Cat Quest 2 (2019) [PC]

Dogs kind of default to making friends unless provoked. Cats seem to default to making enemies unless convinced otherwise.

-Perry Elisabeth Kirkpatrick

Most people break down into one of two categories: cat people or dog people. Yeah, there are people who love both (present reviewer included) but you know we still have our favorites. If you’re a cat person, you like their independence. You like being able to leave them alone with a huge bowl of food and water and clean litter and they’ll take care of themselves while you’re gone. You enjoy the occasional interaction when they deign to acknowledge your existence, typically as pet-giver and know just how many times you can pet them before they’re done. You know the joy when a cat decides that you’re “theirs” and you become their favorite chair. You may not even mind when you do things like lay down on your keyboard; it’s actually kinda cute.

Or maybe you’re a dog person. You love them, and my god, do they love you back. Your life revolves around them, and that’s okay, because they’re your best friend forever. There’s just SO MUCH LOVE in every tail wag and bark and giddy hop. Puppy dog eyes are your weakness. You don’t mind the walks, the dog parks, and the copious amounts of time outside rain, snow, or shine, it just means you get some exercise and to meet other dogs.

If you’re a dog person, you may have looked at Cat Quest and/or Cat Quest 2 and gone “No thanks, I’m a dog person.” And in Cat Quest 1, that would have been justified. Cat Quest 2, though, despite its name, is a game built for cat people and dog people alike, because for the first time, you can be both.

Meet the kings: a cat and dog reincarnated from kings long past and destined to save their kingdoms from the evil rulers who sit on their thrones in their stead, waging war like, well, cats and dogs. They’re not very strong right now, but they’ve got bravery in spades and plenty of fellow cats and dogs and a helpful little sprite to help them along the way.

The 8-Bit Review

 Visuals: 9/10

These games, simply, are cute. C-U-T-E. Everything about them radiates adorableness, which is pretty apt for a game about our favorite furry pets. Bright colors and small sprites make this a visually appealing game. Despite being limited to cats and dogs for character models, all the important ones are unique and memorable, so you won’t find yourself going, “Wait, who was this again?” It’s also very easy to tell where you are on the map just by your surroundings, partially from the small overall size of the map and partially due to the uniqueness of the surroundings in that small area. As long as you’re on land, you can tell quickly where you are without having to open the map. You’ll definitely need it for exploring the open seas, though. Not much but waves and some rocks out there, but lots of those rocks have treasures. 

 Audio: 8/10

Most of the sounds of Cat Quest are not the kind to get stuck in your head, but they do make the game what they are: charming. There’s the swelling overworld theme as you explore, the deep dungeon tinkling, the classic “you got a thing!” jingle. Nothing new, but everything that suits the game just fine. And there’s not just the music, either. As you explore, you’ll find your little cat king mewing and purring when he does a good job and yowling when he gets hit, and the little dog king woofing quietly behind him. It’s just another element that makes this game as cute as it is.

 Gameplay: 8/10

The Cat Quest games are simple little jaunts, originally designed as to work as a phone game, so the games are made to be easy RPGs. You begin at level one, with little more than the fur on your backs in a world full of enemies. Find weapons and armor by exploring the world, fight those enemies, learn powerful magic, take on small, level-specific dungeons (that are more a guideline than a requirement), help people in need, and overall be a generic, though furry, video game hero. 

This game varies from the norm slightly with having multiple playable characters: Cat King and Dog King. In single-player mode, you can swap between them with the press of a button, or auto swap if one gets KOed. Want to make a swordskitty with buff powers and dogmage with blasting? Go ahead. Want to have the dog as your main and make the cat dodgy in case of accidents? Sounds like a plan! Fighting a fire dragon but your ice caster’s knocked out? Hover around them long enough and they’ll be back on their feet soon enough. You don’t even have to sustain the time by them to get them up. Dodging in and out of range as you run from the baddie will do it in short time. If you mess up and end up with two dead characters, the respawn is incredibly generous. You keep your levels, experience, and money. The only punishment is being dropped off at the last save point where you had a catnap, so if you haven’t saved recently, you may have a hike to get back to where you were. And with the world as small as it is, it’s easy enough to make that hike, but there are fast travel stations in a few various locations that you can pop through to save a minute or two.

Character customization is a major part of the game. Though the characters themselves are static, you can build them as your available equipment and spells allow, and there’s a ton of variety that opens up to you quickly. Your gear is as much about look as it is about function, because it all shows up on the character wearing it. Plus, your gear levels up as you find duplicates. You can buy upgrades from various shopkeepers you’ll meet on your journey, but you’re more likely to find a second one in a chest that’ll boost that level 1 hat to level 16, so save your money for more important things, like leveling up those precious spells.

As far as the quests go, unfortunately, you can only collect one at a time, so you have to remember where the other ones you saw were. That is one of the few things I wish this game had implemented, was the ability to collect them all as we found them and them do them when we could. However, you can check the map to find available quests, the guide markers for the active quests make sure you’re not wandering blindly for anything, and the dungeons are very clearly marked so you can tell at a glance whether this one you’ve found is new, entered, or cleared.

