Review – PUSS! (Switch) –

As I sit here thinking about PUSS! I keep coming back to one question: Why the hell did I just play? Honestly, this might be the easiest, but also the strangest game I’ve ever played. I think this is the feeling TeamCoil wanted to achieve with PUSS! But just being weird and alone isn’t enough to make it fun. There should be a decent play hook. What the fuck, cat! Is it fun to play with?

If I tell you this story in PUSS! That would be a lie. There seems to be something odd about this old prophecy, but that’s all I can tell you. The game begins like Poltergeist, where the main character, a cat, gets sucked into the television. From then on, the absolute absurdity begins with psychedelic visuals, and even the final boss fights with the head of a Chihuahua.

I’m not sure what’s going on, but it sounds serious.

The game is simple: Basically, all you have to do is guide the cat’s head along linear paths to reach the final gate. Of course, there will be many obstacles along the way that will make the task more difficult, but the goal is to get the cat’s head from point A to point B. Paths move, shrink, disappear, appear after pressing a button, are obscured by all kinds of flying objects, and much more. The appeal of PUSS! lies more in its distinct graphics and elegant design than in the gameplay itself.

Getting a cat through its medication is not the easiest of tasks, and not just because of the various obstacles. When PUSS! was first released, it appeared on the PC, where the controls made much more sense. Use the mouse to click and hold the cat’s head as you guide it along the paths. Areas that needed to be moved very quickly could easily be moved by moving the mouse quickly. These actions can easily be performed with the mouse. But it’s not that easy with the Joy-Cons.

Don’t be fooled by this nice level. You have to awkwardly work your way through the rapidly narrowing alleys.

The movement of the joystick works reasonably well, but it is set to one speed. When you reach levels that require very fast movements, you must use both controllers together to boost. Unfortunately I found the joey connas difficult to keep them in sync with. Fortunately, one look at the border wall doesn’t mean instant death, but the clunky controls make this game a real challenge. It is possible to use the Nintendo Switch’s touchscreen, but the movement is completely interrupted here. The cat accelerates so fast that a little resistance on the screen sends the poor cat flying to its static loss.

Overall, what appeals most, and what probably made you look in the first place, are the images. PUSS! – is a visual journey that makes even the Grateful Dead wonder where the devils stopped. I’ll take that as a compliment. I love the mock visual design, and it’s the only thing that kept me going at first. Between crazy cat cults, dolphins, moving images and a bunch of crappy drawings and backlighting, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s hard to describe this nonsense verbally, so I’ll let one of the boss battles speak for itself:

Unfortunately, the sound design doesn’t match the visuals. He tries to match the visuals to the oddly synthesized 8-bit sound bites, but it looks sadly dull. There’s a lot of whistling and strange noises, but the quality just isn’t there, which was more distracting than contributing to the visual journey. When a sound design decides to enhance the rhythm, there is so much going on, combined with poor quality sound effects, that it becomes a disaster.

PUSS! is a lot of flash, but little content. Sight is a feast for the eyes that will amaze you and make you talk. Unfortunately, once the shock of the ridiculous graphics wears off, all that’s left is a fairly simple game. An average game that doesn’t play well even on the Nintendo Switch platform. If you still want to try PUSS!, you can try the PC version.

The graphics aren’t as neat and clean as you’d like, but the psychedelic art style is fun. We often wonder what we just saw. The team’s role achieved exactly what it wanted.	PUSS! is disappointing, and that’s largely due to the gameplay and controls. In most cases the use of joysticks is possible, but the need to use both is not necessarily given. The touch screen is difficult to reproduce.
The sound design is as eccentric as the visuals, but less fun. The massive use of noise and poor quality synthetic sounds irritated my ears.	Once the initial visual awe and psychedelic effects wear off, there’s not much left to enjoy. The game design is simple and totally uncomfortable when using joysticks.
Last block: 6.0

PUSS! is now available on Android, iOS, PC and Nintendo Switch.

Tested on the Nintendo Switch.

A copy of PUSS! was provided by the publisher.

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