A Purrate’s Life Fur Me!
HIGH Captivating visuals and great build variety.
LOW Pretty short overall.
WTF That golden boss…
It’s not often that a cartoony game grabs my attention — let alone holds it from start to finish — so I’m happy to report that Cat Quest 3 is one such gem. The strong artistic direction and the sheer absurdity of watching cute, furry sprites smacking each other with medieval weaponry while pretending to be pirates, kept me keen to see this adventure to the end. En garde!
Cat Quest 3 is a realtime action-RPG featuring 2D characters roaming a 3D world. The adventure begins with a short intro setting the stage for the main character’s goal of tracking down a legendary pirate treasure hidden by certain esoteric (yet fluffy) forces. This brief foreword was just enough to introduce the premise, preparing me for an adventure brimming with magic, cat puns aplenty, and a vibrant map full of legendary pirates.
Following that, I immediately took note of the eye-catching camera perspective Cat Quest 3 implements, where we observe things from a tilted overhead angle, allowing a clear view of the world’s islands, mountains, caverns, castles, taverns, towers, and seas as they pop into view as if being “discovered”.
I found this to be a neat solution for the mixed-dimensional presentation, as Cat Quest 3’s combat demands quick reflexes and purr-poseful legwork, since enemies usually appear in groups and operate on different movesets. So, while we direct our feline hero across the map (the world is a literal map, featuring cartographic lines and symbols) we clearly observe the area and any opposition nearby. This kingdom is brimming with dastardly pi-rats, supernatural entities, and a handful of eldritch surprises, all wearing era-appropriate apparel like feathery hats, eye patches, sabers, wands, shields, and a selection of ranged weaponry to boot.
Regarding the on-foot combat, as soon as Cat Quest 3’s few introductory bouts ended, I had a weighty selection of several types of armaments, including claws, swords, and axes, as well as pistols and double-barreled contraptions, presenting me with many choices of build. The items also carry ‘deeper’ RPG-stat-boosting purposes yielding maximum health increases, stronger armor ratings, faster attack speed, and so on. While I could swing the melee weapon of choice in prolonged fashion, ranged options were hampered by cumbersome reload periods, forcing me to learn how to use them strategically when surrounded by foes. While Cat Quest 3 definitely gets easier with play due to plentiful money for upgrades, the first 30 or so minutes were indeed rough.
However, while the aesthetics are on point, it’s safe to say that this isn’t the most optimized structure for combat. As all enemies are 2D sprites darting around a 3D world, their attack animations tend to overlap and become visually tough to parse (especially within narrow dungeons) and it gets even more chaotic when enemies start throwing fireballs. For instance, it’s hard to tell whether an enemy’s color change was due to my axe connecting or because the enemy was initiating a magical attack. Some instances of Cat Quest 3 were memorable simply due to how many sprites were present on screen at once, but they were reduced to being exercises in mayhem where I happily resorted to mashing buttons in the hopes of dwindling their health bars ASAP. Such im-purr-fections aside, I doubt many players will have a hard time getting on board, especially as the difficulty curve quickly boosts the player into a comfortable zone.
Between bouts of combat, Cat Quest 3 offers entertaining, pun-filled dialogues which are short enough not avoid interrupting the joy of slowly becoming the most fearsome purr-ate around, and I always cheered upon discovering yet another seemingly uneventful corner of the map that served as a starting point for an epic quest to thwart newly-introduced adversaries. The world’s rapid expansion was a highlight for me, and Cat Quest 3’s flavorful homages to other videogames and real-world celebrities made things that much sweeter. (Crank up the Meowtallika!!!)
As such, everything contained within Cat Quest 3 added up to a satisfying, fulfilling romp — and while I never encountered an obstacle that I couldn’t overcome within five minutes of trying, I did feel like I had accomplished something at the story’s conclusion, which only serves to show how expertly knitted-together the experience is. I found it to be utterly irresistible and, dare I say, purr-found!
Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Disclosures: This game was developed by The Gentlebros and published by Kepler Interactive. It is currently available on Switch, PS4/5, PC, and XBO/X/S. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch Lite. Approximately 7 hours of play were devoted to the game, and it was completed. This game supports local co-op multiplayer for up to two players.
Parents: This game has received an E rating from the ESRB and contains Comic Mischief and Fantasy Violence. The game features medieval aesthetics heavily influenced by pirate legends akin to the Pirates of the Caribbean movie series. However, it also borrows from more complicated IPs like H.P. Lovercraft’s writings. Still, even if the story hints at a deeper overarching plot with giant cosmic creatures at the forefront, Cat Quest 3’s cartoony 2D characters and playful tone are the primary impressions players will be left with in the end. As such, I doubt that younger audiences will think twice about the game’s influences even after witnessing clear references to more serious material in a few of its dialogues.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue in this game is shown via textboxes, so they’re easy to keep track of at all times. All enemy attacks are clearly telegraphed on-screen with enemies signaling when they will strike next and in which general direction. There are no audio cues needed for gameplay. This experience is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: This game doesn’t offer a controller diagram and the controls are not remappable. However, the controls are fairly straightforward — on the Switch Lite, we use the left stick to move the character, the face buttons to strike and roll out of danger, and the bumpers are for magic attacks.
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“everything contained within Cat Quest 3 added up to a satisfying, fulfilling romp”
Yep, all the Cat Quest games somehow add up to slightly more than the sum of their parts. They’re not stunningly amazing, but they’re always good enough to consistently hold my attention.