Alien Cat 2 Review – The First Game Was a Platformer, and This One Is a Puzzle Title?

As I shared in my review of Alien Cat 1, the Alien Cat games are a series of titles that all play differently from each other. Where the original release was a single-screen platformer with 30 short levels, the sequel is now a top-down puzzle game that has you controlling alien cat as he collects pieces to repair his spacecraft.

Gameplay

This is done by moving him around single-screen levels with the d-pad and avoiding hazards along the way. Once all the pieces are picked up in a stage, a portal opens up that takes you back to your ship so you can make repairs. This latter part is done automatically before entering another portal and going on to the next stage. Some of the hazards you tackle include mines, spikes, and later in the game, enemies who walk around in predetermined paths.

All of this would be easy enough to handle, but this time your alien cat has a new problem. That being that there are duplicates of him in the level with him! All these alien cats move in tandem with each other, so if you press down on the d-pad all the alien cats do the same. Consequently, you have to be looking at all your little cats in a stage at once, making sure they don’t touch a hazard.

There’s no hit points in the game, so if any of your cats touch something that can hurt them, then they die. If any of the cats are killed you have to restart the level again. The game features unlimited lives, and passwords between every stage.

Gore

As I expected from playing the first Alien Cat game, touching a hazard results in a really bad looking demise. The one I dislike the most is when you touch a mine. Your cat’s head is severed from its body from the explosion. Since the resolution is rather low, this isn’t too terrible, but I wanted to point it out for potential players.

Difficulty and Game Length

Due to the unlimited lives and regular passwords, Alien Cat 2 is not frustrating and feels fair when it comes to its challenge. As you progress, the game does become more difficult. However, none of the stages took too terribly long to complete.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of the game was thinking of new strategies to complete stages. These could include bringing all of the different cats closer together, or separating them out as needed. This is done by putting some in corners while others move freely. This especially needed to be done in the last 10 stages, which were particularly satisfying to finish.

While I completed the first Alien Cat in about 25 minutes, this one took about 2 hours to beat. I found that it was a good game to play in conjunction with another. For instance, I’d often play Alien Cat 2 in the morning while I would tackle Flea! on my lunch break. Completing a few of the harder levels in Alien Cat 2 before going on to something else helped keep me from being burned out by it.

Music and Sound Effects, and Two Things I Dislike

Although I enjoyed the gameplay of this game more than its predecessor, I didn’t like the music as much as in Alien Cat 1. Not that I thought it was bad. I just didn’t like the tunes so much. There were about 5 main themes that played as I went through the game. All of them were OK, but I didn’t particularly enjoy one over the other. The game’s sound effects were fine.

The main thing I disliked about the game was suddenly having a cat die in a gruesome manner because I wasn’t watching one closely enough. I also noticed that the hit detection was a bit suspect at times. This was most common when I would try to move past some enemies in later stages. Multiple times I thought for sure I would make it by one, but I entered the square it was leaving a couple of pixels too soon. This resulted in one of my cats dying and having to restart the stage over again.

Repeated Assets and Graphics

Speaking of repeating things again, I noticed a significant amount of repeated assets between this game and the first. Especially with the design of the alien cat and the portal that you enter at the end of each stage. The enemy designs are also similar, although this can be expected considering they’re both from the same developer. I didn’t think this repetition was a problem. Nor did it bring down my opinion of the game in any meaningful way.

Concerning the graphics in general, I liked them, despite their simplicity. One aspect that I did care about in regard to repetition was the repeated tilesets used throughout the game. There are basically 3 sets of graphics in the game, with tiles and backgrounds being repeated for about 10 levels before being changed for something else. Even though it wasn’t too bad, just know that the game’s graphics don’t have much diversity among each series of levels.

Summary

Still, I found Alien Cat 2 to be a significant improvement over the first game. It’s a longer title in that the stages took more time to complete, along with a more compelling gameplay design. Other than the gore, I can’t think of anything I really disliked about the game.

The graphics are repetitive in that stages use the same graphics as several others, and the music and sound effects are just OK, but still liked them. As I reflected on the game for the purpose of this review, I considered giving it a Very Positive rating. Yet, I think a Positive rating is closer to how much I actually enjoyed playing the game.

If you’re curious, I’ve also reviewed the original game in this series. You can read it here. I played this game on the Evercade through Indie Heroes Collection 1, and the last two games I reviewed from the cartridge include Super Homebrew War and FoxyLand.

Note: This game is available on a variety of platformers (see links below). Because the game has a Name your own price on Itch.io for the NES and Sega Master System versions, I’ve added the “Free” tag to this post. The Sega Genesis, Steam, and Evercade versions are not free.

Title: Alien Cat 2 (Steam page)
Genre: Top-down Puzzle
Year Released: 2020
Developer: Repa Games
Available On: Sega Genesis/Mega Drive (Demo), Steam, and Evercade through Indie Heroes Collection 1. I’ve also seen alternate versions of the game on NES and the Sega Master System.
Price Paid: $1.14, or $16.00 for Indie Heroes Collection 1

Remember, we can have different opinions about the games we play. If you like something more (or less) than I do, both of our perspectives are valid.