Cat Rescue Story Review

Having a house full of cats to take care of may not be everyone’s idea of a dream home, but Cat Rescue Story aims to please everyone with its relaxing, cosy gameplay. Does it succeed in doing this, or should this port of a mobile game be best left to the handheld devices?

The plot of Cat Rescue Story is a simple one. Your great-aunt Olivia has left you her old house (although she could have tidied a bit first), and upon arriving, you find a mysterious moving box left on the doorstep. Turns out Olivia used to shelter stray cats, so now you do too! After choosing a name for the furry feline, or using the name generator (mine was named Commodore Love?), so begins your quest to take in, care for, and eventually put up the cats for adoption.

There isn’t much to the story, though you’ll meet a friendly cast of characters (and cats!) along the way who help you out, mainly providing hints and tips in the early gameplay sections. As mentioned earlier, this is a port of a game originally released for mobile, so there isn’t much narrative here to get invested in.

Despite the fairly basic visuals, there is a certain charm to Cat Rescue Story, with the fluff balls themselves being rather adorable! They’re well-animated and genuinely cute, although they don’t feel unique aside from the different appearance of each of the approximately 50 breeds available.

The rest of the game, from the environments to the music, are all serviceable if nothing special. I did like the great artwork of the NPC character portraits, though, and felt this cartoonish flair added a lot to the style of the game. I just wish there was more of this artistic direction in the rest of the game!

If the graphics managed to trick you into thinking this isn’t a port of a mobile game, then the gameplay won’t be fooling anyone. It’s a simple loop that consists of adopting a cat and taking care of said cat's specific needs, before finally matching a perfect forever home for it. Each cat will need medical checks, grooming, and entertainment to keep them happy, although the first two tasks simply boil down to rotating the analogue stick on a specific part of its body to cure or brush them. Playing with them is a little more interesting, as you’ll play as the cats from a top-down perspective as you run around the house looking for toy mice. Finally, making sure they’re fed and watered is as simple as ensuring any food and water bowls are topped up. It’s never taxing to play, but that, in turn, causes a fair amount of tedium to set in relatively quickly.

You get to renovate the house as well, adding new rooms and furniture as you play, which was a nice touch to add a bit of player individuality to the game. Again, it’s basic, with a few different objects to add, but it’s an enjoyable enough mechanic, although I wish I would have been able to place items freely. Building more rooms and furniture requires tokens, which can be obtained by successfully having someone adopt a cat. By caring for each cat, you’ll uncover their specific personality traits and will then be able to match them up with the right owner for them. Again, it’s not in-depth at all, with potential adopters wanting certain genders, personalities, breeds, and so on, but ensuring a cat goes to the best owner possible was rather heart-warming.

Although it’s basic and an obvious mobile port, there is something rather charming about Cat Rescue Story. It’s relaxing, although I often found myself growing bored with the simple gameplay loop. With that said, it’s probably more enjoyable playing the mobile version for quick bursts of gameplay when you have a spare five minutes. As a console game? It’s certainly not one I’d be booting up to play for more than 10 minutes at a time.