It’s not what you suppose. This isn’t a FromSoftware-style Souls sport with cats. However now it’s popped into our heads, it’s all we wish. The Previous Mog boss from Demon Souls, Girl Meowria of the Astral Clocktower from Bloodborne – think about! These items writes itself.
What Cat Souls is, as an alternative, is an motion platformer with a novel tackle loss of life. The ‘Souls’ within the title, moderately than being a reference to that different moderately profitable sequence, is a reference to a cat’s many lives. It makes use of the idea that cats have a couple of life as a gimmick to separate it from different indie platformers.
In Cat Souls, you’ve seven lives (not the standard 9 lives, presumably as a result of 9 could be too simple). Let’s think about that the principle cat character has already spent them on a brush with a doberman and Renault Clio. However they’re a reasonably versatile seven lives, as they get replenished. As quickly as you cross by the door that represents the top of the extent, they arrive again.
You may be questioning how that is unique, since just about each sport has an idea of lives or respawning. Effectively, when the little cat in Cat Souls dies, a ‘spirit’ seems, and that spirit can be utilized as a platform. It’s not our concept of an afterlife, to develop into a step for Mario, however we’ll run with it. With that platform in play, now you can entry areas that have been beforehand out of attain.
It’s a easy concept that Cat Souls initially has a whole lot of enjoyable with. Giant chasms are all of the sudden spannable with a properly deliberate suicide. Different chasms have spinning blades which chop by your spectral shelf, so it’s a must to time your loss of life properly. It’s nice, principally as a result of it has you breaking easy guidelines of platforming: you wish to die, and your deaths can progress you, moderately than maintain you again.
However the factor is, like a cat with a brand new toy, Cat Souls will get bored surprisingly shortly with the concept. The notion of dying to create platforms sticks round, nevertheless it form of loiters within the background moderately than being one thing that the sport builds on. Which, if we’re being fully trustworthy, is one thing of a disgrace. The loss of life mechanic separates Cat Souls from the mountain of indie platformers that we play, however then it will get unceremoniously ditched.
A part of the issue is that Cat Souls makes the impact too slim. A soul solely seems whenever you die in a spike lure. No soul seems whenever you stray into an enemy or fireball, nor whenever you plummet down a gap. It doesn’t take a lot creativeness to consider results that will swimsuit: die by fireball, and the platform could possibly be a wall that blocks mentioned fireball. Why didn’t Cat Souls go down that route? Presumably as a result of it will have made the sport too puzzly, or too simple. Regardless, it loses a bit of its id within the course of.
There’s a completely satisfied ending to this story. As a result of whereas we have been disenchanted that Cat Souls took a flip to the generic, it has a reasonably rattling good bash at being generic. Cat Souls might develop into like each different platformer, nevertheless it’s a trendy, polished and nonetheless moderately stunning instance of 1. It’s like by accident wandering into Barbie after you got tickets to Oppenheimer, however nonetheless having a whale of a time.
The target is similar as ninety p.c of those sorts of video games. You have got a degree, and the goal is to succeed in the exit. That exit, most of the time, is locked, so you should get a key too. Cat Souls applies a few limits to maintain issues attention-grabbing: you even have the set variety of lives, in addition to a ticking clock for finishing the extent.
At first, the degrees are on the easy aspect, with blades on set-paths and cannons firing projectiles on timers. The abilities which are being examined are your platforming precision and persistence, as you anticipate the perfect time to sally forth after which pull it off with aplomb.
Whereas it might involuntarily set off a yawn, it’s acquired sport. The artwork is brash and arcadey, wanting like a peak SNES sport that has been remastered for contemporary audiences. And, extra importantly, the controls and gameplay are on level. The whole lot is pulled off accurately, with no latency, collision detection or issue spike issues. It is a lean imply platforming machine.
It then begins dishing up new concepts each few ranges or so. They’re not fully unique just like the death-platform idea, however they’re nonetheless sufficient to stoke the fires. Platforms seem that may be jumped on to alter their course. Gravity-switching crystals yoink you onto the ceiling and again. Even the colour-scheme will get an entire shift, as Cat Souls has a Kill Invoice second the place every little thing turns into silhouettes. Like a real feline, Cat Souls has strikes in addition to model.
Achievement hunters ought to notice that the 1000G tops out at degree twenty of forty-five, so there’s not an enormous demand in your time. It’s a disgrace that many Gamerscore hounds will seemingly drop out then, as the issue and the concepts actually dial up from thereon in. Hold enjoying when you can, because it’s price it.
Nonetheless, we’d have taken one thing that inspired replay or paying extra consideration. It is a sport that cries out for collectibles or degree rankings, because it’s solely attainable to complete in a quicker time or with fewer deaths. However Cat Souls has its eyes going through totally forwards, solely anticipating you to finish the forty-five ranges after which ship out. Maybe we’ve got to attend for Cat Souls 2 earlier than that occurs.
What a wierd expertise enjoying Cat Souls was. Our curiosity curve would look a bit like a ski slope. We beloved the pitch of utilizing the titular ‘souls’ as platforms, but Cat Souls does subsequent to nothing with it, leaving us deflated. However over the degrees, we realised what had occurred. The designers had been distracted by different concepts, as if a sudden laser pointer dot had appeared. And whereas these concepts weren’t as unique because the opening gambit, they mixed to create a trendy, stressed little platformer.
Is it well worth the commerce? We’re not solely positive, however we’re completely satisfied that we acquired to roll round with it for some time.
