Recent reviews by Flawless Ruby

I'd like to clarify that I was one of the people waiting for this game from the moment I heard it was announced, several months ago, by an email that told me the developed of Warrior Cats: Untold Tales was working on a new game. However, I also didn't follow the news on this game aside from its release date, so I could have an experience without more expectations than necessary.

I'd also like to clarify this is my first attempt at a more in-depth review of a game, so I apologize if I'm not really up to par.

Also, this review may contain spoilers for events throughout parts of the game, if you consider things like characters and details on recurring events to be spoilers.

As someone who still plays Untold Tales today because I find it fun and familiar, I was hoping for an experience that wasn't a carbon copy of Untold Tales' simple formula, but took the parts that are still fun even now and remixed them into something even better, and something new, and, well... I wasn't disappointed. Cattails is altogether a very different experience from Untold Tales, that's something I can tell just by playing the small amount I have. It feels a lot more like Stardew Valley, which... I personally don't mind. Probably because I love Stardew Valley.

The hunting system from Untold Tales is here, but far better executed - probably because this game actually has a budget to work with and a more experienced developer, but I digress. There's also a lot more variety in the prey you can catch, and the general distance from which you can do so. Some prey even has variants, such as the three types of mice I've come across so far - there might be more, I don't know. I really like it, even though I spent about ten minutes in the tutorial because I didn't realize I had to press the spacebar to pounce rather than just releasing shift like in Untold Tales. Another cool thing that I'll put here is that what seem like uninteractable set pieces, like butterflies and fireflies, can be attacked and collected. I've been collecting butterflies myself.

There are three colonies, and after the tutorial you're given the option to join any one of them. Coco, the tutorial cat, pushes the Forest Colony but I'm a rebel, so I picked the Mystic Colony. They live in the wetlands and are led by Alisa. I haven't played with either of the other colonies yet, so my experience is 100% a Mystic experience.

Every colony has a few datable cats. After looking over my options - the older-than-you Slip, the leader Alisa who I haven't had a chance to get to know, and Nil, who needs higher self-esteem - I went for Nil. Mostly because I gave him catnip one time and he told me he didn't believe he was worthy of it, and I can relate to that.

Cat relationships are another place where it falls into being a lot like Stardew Valley. For one, it's not locked by gender - the player doesn't have an established gender. Secondly, you have a relationship level, one to five stars, with each cat. (The datable cats have hearts instead of green arrows in their dialogue boxes.) At four or higher, I think (I'm not sure?) the tutorial wizard Coco will appear in front of your den and instruct you to go get a red rose and ask the object of your affections out already.

Once you've been dating long enough and have a relationship of five stars, you can buy a certain item that allows you to ask another cat's paw in marriage. Holy catrimony, if you will. Once married, your spouse moves into your den and you can have kittens. I haven't had any luck with my many, many proposals to Nil so far, so that's about as far as my knowledge extends.

Something I do know more about, though, is dens! You start with a smallish den, but partway through your first winter Molby the Construction Mole will show up in front of it, install his calling card without your consent, and offer to expand your home for money. Some of these upgrades are useful! I've only got two so far, the nursery (required to have kittens) and the herb garden, which lets you grow the plants you forage from around the world, even out of season. You can decorate your den with items from all your exploring. The items don't disappear, which is nice. I've started a stockpile of prey next to my nest.

On that note, let's talk about skills! Hunting, foraging, and fighting, and probably other things I haven't noticed, all help earn you experience points that you can use to upgrade your skills. Unlike Stardew Valley, your skills don't just level up on their own when you do things - you can apply your experience points to any of the skills, which can be useful if you want to level up something like swimming. I haven't reached the cap (level 10) on any of my skills yet, so that's a bonus.

The seasons change, too. They're each ten days long, with a festival on the tenth day of each. A festival is where cats gather at the Sacred Temple, the center of the map, to just kinda chill and compete in festival games. You can earn special currency to spend on items like special colorings for your cat or hard-to-catch prey if you need it for something or decorations for your den or even a pet butterfly.

There's a lot more things that I can't really talk about because I haven't gotten very far in them - like relationships between colonies, and the mines, and even the main questline. I haven't spent a lot of time on any of those things, so anything I could say would be extremely limited and hasn't come up much in my experience. But that's a big part of this game.

TL;DR: A unique experience, but if you came here looking for the sequel to Untold Tales because of the developer you'll be disappointed. If you really like Stardew Valley or other similar games, though, and are looking for something kind of similar but also different - this might be a good game to check out.

For most of its beta, Starbound was a flawed yet promising game; but as a final release... It's not the worst thing in the world, and I wouldn't call it necessarily a scam, but a lot of the situation surrounding its development was certainly questionable at best and I wouldn't call it all 'above-board' either. And those questionable decisions seem to have had a ripple effect, where after a certain point several systems and ideas were removed wholesale from the game. There are mods to restore the content that was cut, but mods shouldn't be necessary for a game like this; and a lot of what was cut was necessary, at least to me.