Game Review: Cat Quest (Mobile)

Cat Quest is a romp through a fantasy based & cat-themed world from indie studio The Gentlebros. Playing out like an old-school RPG with real-time combat, Cat Quest is a surprisingly fun & detailed epic.

A straight-forward story puts you in control of a non speaking cat that discovers they are a Dragonblood. A race of cats thought long gone after they helped win the Dragon Wars a very long time ago.

Your sister is captured by the sinister & evil Drakoth forcing you to search the land, explore dungeons & level up. All until you’re ready to take down Drakoth & save your sibling.

It may not be the most detailed or original story but the cat-themes make it entertaining & way more charming than it has any right to be. The land you get to explore is filled with all kinds of tongue-in-cheek cat references & the amount of quirky side-quests keep things fun. There is some decent variety in these too ranging from standard fetch quests to solving mysteries or wiping out enemy filled dungeons.

There is little in the way of seriousness here. Except the finale which takes on a darker tone but that’s no bad thing. The colourful land is filled with all kinds of fantastical enemies to battle, equipment to find & ways to level up.

As you progress you’ll also unlock new skills. Ones such as the ability to walk on water or fly high in the sky. These abilities allow access to hidden islands, dungeons & terrifying new bosses. Such as the tough elder god, Cathulhu.

Combat is incredibly well done & ties perfectly into the touch screen elements of the game. Touch on a enemy to start your attack & your kitty will automatically start slashing away. Hold down on your kitty briefly to bring up your spell list & start laying down fire, lightning or spike traps. Defence comes mainly from moving out of the enemies attack range which are view-able as red circles or patterns that appear as they gear up to attack.

It’s a simple system that is all about timing. Timing is crucial, and you’ll spend a lot of time dodging, getting in a few hits, and moving away to avoid being hit. It’s a lot of fun though & you’ll rarely struggle as long as you don’t go too far above your current level.

Ignoring most side-quests & just playing out the story/levelling up enough, you’ll get between 4-6 hours of gameplay here. It’s a decent amount of time for a game that looks & plays this well.

That being said it has a few minor flaws that if fixed would turn this into one of the better mobile games on the market. You can only have one quest active at a time & activating another cancels the one you already have. There is no over-world map & while you can zoom out, on this screen you can’t move around. With no icons on the screen to indicate quests you will be doing a lot of backtracking.

It does get easier once you can walk on water & fly but these come very late in the game.

A great save system makes this an easy to pick up & play in short spurts kind of game. Cat Quest doesn’t reinvent the RPG genre but it’s not trying too, it’s just a fun and enjoyable cat-themed effort!