Cat Quest II – PAX East Preview

At just about every booth at PAX East, in every line, there are the usual people. Folks who love video games, adults and teens alike, excitedly chatting as they discuss the games they are lining up to play. But at a smaller booth, at a station with two controllers hooked up, I only really ever saw a different kind of patron. Kids. Kids playing together, kids playing with a parent, or just a kid playing by themselves while their parents looked over their shoulder, hinting at things here or there to help them. It was a touching series of moments as these children, almost all of whom are dressed up in cosplay (little Marios, Luigis, and Links) were all giggling and laughing as the little cute cat and dog royal duo brought peace back to the region available in the demo.

Cat Quest II is not a complicated game and, in many ways, is too easy for an adult gamer with more than two decades of gaming under their belt. But even as I sat down to play it with some random person, I found it easy to coordinate with them as we finished the demo in a relatively small amount of time. Two experienced gamers can likely finish the game without any difficulty outside of a hiccup or two when one of you opens a chest and the other, who was moving off of a spike trap, is forced to stay there until the animation for the item finishes, killing them.

What Cat Quest II appears to lack in complexity, it more than makes up for in easy to grasp and simple to use mechanics, and cutesy, punny dialogue. Gentlebros.’s Cat Quest II will make its debut later this year, 2019.