Cat Quest III review

The Cat Quest series has had its ups and downs in my book. I remember enjoying the surprisingly cute polish of the first Cat Quest game and being disappointed by the co-op focus and easy-to-cheese nature of Cat Quest II. I think that there's something to the idea that the third time's the charm because I am completely bowled over by how enjoyable Cat Quest III is.

It takes the solid foundations of the first game and refines them into an experience with its own identity while tucking away the neat additions of the second game into convenient, unobtrusive corners to make for something that is very streamlined and mobile-friendly without feeling like it's making any compromises.

Much like the previous games in the series, Cat Quest III is an open-world action role playing game where you control a cat adventurer who goes on quests, defeats fearsome enemies, and collects loot to get more powerful and take on harder quests. All of this action takes place in a colorful environment that is styled as an overworld map in more traditional RPGs, even though the bulk of the combat and action takes place right on it.

The major changeup for this game is that the map is a series of islands that you can sail between in a ship and a swashbuckling pirate aesthetic that pervades the whole experience. After a brief intro setting you on a quest to find the "North Star Treasure," the world opens up for you to go questing wherever you please.

Although Cat Quest III can feel a little aimless at first, once you get a sense of the map and the way areas are leveled, what unfolds before you is an inventive and pleasing set of quests, puzzles, and combat challenges that can be solved in a surprising amount of ways.

This is thanks in large part to the game's gear system, which imbues unique stats, skills, and properties to armor and weapons instead of your character, allowing you to hop between being a powerful mage, an indestructible knight, a sea combat specialist, a speedy gunslinger, and more by just switching out your equipment.

The knock-on effect of this design allows Cat Quest III to have extremely varied combat encounters and questlines that make full use of these different types of play styles, giving each their time to shine while also playing into many of the game's inventive quest stories and side quests that give a lot of nods to video game tropes, cat jokes, pirate antics, and general goofiness.

Gliding between islands, hopping into dungeons, and completing quests and puzzles all feel so great in Cat Quest III because of how quick and seamless everything feels. There's a ton of checkpointing, quality cloud saving for cross-device play, and lots of in-game tools that help signpost points of interest and things to do next so you always have a general sense of the next thing to look forward to.

This slick design doesn't mean the game is a cakewalk, though. Some of the most fun I had in Cat Quest III was taking on its high level side bosses or seeing how far I could get in its unlockable endless dungeon.

Upon completing the game, I was also pleasantly surprised to see two new ways to play unlock, one being the fairly typical "new game+" mode that lets you carry over your progress and gear between playthroughs and the other being a "mew game" mode that enables "meowdifiers" to up the difficulty in exchange for some new loot not found in the normal modes.

I wouldn't say Cat Quest III is doing anything particularly groundbreaking, but it leans really hard into its own strengths and packs every corner of the experience with charm and surprise. It's hard not to fall in love with a game built like that.