Cat Journey review - "A charming platformer for cat-lovers"

• Cat Journey offers challenging platforming action that will keep you entertained
• The game's sensitive controls can make reaching higher platforms frustratingly difficult
• Creative levels keep gameplay feeling fresh

There are quite a few cat-themed games on mobile. However, few are as action-packed as Cat Journey from Yaskravi Content. A challenging 2D action platformer, Cat Journey thrusts you into the role of the lethal Red Cat whose sister is in imminent danger. Explore vast and ancient forests and underground dungeons while battling the evil creatures who dwell within as you attempt to save your sister.

The storyline in Cat Journey is sparse. You’ll meet giant cats in each level who will relay a small amount of information to Red Cat about his journey. Essentially, your sister is in danger and the forest is filled with creatures that will stop at nothing to stop you from saving her.

Cat Journey is a challenging platformer with an adorable yet fierce protagonist. The game features typical platformer mechanics - jump and dash to get from platform to platform, taking down baddies along the way. However, simplistic gameplay can be challenging, and Cat Journey is proof of that. Be prepared to die often between nasty enemies, challenging jumps, and spike traps. Luckily for our kitty protagonist, cats have nine lives.

The scenic forest backgrounds invoke a sense of calm, which melds beautifully with the eerie soundtrack and urgency of gameplay. Throughout these lush forests, you'll come across various monsters. Brown monsters throw projectiles, while purple ones will kick you off a platform if you're not careful.

To keep things spicy, the game adds new mechanics throughout. For instance, in one level, the ground periodically catches on fire. You'll need to time the flames and dash across the floor to reach platforms and underground shelters once they're doused. Another level has you climbing as fast as possible to avoid rising spike traps. These creative levels keep the game feeling fresh and are a nice change of pace. However, they can be frustrating until you get the hang of them.

Part of what makes Cat Journey so tricky is the controls. You control Red Cat with a virtual joystick in the bottom left corner of the screen, while buttons for dash, jump, attack and ranged attack are in the bottom right. While the layout itself is relatively intuitive, the controls themselves are touchy. For instance, at times, you'll double tap for a double jump, but the game will only register the first tap, leaving you to fall short of your goal, literally. Further, if you press jump repeatedly, Red Cat will sometimes get caught inside a platform. However, this can easily be fixed by tapping jump one more time.

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Cat Journey relies on checkpoints to save your progress. Checkpoints look like unlit bonfires, which you activate simply by passing them. Typically, there are three checkpoints per level, so dying at the wrong moment can send you fairly far back on your journey. However, upon dying, you can watch an ad or pay an incremental amount of gold to respawn in place. While ads are - let’s be honest - utterly annoying, you won’t always have enough gold to respawn, so they're typically your best bet.

The gold you collect throughout the game is also used to acquire weapons and spell upgrades. To purchase an upgrade, you first must find the accompanying blueprint. Each sword upgrade deals increased damage, which becomes critical in later levels. As for spell upgrades, it's the last two that are most interesting. The lightning spell deals only twenty damage but permanently stuns your opponent, while the blue fire spell can hit multiple enemies.

Cat Journey is a cute and, at times, frustrating platformer. Featuring diverse enemies and challenging combat, the game is not for platforming novices. However, if you’re up for the challenge and don’t need much of a plot to immerse yourself, Cat Journey is worth checking out.