A Nine-Life Legend With a Single, Dull Game
We all know cat’s have nine lives, that’s how the legend goes anyway. Even if your fluffy, feline friend falls from a treacherous height, they’ll land on their feet and survive with eight lives left to go. But what if this wasn’t the case, rather you have one life to attempt intense platforming sequences (with the addition of respawning of course).
This is the premise of Mel The Cat where, you guessed it, you take control of Mel… a cat.
The objective of this title is the same as any other platformer, reach the end through running, jumping and avoiding obstacles, joined by a few meows for extra measure here. You’ll be taken through varying landscapes on this journey, ice and volcanoes even making appearances, all with the aim of traversing these tricky terrains.
Mel’s stages are filled with enemies and obstacles; the former manifests as dogs, biting if you get too close, as well as matching the theming, however the latter is a bit more lazy. Rather than stick with the cat-themed environments, random spikes and other miscellaneous objects contribute to the majority of obstacles, a design choice that makes no sense given the feline theming.
Underutilised Ideas
Another aspect to delve into, is the gimmicks, or features which accompany stages and their elements.. Environmental platforms will appear later on during your playthrough (as late in a thirty minute game as can be) such as the ice platforms. This adds a small level of depth to Mel The Cat, along with providing a short moment of joy as a new mechanic of sliding is introduced… yet that all then disappears after this idea is run into the ground for many levels. This issue is present in many of similar titles, however in this case, mechanics are few and far between yet remain over-indulged, leaving Mel The Cat perhaps the worst of it.
Portals are another mechanic that are introduced and, aside from one stage which operates as a mini portal maze, they operate more or less as a path that you could’ve just jumped across. This mechanic is something of an anomaly in titles such as this; unique with opportunity to bring innovative gameplay elements. Unfortunately, their introduction feels forced and adds nothing, rather than feeling like a gimmick to escalate the difficulty. It’s clear each element forming these stages, is either subpar, or in a lot of cases, absolutely terrible.
Pathetic Platforming and Boring Playgrounds
Moving to level design, a major issue makes itself known here too; stages never really escape past basic platforming design. The majority of stages will involve Mel running on short, floating platforms which often harbour spikes or the like. Jumping or dashing are used to avoid these, reaching either a checkpoint, or the end. Yep, these stages are pathetically short, absent of any difficulty, and ultimately fall into the route of feeling like a student’s attempt at a flash game.
A platforming title’s ability to be entertaining, challenging, and creative, almost always relies on the playground-esque stages allowing for the move-set to flourish. Mel The Cat fails in both these regards, containing a move-set about as interesting as watching paint dry, and level design unrivalled by any playground in terms of boredom. Unlike a cat, the main bulk of gameplay doesn’t land very well here.
Mel The Cat may not have the best gameplay, level design… really, anything for that matter, but how do miscellaneous aspects such as soundtrack and visuals hold up? Not very well to put it bluntly. The soundtrack isn’t anything awful, it’s inoffensive and does more good than bad. And the same can be applied to visuals; nothing innovative and does the job.
A Subpar Platformer with Fatal Flaws
Sadly, this applies to every aspect of Mel The Cat – nothing exceeds mediocrity, and many things fall far below. I even encountered a few bugs, such as on level 7, the end of the platform you begin on has no collision and brings you to your death. Little mistakes like this worsen an already poor performance for a game, making Mel The Cat fall far below mediocrity itself.
Mel The Cat won’t hurt anyone. It’s an inoffensive title designed for about half an hour of fun, yet sadly it can’t even achieve that, with no second of your half an hour playthrough introducing any resemblance of enjoyment.
Important Links
Mel The Cat is Packed with 2000 Gamerscore! – https://www.thexboxhub.com/mel-the-cat-is-packed-with-2000-gamerscore/
Buy Mel The Cat, Optimised for Series X|S – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/mel-the-cat/9N15WG3VJC17/0010
Grab an Xbox One version – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/mel-the-cat-xbox-one/9NZV9W68RPV0/0010
