izigame.me

Yes you are reading this correctly. I played cat quest 3 for 18.6 hours straight the day it launched. Im not sure anyone who didnt have a pre-release copy can beat my time. I 100% the game 3 times in a row, and I have a lot to say about it, so lets dive in.
Short answer, this game is genuinely incredible. its everything cat quest 2 wished it was, fully realized.
Long answer, this game is the best in the series, and is one of my favorite idie games of all time, but has a few things it could touch up on.
First off, the composer of the ost is genuinely so incredibly talented. I can only think of like two games off the top of my head that I've played with better music(celeste and bravely devault) It takes the best parts of the previous games and perfectly weaves them in with the pirate theming of this game, and they are all wayy to catchy. i will be hearing these songs in my dreams for weeks im sure.
The visuals of the game are stunning, I wish I had an oled monitor to properly enjoy them, but alas. I dont need to go in depth here, yall can compare to the previous games and see the impressive step up yourselves. shoutout to the starting cutscene for a new profile looking stunning.
As far as gameplay goes, there is a lot to unpack. Almost all of it is generally very very positive, but there are some things that did get worse/I have some issues with.
My biggest issue is that some bosses have attacks where they cannot be hit for upwards of 10 seconds at a time, or severly restrict the loadout you can use against them, or both. the wizards in particular were frustrating and not all that fun, ESPECIALLY when stuck in the infinity tower, where 10 seconds makes a big difference. Id like to request that all of the boss wizards be removed from the tower or the ai changed to not do the hover out of reach attacks. the feeling of watching the time slip away on a solid run is kind of crushing, and it doesnt have to be that way. as a side note the first seeker is kind of irritating in that it railroads you into ranged, and i find the boss to be much more fun when in the tower and I can smack it with my claws. On the other hand, some bosses are very very well designed. All three captains and dracatula are very fun to fight, with meowtallika being especially cool with the atmosphere and attack patterns. Unfortunately the spells the player uses can heavily block telegraphs in the 2d fights, but I enjoy many of the 2d fights enough that it doesnt bother me(other than the wizards). The ship battles are in my opinion somewhat unremarkable, either you can beat them or you cant. losing your boat is sometimes a little too punishing, but if you do get away, its too easy to repair and return to the fight against a weakened boss. id like for ship bosses to heal their health if you lose agro and repair your ship. i do like that heal can heal the ship as well, its a nice touch.
probably the biggest improvement gameplay wise over the last game is balancing. in the last two games, balancing is basically non existant, with like 1-2 sets of armor being objectively way better than all other options with 0 competition. looking at you old master set. this game has stronger options and weaker options, and while i used the same build for all 3 playthroughs, there are a lot of cool build ideas that are viable, its not dominated by op sets that break the game. I hope when mew game rolls around they dont release some wack op crap that breaks the somewhat decent balance they have. Gold hat is very overtuned atm, would like to see a nerf at some point, preferably in the next week before the speedruning gets going.
The side quests and dungeons are also much better this time around, with less in number and a greater emphasis on making them interesting. I see a lot of people talking about how this game is so much shorter than cq2, and while it is a smaller game, its more tightly packed and the quality of each piece is much better. I have no issues with the length, and think it is worth its full price. I did kind of wish for a little more trinkets and spells tho, there arent a lot of trinkets that buff guns, which i feel is a missed opportunity.
speaking of guns, i think they are a great addition, but one of them is notably wayyy better than the others, which kind of takes away build freedom, especially for the tower. I really like the tower btw, the timer is well excecuted(besides the wizards) and makes it feel way more tense than the grind that it actually is underneath.
Im heavily looking forward to speedrunning this game and especially playing with mew game, which i find to be the best parts of replaying cat quest, so hopefully that doesnt take too long to come out. Otherwise, thanks everyone for reading, and if you made it this far, buy the game, its worth it, I promise.