West of the Pawsific Ocean and South of the Catpital Lake lies the Kingdom of Felingard with its Capital ,Mew Town!, and that’s where our hero regains consciousness after a levitating Cat Sorcerer Drakoth abducted his sister and blasted away his boat on the sea. I am not even summarizing here, stuff happens at breakneck speed in this game, which, for an rpg, could be taken as a breath of fresh air actually.
Cat Quest is a top down fantasy rpg by the indie developers The Gentlebros. Their foray into the realm of video game consoles is a natural progression from their Android/iOS debut game Slashy Heroes two years ago, which received mostly positive reviews. It seems their latest venture is also a step in the right direction.
Our hero is the Cat With No Name who is generally referred to, revered and feared as Dragonblood! The mythical race of cats only whose bloodline carried arcane powers which could destroy the invading dragons. The Dragonbloods were branded with a mystical symbol near the base of their skull, which suspiciously looked very much like the fabled internet explorer icon for some reason, but nevertheless the bringer of great power and even greater feline related puns.
As soon as our hero opens his eyes he is greeted by a ghostly disembodied head of a Cat who introduces himself as Spirry and promptly appoints himself to be our heroe’s Guardian Spirit. Immediately after we find ourselves in the center of the town where everybody is shocked and awed seeing a Dragonblood who were supposed to be extinct centuries ago and suddenly the sorcerer Drakoth appears again, taunting the hero with the visions of his sister (as I said earlier things happen fast in this game) and thus begins…Cat Quest!
So the Dragons are back but their arrival marks the resurfacing of the Dragonbloods or rather the ‘one’ Dragonblood in centuries whose lineage gives him the power to defeat the dragons. Sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it? Our Dragon born…sorry, Dragonblood now embarks on a journey to rescue his sister from the evil sorcerer and lay waste to as many dragons in the process as he could while raiding tombs, taking on side quests and uncovering mysteries of the past by reading ancient monuments.
Similar to the story the gameplay mechanics of Cat Quest are quite simple and straight forward. On the Nintendo Switch you swing your weapon with a Y and evade with B , while X button is reserved for interaction prompts. The two shoulder buttons and triggers can be customized with one of the Seven spells each , which can first be bought from their individual arcane temples but once acquired can be upgraded in exchange of gold coins from any of the several Arcane temples scattered across the world.
Mana meter can be found right beneath the health bar which depletes every time we conjure up a fire storm or heal our wounds but each successful hit against an enemy refills a portion of the mana bar too , the reason why I did not sorely miss mana regeneration.
The combat of Cat Quest is real time. The enemies move on an invisible grid which makes it easier to predict their attack patterns respawn frequently after being vanquished. The loot they dropped consists of the game’s currency of gold coins as well as blue coloured XP coins which contribute to our character’s evolution.
The inventory offers three broad categories, namely Weapon, Armour and Skills. Weapons fall under Swords and Staffs mainly and have their inherent elemental effects and stats bonuses which can be equipped from the inventory.
Similarly the armour includes head gear and vests and gives off similar kind of stat boosts, Crappy Helmet is the best, while all our acquired spells can be found and customized under Skills tab.
In addition to the regular elemental spells such as Fire (flamepurr), Ice (Icepaw) and Lightning (lightnyan) etc the game also allows us to heal, set traps, rain plasma blasts and temporarily increase our size with magic too.
As we progress through the story the Dragonlood unlocks a few significant skills as well, including walking on water and flying, which are essential to gain access to certain areas. Cat Quest does not take itself too seriously and this is evident from everything from the names of various dungeons littering the Feline World (Bat Cave, Omikron Ruins) to the names of characters and even certain dialogues.
The game, however, is obsessed with Cat Puns and determined to leave no kitty litter upturned (sorry). That did not just stop at Pawsific Ocean and Puss Plains and Purry Mountains but boldly dived into the surreal world of Purrn Watch, Furbidden Fields and BerMEWda Triangle!
I mean I made my peace with Mew City and Catpital Lake but Necropawticon? Seriously?
But to be fair it does add to the game’s silly charm.
Cat Quest is not certainly nothing revolutionary nor does it claim to reinvent the wheel. While the influence of old school Legend of Zelda games is unmistakable, the game keeps every such element from story to game play on the lighter side and doesn’t venture into any complexities, however the game easy on the eyes and fun to play, and that in my opinion is not a bad thing at all.
