This is a casual game that could be played by anyone. None of it is too difficult and it would probably bore the sort of person that loves these pinpoint accuracy necessary with parries sorts of games that I, in turn, absolutely loathe and will delete as soon as they introduce the parrying system.
Cat Quest 3 is similar to the other two titles with the same name or I should say, it is exactly the same. The only thing that has changed from this one compared to those in the past is the setting and that we have a boat that we are meant to use all the time.
I could be remembering wrong but I think that in addition to being able to (and expected to) use a ship to sail around, the 3rd installment allows for quick swapping between melee and ranged weapons and if you are like me, this means that you are going to be using the ranged weapons almost exclusively because you can't take damage from an enemy that can't touch you, right?
The ranged weapons kind of suck early on because they involve mostly handguns that if you use all the ammo it takes quite a long time to reload. This can put you in some sticky situations and end up getting you backed into the corner.
This all changes once you find a wand for the first time that is called the Stave of Antares.
The above version of the weapon is seriously upgraded and when you first get it you might feel compelled that not use it but since I had stockpiled a crapton of gold at that point I decided to upgrade it heavily. Once I did that, almost all enemies were easy from that point forward. The "arcane purrism" that happens on the final strike is this revolving damage sphere or something that hones in on enemies and continually strikes them for medium damage. This seriously changes your strategy because you no longer need to track enemies because your little sphere is going to follow them. You can fire off 3 shots from basically anywhere and that tracking bad boy is going to find them and continually hurt them. I have had as many as 3 of them on the screen at the same time in order to get maximum damage output.
I could be doing more damage with my other weapons but this Staff never runs out of ammo and keeps me at a safe distance to avoid damage and since most of the damage in this game is done in a melee sense by enemies, this is a strategy that cannot really fail.
Mostly, I thought this game was great: The graphics are crisp, the controls are purrfectly responsive, the dialogue is humorous and keeps you interested, and there are plenty of side missions that keep the game fresh.
I just have a couple of gripes and honestly, they are quite minor.
In certain portions of the game you will be subjected to combat that is from the side and this is kind of full of crap. Since you cannot jump and there isn't enough space to get around whatever is attacking you, you don't have much choice but to dodge roll through the enemy. This doesn't make it difficult, it just kind of eliminates any sort of real strategy. You can't dodge side to side, so what every one of these battles ends up consisting of is you spamming some sort of ranged attack and then when they charge you, you dodge roll through them and repeat the same steps on the other side...over and over... until they die. It isn't difficult to win these battles, they just take a long time and I was reminded about how I wore out controllers back on my NES in the 80's by mad button mashing my way through bosses on that system.
It's kind of stupid really, and it doesn't add anything to the game. I stopped looking forward to any area that forces this purrspective because although I enjoy a casual game, there is absolutely zero strategy in this at all.
The next, and only other thing, that I want to complain about is the late-game content.
once you have completed the main quest on the main central landmass you are going to be told to head north to the Sunset Islands and the game basically telegraphs to you that this is the where the final parts of the game are.
I think that most people would likely be able to accomplish this by the time they reach the late 20's or early to mid 30's as far as their own level is concerned. But up on the Sunset Islands, everything is level 50 and up. Even though it is still possible to do this at a level 30 it is going to be tough and when I say tough I mean kind of full of shit. They are too strong for you to take them on unless you kite like crazy and are basically running away all the time.
There are no other quests to be done at this time and the only way you can level up is by running around and re-completing various dungeons that you have already cleared out.
It's kind of like they got to this point in development, realized the game was not long enough and just said "screw it, this game is going to retail for $15 so we don't need to do any more."
They really should have done more. I got to the point where I was getting frustrated and nearly stopped playing because while I don't mind a bit of grinding here and there, this was about 25% of my overall playtime that was spent just getting my level up to a high enough level that the Sunset Islands was going to be something that was fun. I don't mind a challenge, but since there is no jump or parry in this game, the combat is specifically designed, especially in tight quarters, so that you are meant to take damage and have enough time to heal yourself in between. But when the damage they are doing to you is more than half of your healthbar per hit, it isn't really fun anymore.
Once you do get your sorry ass up to around late 40's then it is fun again but jay-sus, that was several hours I had to spend just wandering around and killing things over and over again.
If you were talk to an apologetic dev they would probably say that this was meant to encourage players to visit other parts of the map that they haven't specifically been asked to visit, but the mere existence of those other places to visit suggests to me, the player, that they actually HAD intended to make you visit those places but just decided to not do it.
There is a portion of the map deep in the south east that I was never told to go to, and I never went there at all. Was there a quest that was meant to be there but they just ran out of time and rushed it out to market? It can't say, but it was a bit on the annoying side just running around all the time and because there is no fast-travel, this often resulted in me just sailing around checking my map frequently and looking for a cave that I could revisit for some decent XP.
This is a bad design flaw if you ask me.
By the time I made it to the final boss I was honestly sitting there with figurative fingers crossed that this was in fact, the FINAL boss because I was ready for the game to be over. This isn't because Cat Quest 3 is a bad game, it isn't... it was because I was burned out on the gameplay because nothing about the gameplay had changed in several hours at that point.
But please don't take that as me suggesting that you shouldn't play this game because it is still pretty great.... just know that you really should take your time when completing the central tower on the mainland because all those other islands that you haven't gone to yet? Well, there's nothing there. It's like they made a map and then a deadline happened and they just rushed it out the door rather than put anything meaningful there on those land masses. That was a bit disappointing.
Overall though, this is a whimsical and fun game that can be enjoyed by casual players of all ages. I likely will never play it again though because once you have seen all the funny lines of dialogue, there really isn't much reason to continue playing.
As for January 2026, this game is free as part of a PS-Plus Extra or higher tiered membership.