Not many puzzle games are lucky enough to boast spin-offs, let alone side-stories - and though you wouldn't guess it from the title, that's exactly what Agetec has conjured up in Witch's Cat: a side-story in the ongoing Rabi Laby series. This eShop entry picks up where Rabi Laby 2 left off on DSiWare, but where the previous games' puzzles centered around their two separate controllable characters, Witch's Cat features a single protagonist with two forms and level-manipulating magic. Even without the dual-character hook of the original games, Witch's Cat continues the series' tradition of solid, personable puzzle-platforming with plenty of challenge.
Witch's Cat's stars a turncoat Cheshire Cat named Alicia, who longs to escape Wonderland's evil Queen and befriend Alice and Rabi, heroes of the first two games. With the help of Dubois, a sorceress of dubious character, Alicia assumes almost-human form and begins her quest. Though it's billed as a side-story, Witch's Cat's narrative is predictably light, and takes a distant back-seat to the puzzle action on offer. That's fortunate, because the outstandingly impractical shared dialogue box in cut-scenes makes it nearly impossible to tell who's speaking to whom. Still, the charmingly campy localization has some funny moments (as when Dubois tells Alicia humans will think her incongruous cat ears and tail are "cosplay"), and it definitely adds to — rather than detracts from — the experience.
Like Rabi Laby, Witch's Cat is built around a simple concept that's easy to pick up, but quickly fulfills its potential for complex puzzling. Alicia can change between her human and feline forms at any time: as a cat, she can jump much higher, but as a human, she has access to fire, ice, lightning, and meteor magic. These abilities set the stage for Witch's Cat's gameplay, which consists of guiding our shape-shifting star through 50 single-screen platforming puzzles. Various environmental obstacles and enemies make the task more interesting, and the interaction between enemies, environment, and abilities leads to a hugely diverse set of challenges.
Witch's Cat controls entirely with the 3DS' buttons, using the D-pad for movement, the A button to jump, X to switch forms, B to select spells and Y to activate magic. Oddly, the Circle Pad isn't supported at all, and the shoulder buttons serve as redundant "pause" buttons instead of something more useful, like magic selection. It does take a bit of time to get used to the button-juggling required to manage Alicia's dual forms and four spells, but once mastered, the control feels great.
Using your magical abilities depletes a shared Moon Power meter, and each spell uses a different number of Moon units: fire and ice use one apiece, lightning takes two, and the meteor magic needs four. The limited Mana means you'll need to ration your witchcraft as well as pre-plan your platforming to avoid getting trapped - an inevitable occurrence mitigated by unlimited lives and a quick-restart button.
While there's no Game Over screen to worry about, Witch's Cat unfortunately suffers from sudden, serious difficulty spikes, with punishingly perplexing puzzles often bookending comparatively straightforward stages. The game's mechanics compound this, as Alicia's limited Moon Power reserves make experimentation incredibly involved in multi-step puzzles; you'll often find yourself restarting levels with the goal in sight, having squandered the Mana required to lightning a final block into place on an earlier, superfluous spell. And with the hint system from Rabi Laby 2 conspicuously absent, there's no easy way out; if you're stumped, you're stumped, and trial and error can take a long time with these levels. Crucially, however, Witch's Cat never fails to charm, and the game's personality goes a long way towards keeping frustration at bay even as you're restarting the same stage for the umpteenth time.
Alicia's 50 stage journey spans several worlds, with platforming staples like jungles, mansions, and snowscapes all accounted for. Themes change every five levels, which gives a quick sense of progression and ensures that a visual refresh is never far away. Players can also revisit any previously completed level to earn better times, with bronze, silver, gold, or platinum statues awarded depending on completion time. Since many of the puzzles require some serious head scratching on the first go, it's easy to shave several seconds — or minutes — off your best time on a second try, so casual players should have just as much fun replaying stages as completionists and speed-runners.
