We all have our specialisms and one of mine, unintentionally I must say, has become reviewing games with any connection (no matter how tenuous) to ships. However, something I look out for very much intentionally is which games out there pay tribute to our feline friends by giving them a starring role. Enter Cattie.
Now, to no one’s surprise Cattie is an old school, retro inspired platformer. No prizes here for guessing that. The monochrome visuals hark back to the 80s with a pixel art animation style. The 8-bit soundtrack completes the vibe, and is actually quite enjoyable to listen to.
There’s not much more to say on Cattie’s looks however, the graphical style is fine and fits the bill pretty well despite how minimalist it is. Every so often the theme will change, as Cattie heads through what looks to be a castle as well as a science fiction area.
There are 100 levels to conquer in total, each taking a few seconds to complete. Often this is just a case of getting from one side of the screen to the other, but the slightly longer levels will offer checkpoints which, if I’m being honest, aren’t really needed. The exit door is handily adorned with a pair of cat ears, so you can’t go wrong.
Buzzsaws, lasers, conveyor platforms and lots more classic platforming tropes are introduced as you journey on in Cattie, all of which will be very familiar if you’ve played this type of game before. There’s little to no originality here, which doesn’t make Cattie a bad platformer, but instead a distinctly average one that fits the copy and paste feel perfectly when it comes to these games.
Cattie can jump, wall jump and attack. That’s about it. The feisty feline is slippery to control and light footed as you would expect. A word of warning, make sure to put good distance between yourself and hazards, such as spikes. Several times I could have sworn I never touched them, but died anyway. However, I did struggle more with another issue.
Cattie’s swipe attack, although adorable, has a very limited reach. Getting close enough to enemies is risky and so the safer option is to jump and swipe as you are moving towards them. The problem, however, is that you can’t land on top of them to take them out like in certain other classic platformers, and instead you’ll be killed. As a result, wherever possible, I just decided to avoid enemies altogether and sprint past them. The only saving grace is that, if you are killed, you’ll respawn immediately either at your last checkpoint, or the start of the level.
The stages get slightly more challenging as you play through Cattie, but the difficulty curve isn’t consistent. However, once you hit level 50 and get greeted with the “Thanks for Playing” message, you may be a little confused. Well, this is where the (now very familiar) mirror levels come into play, and you can tackle all 50 again, but this time in reverse. There are some design tweaks made but most of them stick to this rule.
However, the ridiculously easy to earn achievements and Gamerscore are ever present to make this less of an issue. That’s right, achievements in Cattie are awarded every few levels as you play through the game, there’s nothing especially challenging asked of you in order to attain them. Oh, and Cattie will only set you back about the price of a decent coffee, so it’s not all bad.
Cattie is a game which bears all the classic Eastasiasoft hallmarks, and there’s nothing here you won’t have seen many times before. However, if you’re after an hour or so of decent platforming fun, and want to take advantage of the unbelievably generous 2000 Gamerscore on offer here, you can’t go far wrong.
Nine Lives of Fun: Cattie Pounces Onto Consoles – https://www.thexboxhub.com/nine-lives-of-fun-cattie-pounces-onto-consoles/
Buy Cattie on Xbox – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/cattie/9p558n9bfw8g
