Review: Cat Quest 3 is a Purr-Fect Pirate Adventure

Cat Quest 3 is the newest in a sequence of lovely little motion RPGs which have attracted a small however loyal viewers. For the third sport, the everyday medieval setting has been ditched in favor of 1 based mostly on pirates. And this excessive seas swashbuckler is one that you just’ll wish to get your paws on.

In Cat Quest 3, you play as an unnamed younger cat pirate heading out on his first journey with the ghost of veteran pirate Captain Cappey. Your journey begins on a small island within the Purribean the place you steal a ship and set off to seek out the mysterious North Star Treasure. Alongside the best way, you need to take care of rival pirate captains all with their very own plans for the booty.

This begin units an awesome impression. You’re instantly launched to the assorted points of fight, which primarily consists of a melee weapon, a ranged weapon and a spell. You then get a ship and might head off into the world after breaking the flimsy barrier between you and freedom. And I do imply freedom, because the world is absolutely explorable from the beginning of the sport, though sure corners of the map will seemingly stomp you right into a fur rug and not using a little levelling.

The Purribean Sea of Cat Quest 3 is small however dense. It’s an assortment of islands dotted across the ocean, all containing their very own secrets and techniques and treasures. The flexibility to sail round all these locations proper out the gate affords an enormous quantity of freedom. Even inside the story, you by no means absolutely really feel such as you’re being funneled into a particular route. Whereas there’s a direct line of occasions that should be adopted, lots of your aims department off into a number of places that may tackled in any order, whether or not that’s accumulating keys for a tower or defeating totally different pirate captains.

Tucked away between these predominant aims are a ton of further facet tales, akin to a lovelorn rat whose ghost nonetheless haunts his citadel or a convoluted mail supply chain that entails a marriage and a deep-seated rivalry. These facet tales make exploring the world of Cat Quest 3 a pleasure. When you’re journeying to seek out the place the sport needs you to go, you’ll journey over numerous facet actions alongside the best way. There’s by no means a uninteresting second right here.

The sport can also be decided to immerse you in its map, avoiding plenty of the tedium and bloat that may generally infect the open world style. Whereas your aims might be marked in your map within the menu, the primary sport has no non-diegetic markers other than an non-compulsory one you possibly can place your self. This forces you to make use of the setting round you to navigate, which I’m at all times a fan of. It helps that the map is sufficiently small to grow to be acquainted with out feeling too restricted.

It manages to introduce the world to you with out holding your hand an excessive amount of. Your preliminary guides around the globe are star towers that time vaguely the place it is advisable go, however you need to triangulate with a number of towers to seek out your goal. Within the course of, you shortly grow to be conscious of which islands are the place, and shortly navigating this map turns into second nature. It occurs to organically that I didn’t discover how little I used to be utilizing the map for navigation till about midway via the sport. I merely headed off in no matter felt the pure route on the time.

Fight in Cat Quest 3 is one thing you’ll end up spending plenty of time doing. It’s easy action-adventure fare, with a single assault button, a weapon change and a few non-compulsory spells, however the best way these components are introduced collectively is surprisingly deep. There are a number of sorts of melee and ranged weapon, creating a variety of combos. You possibly can assault with a sword, a protect or claws. The protect is gradual and heavy, however affords extra protection, whereas the claws are dangerous however speedy.

In the meantime, ranged weapons embody weapons and wands, which provide totally different fight kinds. Equipping the Meowchine Gun gives you weaker injury per shot however a large clip, whereas the blunderbuss kind weapons are highly effective however can solely hearth a few pictures earlier than needing to be reloaded. Clothes and different tools additionally provides a variety of further skills, akin to the flexibility to heal whereas attacking. The results of this can be a fight system with a heavy quantity of customization, making it appropriate for anybody’s play model.

Fight additionally affords loads of problem. It’s not Darkish Souls by any means, however there might be occasions the place boss encounters will trigger you some difficulties. Some fights may crush you except you swap out your tools to fight elemental injury, whereas others require alertness and liberal use of the dodge mechanic. This goes for ship fight too, particularly as you get to extra distinctive ships inside the Meowtallica and Captain Takomeowki fleets. Ship fight in opposition to the captains’ flagships is particularly traumatic, as a few of them can grow to be slow-moving bullet hells. And each single considered one of these fights is plenty of enjoyable, even if you’re crushed.

The story provides to the enjoyable too. Cat Quest 3 has a easy plot, the place you might be racing in opposition to different pirates for a imprecise treasure that hides secrets and techniques, however the execution is unbelievable. This isn’t a sport that takes itself too critically, most evident in what number of puns are baked into the sport’s writing. Your enemies are literally referred to as “pi-rats” and “meow” and “purr” are tossed liberally into any sentence that may match them (and even just a few that don’t). Each character you meet is goofy and charming, typically with absurd quirks. However there’s additionally coronary heart right here too, as your protagonist and Captain Cappey develop an in depth friendship. You’ll fall in love with each single member of this forged.

Visually, Cat Quest 3 has loads going for it too. It’s harking back to Sq. Enix’s HD-2D model, with layered 2D sprites combined with 3D fashions in a diorama-style view. The characters sprites are lovely, particularly the primary character. He’s bought a contented little face on him and appears to be having the time of his life in each animation. Even the save animation, the place he hops into a right away nap for restoration, is aggressively cute.

Cat Quest 3 is a wonderful sport, a lot in order that I’m scrambling to seek out criticism of it. It may possibly profit from a quick journey system or a way to enhance the pace of your ship. It could possibly be seen as a little bit too quick, clocking in at round ten hours should you actually discover the world. The cat puns could grow to be a little bit extreme at occasions. And that’s actually all I can discover to criticise it. Even then, many of those aren’t a difficulty for me, as the sport’s density of content material makes up for the size, the dearth of quick journey could contribute to how intuitive the world is and the cat puns had been all a part of the allure.

I liked my time with Cat Quest 3. Exploration is joyful, fight is plenty of enjoyable and the story is foolish and charming in all the precise methods. If you need a small however dense pirate journey full of excellent humor, Cat Quest 3 is for you.

Cat Quest 3 is out now for PC, PS5, PS4, Change, Xbox Collection X/S and Xbox One.