All told, Cat Quest 2 doesn’t break any gameplay molds, but it’s simple enough for anyone to pick up and enjoy and kind enough to not waste your time.

 Narrative: 7/10

Sometimes a simple game does just fine with a simple story, and Cat Quest 2 is one of those games. You play as the rebirths of the cat king and dog king (fully grown rebirths, don’t ask too many questions, says the fairy that greets you), and your former kingdoms are in danger. War has long raged between the Cats of Feligard and the Dogs of the Lupus Empire, thanks to the evil usurpers sitting on your respective thrones. The cats are taxed to unlivable levels to fund the war efforts, and the dogs are all recruited into the army, like it or not. As you adventure across both kingdoms, you’ll find allies on both sides willing to come out to a pair of unexpected compatriots: dogs hiding orphaned cats, cats trying to fake their deaths to say with their dog friends, unlikely friendships blooming on opposite sides of the land bridge almost connecting the continents. No one wants this war, it seems, no one but the false kings. So it’s up to you to stop them. The story does provide some twists that may or may not be expected, depending on how in-tune you are with storytelling tropes, but it’s still enjoyable, and there’s something sinister lurking under it all, a force that pulled strings with the cats of Cat Quest 1. Will that force get its comeuppance, or is there a “Cat Quest 3” looming on the horizon? I’ll let you play to find that out for yourself.

Oh by the way, hope you like cat and dog puns and cat or dog-themed references. There’s a lot of them. 

 Multiplayer: 9/10

While the original game was single player only, Cat Quest 2 improves upon the original by letting a friend join in. Player one takes control of the little cat king, and player two drives the dog king. It’s not drop in/drop out co-op, you do have to pick how you plan to play while starting the game up, but you can load your active single player game as multiplayer and drop right into where you were, or vice versa if your multiplayer buddy decides the game isn’t for them. No need to start over just because the number of players changes. In both single and multiplayer, your characters can’t share gear or spells, so make sure you play with someone who doesn’t mind negotiating roles. The screen does get a bit busy when you’ve got enemies going after two different players and two sets of spells dropping all over the place, but it’s okay. Even if you get knocked down, your partner can bring you back… as long as they can get to you safely.   

 Challenge: 6/10 

Like Cat Quest 1, you’ll find side quests and dungeons ranging from level 1 to level 200, but despite the intimidating range of difficulties, the game is very well balanced. Do everything when the opportunity arises, explore everywhere, complete every side quest, and you’ll find yourself smoothly sailing from one level to the next. Quests are much more efficient than grinding, too, so you’ll rarely find yourself beating your head against enemies for levels. Ten levels an hour is completely reasonable here, and I managed to complete the game in ten hours. “But wait, Wandering,” you say, “that’s 100 levels, and you said there are quests up to level 200.” I did say that, yes. Full disclosure, there is ONE fight at level 200, and yeah, it’s tough, but one of the great things about the Cat Quest games is that if you’re careful and play smart, you can overcome obstacles much higher level than you. If you wait until you’re the matching level, it’ll be a piece of cake, but there’s nothing stopping you from beating the level 100 dungeons at level 75. You can beat that level 200 one at level 100. You just have to prove that in those 100 levels, you learned how to play smarter, not harder. Just remember to save before you try. That’s playing smarter too.

 Replayability: 3/10

Cat Quest 1 had excellent replayability in the form of challenge modes. Good job, you won! Do you want to try it again locked at level 1? How about without any equipment? With nine lives? Stronger enemies? You could mix and match them, too, to make the kind of challenge that would give you a thrill, and doing so could net you some superior gear. Unfortunately, that was Cat Quest 1. Cat Quest 2 is, at this moment at least, unfortunately bereft of replay challenges. Once you’ve found everything there is to find and fought every baddie there is to fight, the only reason to pick up the game again would be if a friend wants to play it. I’m hoping that there will be future plans to mix up New Game+ mode like the original did, but at the moment, the score has to be sadly low.

Personal: 8/10

I really enjoyed Cat Quest 1, and consequently, I really enjoyed Cat Quest 2. They’re cute, simple games with controls that are easy to pick up but take a little effort and concentration to master. Multiplayer didn’t really work out for me because I have trouble with losing track of my character if I’m not center-screen, and my poor partner had to resurrect me a fair bit. Single-player, however, played incredibly smoothly and I took great pleasure in challenging myself to take on higher-level dungeons than myself just to see if I could. Cat Quest 2 is one of those games that, while being mostly linear, still lets you choose how you play and get enjoyment and challenge on your terms, and that’s what I really love about them. 

Aggregated score: 7.2

Maggie Maxwell spends most of her days buried in her fiction writing, only coming up for air to dive into the escapism of video games, cartoons, or movies. She can usually be found on Twitter as @wanderingquille and  @MaxNChachi or streaming on Twitch with her husband, also as MaxNChachi.