Cat Quest III

Sometimes in life, you find yourself in situations where your judgement has been dead wrong. Perhaps you rushed to an opinion; perhaps you judged a book by its cover without actually looking at the cover. Maybe you’ve dismissed something without looking at it closely enough. And when you’ve been wrong, it’s best to admit that you were wrong.

So here it is: I’ve been wrong about the Cat Quest games. Beyond being uninterested in these feline RPG games, I have been actively avoiding them. I don’t know what it was about the trailers for these games that triggered my complete dismissal. Maybe the art style, maybe the fact that the hero was a cartoon kitty. But whatever it was, I have been completely dismissive of Cat Quest. My mind filed the franchise away into the old “I don’t want to mess with that nonsense” bin with mobile ports and gacha games.

Then over the weekend, my kid happened upon Cat Quest III in the PlayStation Store and expressed interest. We took the plunge, and soon after, I was dominating the controller and staying up late into the night after his bedtime to explore Cat Quest III’s fantastically interesting world. This is a game that rekindled my interest in playing new games after a long, dark summer spent in my umpteenth playthrough of Fallout 4 DLC. Cat Quest charmed me out of my gaming slumber and brought me meowing back to gaming life.

I had forgotten how much “cute” and “accessible” could be combined to equal “fun”. There is charm to spare in Cat Quest III. The game starts out with your silent cat hero hooking up with a little ghost cat friend (there really isn’t much explanation beyond that; simply think of it as a translucent Navi). Ghost friend makes it clear through a brief pun-laden dialogue that cat hero needs to seek out the North Star Treasure before the King of the Pi-Rats gets to it. And you are off to the races, banging your way around the game’s world through a light but engaging story.

What this means in practice is that the player is set free to explore a series of beautifully rendered islands on an isometric open map. The game immediately grants the player a little pirate ship to traverse between the islands, though there is also an inner tube that can be used to slowly drift around in a pinch. Your ship is capable of plinking away at other ships with cannonballs, but like everything in this game, an upgrade system can be employed to eventually turn into a floating powerhouse.

The visuals, which initially turned me off in still screenshots, are actually gorgeously rendered on the PS5. From where you stand, you can constantly see stuff on islands off in the distance, which leaves the game constantly egging the player forward in exploration by showing them interesting destinations in every direction. Most islands are small enough to explore in a few minutes, but contain enough secrets, dungeons, and puzzles that the game constantly surprises. You never know upon landing on a tiny island what might transpire, and I hooted with laughter at times when the game audaciously went careening off in some weird direction. Things get a little wild.

Players should beware, however, that wandering too far can get them quickly smoked by enemies that are far above their current level, especially towards the beginning of the game. In the first hour of poking around, I encountered a ship that looked like a floating rubber ducky. I haphazardly fired a few cannonballs in its direction, just to have it one-shot me into oblivion.

Still, you will find yourself cautiously venturing ever outward. Exploration is constantly rewarded through a seemingly endless series of armor, weapons, magic spells, and trinkets, all of which can be steadily upgraded with the game’s nifty advancement system.

While your character constantly picks up XP and levels, all of your stuff can be leveled up as well. You can pay to upgrade your blade and firearms weapons, for example, but if you find a duplicate of something you already have, the game automatically bumps your original item up a level, saving you the time that would be needed to take both and combine them. It’s a great system that lets you try out new things as you explore, but ignore stuff that doesn’t grab your interest.

What really shocked me with Cat Quest III though was how diverse and adaptable the combat system is. The player starts with just the ability to hack at baddies with a sword, but soon adds a firearm to the mix (you toggle between the two attacks with the Triangle Button and attack with the Square). Before long, you will have a pretty hearty (AYE!) collection of both, all of which come with their own special abilities and perks. Then you can add even more abilities with the various trinkets you find, AND you can have two unique spells equipped at all times. What started as a little game that had me tottering around and plinking at mice with my sword soon turned into me attacking dungeons like a whirling dervish armed with Wolverine claws and a machine gun, shooting out lightning attacks in all directions. I started out as a cute little cat, and then went all Diablo on these fools.

Cat Quest III is a charmer, through and through. Though the controls and combat system seem deceptively simple, the game has a wealth of depth hiding beneath the surface with its inventory and magic systems, which allow for all sorts of whack-a-doodle builds. With fun and rewarding exploration, a great advancement system, and enough puns to drown a cat, this game has completely sold me on the franchise. Off I go to download the first two games, y’all. I was dead wrong about Cat Quest, and I am proud to admit it.