Witch's Cat retains the graphical stylings of its predecessors, with small sprites and simple tilesets in the foreground juxtaposed with the softer multi-layered backgrounds, while the 3D effect adds depth between the two layers and creates a nice diorama effect. It's an adorably lo-fi look that the game wears well, even if it doesn't feel like a huge upgrade from the series' DSiWare days. The music is a similarly sound fit for Witch's Cat cutely occult theme, with catchy synthesized melodies lending an appealingly old-school feel to the adventure.
Conclusion
Witch's Cat isn't a particularly innovative game, and it suffers from maddening difficulty spikes, but it's still a lot of fun, with a good selection of levels, plenty of replay value, and addicting gameplay that invites "one more try" many times over. Rabi Laby fans will love Witch's Cat, but you certainly don't need to be familiar with the series to enjoy this entry on its own; anyone looking for a cute puzzle-platformer with charm and challenge will treasure their time with this winsome witch.
Comments 18
Thanks for the great review Morgan. I downloaded this but also downloaded Bloody Vampire and have been going through that first. Seems Silver Star has a couple of decent games on their hands. I will be getting to Witches Cat sometime next week.
It doesn't look as bad as I thought it would, I should imagine that I will still avoid though!
I gave up on Rabi Laby because the puzzles became ridiculously hard for me at some point. I don't remember it very well, but I got stuck in a stage where you had to pile up some hat looking creatures in an impossible way or something like that. The game was fun at the beggining, but soon it became just downright frustrating.
i downloaded this game and like it.
it's also the one that has me wanting to toss my 3ds xl into a blender set on high.
I'm really in love with this series. I don't mind the punishing difficulty because it makes the puzzles feel more rewarding when you figure out how to complete them, and a lot of the puzzles have really brilliant solutions that make really good use of the game's mechanics. Even more so when you need to figure out how to speed run them to get platinums. I would almost put them on the same level as Pushmo and Crashmo, they're that good.
Just a quick comment on your review, the L/R pause isn't redundant because it allows you to scroll the stage, whereas normal pause doesn't. It's still a little weird that they didn't map this function to "select" while using L/R for something more practical.
This was definately a good week for North American Gamers. I hope Europe will see these soon. It's like I always say share the goodness that is PCengine. Well in this case Share the goodness that is Gaming!
Nice! Going to get this.
@Windy I hope they share this with Europe indeed- it looks like I would like this game a lot.
Awwww the little kitty and catgirl~
Another even-handed Morgan review; anyone who buys the game and dislikes it has only themselves to blame.
I may get it, looked good on the eshop.
It's fun game that would of been a great $20 GBA game 10 years ago.
Wow I did not expect a 7 considering Agetec's previously criticized games.
Seems the difficulty spikes are still here. I'll avoid this games at all costs.
THAT CAT GIRL IS SO CUTE THOUGH!
@ngamer155, if you look at all their games that NL has reviewed (this includes DSiWare & WiiWare), their games are more hit & miss, rather than straight up criticised.
They have some low rated stuff (like TBT3D), some high rated stuff (mostly the Rabi Labby series, which this is a part of), and a lot of average stuff.
@ilovegaming I am currently Boycotting Anymore games from Nicalis until you guys in Europe get Cave Story. My Boycott is probably stupid to some, and I am missing out on a couple nice titles. But it's not stupid to me as Cave Story should have been to Europe already. It's part of my Goodness should be shared especially in gaming
Thanks for a awesome review,but I'm stumped on one thing. It keeps saying use a thunder spell in level 2-1. I have tried different things. But is there a,I don't say a game cheat,but how do you do spells? Is there a tutorial? Thanks in advance.
I have both Rabi Laby 1 & 2, and was able to complete both of them, but without the hint system, Witch's Cat is murdering me. I'm currently stuck on Stage 2-5, and so far have not been able to find any help or walkthroughs online for it. I might get Rabi Laby 3, but it bothers me that I haven't completed this one yet. I do like this game, but it doesn't seem to like me...
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