Catlord brings together cats and swarms of enemies, so if you’re looking for an adventure that tests your ability to survive in an ever-shrinking environment, read on.
Plot Ahoy!
I confess that I’ve been in an emotional place and needed something a bit lighter lately, and frankly, Catlord looked just like the perfect birthday gift to myself. In Catlord, you play as a cat who must survive in an ever-shrinking environment by eliminating swarms of enemies ranging from zombie-like chickens to crafty foxes intent on your demise.
You become the Catlord, defending your life and your territory. Yep, that’s it. That’s the premise.
Review Notes
Now, Catlord does afford you the option to invest in various upgrades ranging from decreasing your ball attack cooldown to increasing the length of your bubble shield to adding a fireball, for example. You can switch out your cat models as you like. Personally, I love a tuxedo cat, but if you’re into calicos you do you. We love all cats in this house. There are a handful of levels, and really Catlord is about surviving and collecting currency in order to pay for whatever upgrades you deem necessary. You have your ranged attacks, which involve balls of either the regular or magma varieties, and you do have the option to perform a stomp attack. The title has two modes, regular gameplay and a harvest mode that basically allows you to farm coins. That’s it for gameplay.
Visually, Catlord is a pixel adventure, and the soundtrack falls very much in line with this aesthetic. If you happen to be in search of a game that takes you back to the proverbial dawn of gaming, Catlord might just scratch that itch for you. The controls are fairly intuitive, so from a technical perspective, Catlord is a great title for casual players due to that accessibility.
That said, I have to admit that I wanted a bit more from Catlord. It really just pits you against increasing hordes of enemies that you must fight off before they reach you if you want to survive.
This style of title is great; we’ve all played it before. However, that’s the problem. It’s a pretty common game type, so they must provide some sort of innovation in order to set themselves apart. Game designers and developers often focus on creating new enemies with different attack styles or different weapons that you can unlock in order to the keep the gameplay interesting. Catlord relies on its cats, and as much as I like cats, that’s really not enough to keep me interested for more than a bite or two of the apple.
TLDR
Catlord is a great Switch title if you’re interested in something super casual that you can play for its cuteness. It’s great for younger kids, but in terms of long-term playability, unless we see some new developments, Catlord just doesn’t have the staying power that other entries in this genre do, so I am not sure how much staying power it will have for most players.
Catlord normally retails for $14.99 on the Nintendo store but is on sale for the low price of $2.99 until September 21st, 2023.
Stray Thoughts From Behind the Keyboard
- I found the stomp mechanic to be mostly useful as a quick way to get out of a mob of enemies rather than as a damage dealing technique.
- There did seem to be some minor glitches regarding health levels, but all in all, Catlord plays pretty seamlessly.