Cat Gladiator

Against all odds, I think this game might be special. A few promising contenders have stepped up to the hunting genre plate -- a plate heretofore dominated by Capcom, who seem to be the only ones capable of hitting the ball dead-center. Those who have played a Monster Hunter game through G-rank (Master Rank) are well aware that the unique boss-battling, equipment-crafting, mastery-developing gameplay machine is simply not available anywhere else. Others have swung... and all of them have missed, often in increasingly embarrassing ways. God Eater asked: what if Monster Hunter, but anime and post-apocalyptic? And proceeded to create a boss-fighting game with mechanics that were simultaneously needlessly complicated and woefully unsatisfying. It was successful enough to get three major entries. I can't recall a single monster from any of them. Dauntless asked: what if Monster Hunter, but free to play? It made a valiant attempt, and was genuinely pretty fun, but was plagued by a monetization model that inevitably turned sour, among other problems. I might still be playing it... but it's dead. Toukiden asked: what if Monster Hunter, but giant evil oni and... card-collecting? Unfortu…

They might look cute. But it hurts when they bite! Cat Gladiator (It has MULTIPLAYER!) is a brilliant game. When you first start playing you might think: Oh, cute and easy. Well. Just you wait. The game has an amazing rhythm overall. You take quests, go into the arena to fight, get loot when you win, and then the upgrade journey starts. You have a very nice hub area with a lake where you can fish. There are NPCs that sell and forge for you, etc. The fishing itself is a great game. It's way deeper than I thought, and there are so many fish to unlock that buff you when you eat them before combat. I was really surprised by how much there is to unlock and collect. After about 13 hours I have good gear and reached Master Rank—but I haven't unlocked nearly half of the items in the game. You prepare for the fight and start looking for the right parts to forge weapons you like. The UI tells you everything you need to know, and there is a wishlist system that allows you to pin items you need onto the HUD (super useful!). The Weapons/Combat: Monster Hunter, but creatively adapted to 2D combat that reminds me a bit of Little Fighter 2 (in the very best of ways). Each weapon is basically y…

A surprisingly good Monster Hunter like experience, the visuals are simple, similar to mobile games maybe, but that doesn't take away any game depth. All weapons feel unique and interesting tagged in with decently challenging battles. The actual character sprites and cutscenes are well drawn and have a nice charm to them. This leads to a pretty simple yet fun experience, albeit a little short. It follows the Monster Hunter formula well and is worth the small price for anyone who is a fan of MH and wants a sweet and smaller version of it. There's plenty of cats.

I love playing this game, it didn't disappoint! It is a good fun game to play if you have a small itch to do 2d monster hunting~ And also equipment grinding, and fishing for more collectibles! Will play for more, but i recommend this game if you want to have some small fun monster hunting with cute cats! My Gameplay VOD : https://youtu.be/t4r__MpTdn4

About 15 hours to do everything there is to do save for competing for the leaderboards on endgame hunts, less if you're not solo. It hits the mark in all the important areas. My only gripe is the interaction between the time attack design and the simplistic armor skill system making it so you basically only focus on damage skills, because anything else is a waste of time (lower rank on a hunt = less material rewards). Items are useful but don't scale in damage enough to consider boosting them over simply hitting the monster harder (or at least I failed to make a gimmick item-heavy build work).

I see a lot of potential in this game, but it still feels a bit rough in places. I found the first slime fight to not be a good introduction due to it's attacks being poorly telegraphed. Hit boxes in general also feel a bit off. Fishing requires your bobber to land in a specific area, but there's no indicator telling you where the bobber will land until after you've already cast the line. I also found it a bit frustrating that the Long Sword's jumping slash animation has no i-frames, making it very easy to get interrupted. I'm really hoping the devs stick with this game and add more QoL improvements because it has a really solid foundation, it just needs a bit more polish.