Super Catboy

Review

Super Catboy and his ally, who has rather a short fuse and wants to be referred to as the Weapon Girl, have a difficult task in front of them. The evil professor Ungefug, a genetic pioneer and Super Catboy creator, is about to take over the city of New Pacifica with his huge army of super, two-legged walking dogs! Is it too late to save the city? Maybe, maybe not. After all, a cat always lands on his four paws no matter what. Well, Catboy also walks on two paws instead of four; will this change the equation? That’s what you must find out, in Super Catboy.

Super Catboy is a retro pixelated action platformer game developed by Pixelpogo and published by Assemble Entertainment on the 24^th of July, 2023, on the Steam platform.

The game consists of 24 levels divided into 11 different settings (Crash Site, Villa, Forest, Train, etc.), which includes four boss fights and six cutscenes. You’ll be playing Super Catboy, equipped with super sneakers that allow him to dash rapidly left or right. But in the first part of stage one, he can only jump, duck, dash and punch enemies until Weapon Girl makes her rather over-the-top and funny entrance. From there, Super Catboy will acquire a gun to get rid of enemies from a distance.  Your goal per level is to collect all the coins, eliminate all enemies, find four golden cat pieces and reach the end of the stage. You’ll be credited an extra life when you find all four golden parts, and you’ll probably find all four parts in most levels; I only missed a couple in my entire walkthrough.

The levels are well-designed, of different lengths and offer some variety with the motorbike and mine cart levels. The motorbike is fun and fast; enemies will enter from both sides of the screen and shoot bullets at you and Weapon Girl. And yes, you still have to collect coins, but you won’t have to battle enemies when you do so. With the mine cart, it is a fast parkour level where you have to avoid hitting your head on wooden planks and jumping before the rail brakes, and either avoid enemies or shoot them. It was the hardest level of the entire game for me. On the regular platformer stages, some have fight sequences where enemies appear from both sides of the screen, and you must eliminate all of them to be able to move on. On a few occasions, you’ll be able to pick up a special weapon when these fights occur.

There could be better variations of enemy; after all, there are a lot of different breeds of dog. T+As it is, there are only four main races per level: the Pugs (who shoot low due to their height), the Irish or Airedale Terriers (not sure which one, to be honest, but they also shoot low); and the Huskies (who shoot higher). And poodles with knives. It would have been nice to have more variety.

For me, the biggest disappointment was the boss fights.  Mind you, the first time you fight the Catgirl, she is actually a real tiger, and you’ll lose the fight no matter what. At this point, it seemed that the boss fights would be challenging, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. As much as the game portrays the retro aspect and nostalgia of the 90’s platformer games, Super Catboy is far too easy in comparison. I finished the game within four hours, including mucking around levels and trying to find platforms or secrets that didn’t exist. What surprised me is that you do not have a harder level of difficulty to choose from, so the game doesn’t have much replayability. It’s a real shame because I like everything else. The pixel graphics and animations are good, and the game runs without any issues. It is also well-priced. You can play with a gamepad (which I strongly recommend) or with your keyboard. The game has been translated into 10 languages.

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com  

Super Catboy Zeepond Steam Store Page