In recent memory, cats have been the secret sauce slathered on top of a juicy indie game burger. I had heard good things about the Cat Quest series, but didn’t feel compelled to give the series a try until Cat Quest III was announced and a companion demo was released alongside it. That demo was like catnip for me, and put the swashbuckling adventure on my must-play list with the promise of a bright, cheerful, and breezy action RPG with a silly, pun-filled sense of humor throughout. Thankfully, it kept that promise

Cat Quest III follows the adventure of a tabby cat protagonist who's been ordained as one in a line of beings called Seekers - those who are predestined to find an artifact called the North Star, with a legend that whoever reaches it can have any desire of theirs granted. With an unnamed ghost partner whose origin is veiled in mystery, the duo embarks on an epic quest to explore the world and get their paws on the North Star before other factions of pirates can (and dig up some treasure along the way). The cast of characters are a wide variety of species ranging from cats, rats, boars, and birds, each with their own leaders who are brimming with colorful personalities and submerged in silly wordplay. A lot of attention was put into the script - despite the hilarity, storytelling feels sincere and I found myself laughing, caring for the characters’ story arc, and even experiencing some sentimental moments. This story doesn’t have a profound presence, but its light touch is perfect for the lighthearted tone the game is looking for.

The meat and potatoes of Cat Quest III is its dungeon crawling. Littered across the map are caves and towers to explore that have anywhere from 2 to 5 or more chests to open, bookmarked by a big treasure (and usually a boss battle) at the end. Dungeons are linear - there’s a clear primary path and sections are blocked off by doors that are opened either by switches or defeating a room of enemies. Your combat toolkit includes a melee, ranged, and magic attacks. Melee weapons include standard swords, Wolverine-like claw gloves that slice briskly, and shields which inflict damage when perfectly blocking enemy attacks. From a distance you can use various guns and magic wands with elemental attacks like ice and fire. Magic spells similarly have different elemental attributes and can have status effects like stunning enemies or pushing them backward. It didn’t take long to get in a rhythm of slashing a mouse with a sword, pushing them back with a fire blast, then unloading all my gun ammo on them for the kill. At times I'd choose to pull out the claws, feverishly cutting up a boar and peppering them with blasts of fire from my wand. The game encourages you to tailor the experience your way by mixing and matching these tools.

How you equip yourself is critical to combat success, and also includes wearable gear. Like any good RPG, your appearance changes with the head, torso, and leg clothing chosen. There are clothing sets that can be found in different dungeons, each with their own flavor text and attributes. For example, some boost overall health, some increase mana recovery, and others have elemental resistances. Gear can be leveled up at a blacksmith in town in exchange for gold coins that increase those stats. It didn’t take long before I picked a few sets to focus on leveling up. A minor grievance I have is that it does stymie the mix-and-match feeling that the weapons provide. I also wish the game had an option to sell off undesirable gear. By end game your inventory is filled with undesirable items that I would have loved to scrap for coin to fuel further level increases. Instead it just sits there, forcing me to sift through them while figuring out what to equip. In that same town, there’s also a fortune teller who can level up spells for the price of a magic currency that is more rare to find. If you’ve had your fill of those spaces, you can take a trip to the local milk bar where a super-buff cat bartender will reward you with experience points and gold for bounties on the heads of story critical and side mission bosses. Don’t forget to check in on them from time to time.

Exploring the world by foot and ship is a great way to mix travel and keep it from feeling stale. The cat is quick on its feet making running from point a to b seamless. On each island there are mini side missions to pick away at, as well as hidden treasure chests and dungeons. There is also a tally of how many chests there are on land as well so it’s easy to keep track of how much of an area you’ve completed. Once you’re tired of that island, find a dock to summon your vessel and zoom across the ocean to find other patches of land to explore or engage in sea combat with other pirate ships. The ship can zoom across the small map with relative ease and in quick time, which is helpful for a game which encourages lots of back-and-forth with the mission structure. Sea battles are a great mix of swerving around cannonballs, firing your own, hitting them with special bomb attacks, and outmaneuvering them with slick twists and turns. The ships don’t turn on a time, so I had to circle around ships, careen across islands to create distance, and sometimes bullied them by pushing them along with a direct movement toward them. Like the storytelling, none of these systems have depth, but encounters are always short lived enough to where they never wear thin.

I don’t have a reference point of the prior Cat Quest games due to having never played them, but Cat Quest III has been a delightful, if brief journey full of whimsy, exciting (if simple) combat, fun character interactions, and the joy of sailing the seas. Once it sunk its teeth in me, I couldn’t detach myself from the switch and beat it in only a few sittings. That’s the power of Cat Quest III, a game that knows when to move on from any combat scenario or story beat before getting old and a universe where a kitten can spend hours combing every grain of litter to find new surprises or rewards each time. Cat Quest III belongs in your Switch library, and you will have a fantastic time.