Published by Sometimes You and developed by BOV, Cat and Ghostly Road is a point-and-click adventure where you will take on the role of a white cat. This unique game boasts an amazing art style with references to the world of demons inspired by East Asia in which you control the cat named Lune who is a special cat with a third eye which allows it to see things that are not visible to normal humans or creatures. Using this special ability, Lune is setting off on a haunting journey filled with demons and ghosts to find the soul of his dear friend. This is our review of Cat and Ghostly Road on the PS5 in which we explore a haunting world of demons and transform a carp into a fiery red dragon.
Cat and Ghostly Road begins with you taking control of the cat and walking through a heavy snowstorm. However, after taking a few steps, you are exhausted, and you faint but later find out that you have been saved by a human known as The Painter. The Painter takes you in and saves you from the heat giving you a new home and a new human to love. As time passes, you grow accustomed to The Painter and start considering him as your best friend until a demon arrives one night and takes his soul away. From this point on, you make it your mission to hunt down the demon and bring back the soul of your friend.
You start from The Painter’s house and move to different dimensions spanning across a black-and-white world and the land of the dead. Each location is unique and brings something new for you to explore in style. Your special power is that by pressing a single button, you can use your third eye to see demons and ghosts in the same world. With this special power in your hands, you will interact with these otherworldly beings, explore their world, and solve different puzzles as part of the gameplay. Each location will offer you different objects of interest that you can inspect or even pick up and store in your inventory for use somewhere else. The gameplay revolves around pretty much the same concept.
The key inputs are pretty simple as you will move around with the left joystick. The camera is fixed in one place so when you are not moving, you can view the current screen. Very few locations will give you a moving camera where the camera will move alongside you as you move because most of the areas move from screen to screen so there is a small transition between them. X is the interaction key while pressing L1 will give all interactable items a small twinkle effect to give you a small hint. Not all of the items will always have the twinkle so you will need to watch and observe each and everything in the game properly to solve puzzles. As you pick different, they will move to your inventory where you can mix multiple items together as well if they are compatible with each other.
The gameplay loop revolves around finding the right items and using them at the right locations. As far as I can remember, there were only two or three proper puzzles in the game where you needed to remember something or find a hidden solution to solve them. Apart from this, most of the time you are required to find the correct item if required, combine it with another, take it out of your inventory, and use it on another item to progress in the main story. Your main power in the game is your third eye which allows you to see hidden ghosts and demons and interact with them.
You will often use this ability to speak with demons and solve puzzles as they will be available only in this special vision mode. The whole game is filled with different demons, ghosts, and other NPCs who will fill you in on what is happening around the game and how you can bring your friend’s soul back from the demon who took it. There are also some demons who will try to eat you instead so you will need to solve the puzzles before moving on with the game. There are some cool moments in the game like riding a dragon boat, becoming a fish to swim updraft while avoiding incoming hazards, and trying to defeat the demon boss with a remember-the-card-style battle where the demon tries to cheat at the end.
The whole adventure will take you around 4 hours to complete and even less if you can solve the puzzles quickly. This is a short title and does not drag gameplay for too long however because of this, some of the items that you find in the game are not very helpful or useful like your human form. It is surely a fun little mechanic to have in the game, but I do not remember any point in the game where it wanted me to use this mechanic to bypass an obstacle in the game. It is nothing more than a fun, little mechanic to have in the game apart from something useful. Similarly, many other items are just left in your inventory at the end without much use. The trophies can be unlocked easily with story progression and there is not much to miss. Exploration is not that extensive as well.
In short, Cat and Ghostly Road is a short and straightforward point-and-click adventure that lures you in with its charming visual style and haunting atmosphere combined with a decent set of gameplay mechanics. I would not call the gameplay mechanics broken because they work just like they should, but they are not top-notch as well, so they lie somewhere in between the two. The environments are not too big and if you feel overwhelmed by point-and-click classics like The Secret of Monkey Island or the much newer Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town, Cat and Ghostly Road will feel much more manageable with smaller environments and easy puzzles.
Final Verdict:
Cat and Ghostly Road is a fun point-and-click adventure with simple puzzles that will barely tickle your brain. The main charm of the game lies within its cute, little cat as the main character and the haunting world all around you. Looking at the same location from two different perspectives offers a unique experience especially if you are a fan of both point-and-click games and horror games. After getting used to the controls, it is all straight sailing to the end with this simple yet captivating adventure that will see you exploring a diverse set of environments. It is highly recommended if you love unique concepts and are currently looking for a decent point-and-click title on the PS5.
Final Score: 8.0/10
