in a circle. If you’re unfortunate you’ll bump into an enemy that has all three directional attacks, combined with different types of elemental magic. Try dodging that!
As you discover new areas of Felingard you find temples where you can learn new abilities and upgrade the ones you already know. This is nice, as you also meet new and more challenging enemies. The Gentlebros has managed to create a good balanced between new enemies, new abilities, and new equipment, which makes this a very entertaining, and slightly addictive, game – at the time of writing our feline hero is level 47, and we have no plans of quitting anytime soon. Judging by the caves we’ve found we can go all the way to level 99…
A contributing factor to the addictive effect the game has are the lootbox-y treasure chests you can find in caves and buy at the store (with in-game currency, no actual microtransactions here, no sir!). Like Forrest Gump would say: “These chests are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get”. They are completely random and often you’ll end up with a weapon or a piece of armour that you already have. But when you do, they actually upgrade the item you already have. Which makes it a little easier to swallow that you can’t choose what you’re buying, and the fact that you can’t sell any of the stuff you find. This really is a barebones RPG, and there’s no dead weight here. However, we think maybe The Gentlebros has gone too far, because it certainly would be nice to have something like a journal to keep track of all the quests, for example.
Though this game is over-simplified and barebones, it is certainly charming! Felingard is a really pleasant place (except for the occasional dragon), our feline hero is totes adorbs, and we feel the urge to pinch the cheeks of everyone we encounter because they are so gosh darn cute – even the enemies! We have lost count of how many times we’ve “oooh’d” and “aaah’d” and yelled “OH DEARY ME THAT IS INTOLERABLY CUTE” when our cat has gotten a new outfit… er.. we mean, when our hero has gotten some badass new armour.
This is, simply put, just a fun and charming game, with a pleasant soundtrack, interesting lore, and so many cat-related puns you can’t help but chuckle while you play. And the cute charm of the game more than makes up for the lack of depth, the grindiness, and the fact that the quests can get a little repetitive after a while. Cat Quest is definitely worth wasting a couple of hours on. We don’t think you’ll regret it.
HQ
Keyword: Cat Quest