Anyone who played the first Cattails game can tell you that this game is an absolute labor of love. The devs have really listened to their players and made a lot of HUGE improvements that deserve to be recognized.

Here's a brief overview of some pros and cons without getting too far into spoiler territory:

Pros:

- Tons of customization options for your characters, homes, and bases.
- The game strikes a good balance between giving the player a ton of freedom without ever leaving you feeling lost.
- A good amount of unique NPC's with charming personalities and dialogue.
- Tons of unlockables and incentives to explore as well as participate in seasonal events.
- No task ever feels like a waste of time! The game consistently rewards you for any activity you choose to spend time doing.
- Beautiful soundtrack and character art.

Cons:

- The combat can feel a bit clunky at times.
- The difficulty scaling of certain mobs feels a bit all over the place.
- Followers often run headfirst into danger, and more often then not, you'll find yourself using the majority of your resources trying to keep them alive.
- EXP feels useless after a certain point. I always find myself maxing out skills very quickly, which feels a bit boring after a while.


Overall, I'd say that the pros far outway the cons with this one-- I would definitely recommend this game to any cozy gamer or cat lover. :)

The first play through of this game is absolutely incredible! Meeting new cats and testing which items work on them is so fun, plus finding out about the story is really interesting.

However.. As you probably noticed, I wouldn't really recommend purchasing this game.

My main issue comes from the lack of replayability & with the main story being easily completed in less than 1 in-game year (depending on settings + dedication), I find that to be.. Disappointing. Especially considering that the original cattails had better replay value due to not only being able to

So, I've decided to make a list of everything that I like and dislike about the game :)

PROS
- Gorgeous art. The pixel art, trailers, and character portraits are all beautiful!
- Fun, varied, and well written characters
- Good time progression, very neat to see the seasons go by
- great accessibility options
- awesome music!

CONS
- Doesn't take very long to complete the main quest.

- With the first point, all of the items you need to find to complete the main story aren't very difficult. The only one that may pose a potential challenge is Umbra, and she doesn't appear until the end of the game (And only if you chose to spare the Champion) . I wish the game would require you to get multiple items of higher qualities & that the game wouldn't make so many of said items available in shops.

- Similarly, I think some items appear too soon in-game. Shiny trinkets, red roses, and quest items appear pretty early on in Ember's shop, Festival shops, and the Daily Task shop. Plus, these items are priced pretty cheap (For example, a diamond costs 1000 mews whereas a shiny trinket is only 200!), which worsens the progression. I think these items should show up much later, like after the first year or two.

- There's nothing to do in the post-game. Sure, you could go around fighting all the remaining voidlings and claiming the rest of the territory hexes but.. Who wants to do that? By the time you complete the main story, you will likely have amassed a sufficient amount of mews, stock piles of items, quite a few curios, and even a mate and kits. Unless you want to be a completionist and do things like unlock all the mines, befriend all the cats, max out all your buddies, etc, there's nothing fun to do. All of the things I just mentioned btw are extremely repetitive!

- Repetitive dialogue. Cats only have about 5 phrases at any given point & there's no value in talking to them further. Not to mention, there's no real interaction. Cats sort of talk at you, not really talk with you. It would've been neat to be given responses that could impact friendship levels with different cats!

- Lack of cutscenes. Since many people compare this game to Stardew valley, I'll be doing the same. In that game, there are cutscenes you can unlock by completing each character's storyline. Cattails: Wildwood Story doesn't have much of this. The only thing comparable are the rival marriage events (Which do require you to not be married to either cat!) and the occasional random cutscene that makes no impact on how characters act. There may be a cutscene showing two cats having a heart-to-heart, but afterwards they continue with their regular schedules and never speak to each other again.

- This particular complaint comes from starting a New Game+! Firstly, getting all the cats is the main part of the game. That's why it was honestly a bit of a shock to find that you would have them all handed to you upon continuing as your offspring. What makes this worse is that you don't have any relationship with any cats & any kittens from rival marriages you completed in your first playthrough simply don't exist. Your cat doesn't even have any relationship with their parent for crying out loud! It would've been nice if there was some actual progression. Ideally, some plot as to why your offspring is the new leader, having a relationship with your parent, having your siblings be cats, new cats to get (or a new quest to complete), seeing the rival marriage kittens you got in the previous playthrough all be adults, and potentially new dialogue surrounding the fact that you're the colony's leader.

TLDR: PLEASE more post-game content! I honestly found replaying the original Cattails to be more enjoyable due to the ability to play through different colonies or start your own.

Since the last update was almost 6 months ago, I suspect the developers have already abandoned this game (Which, the developer FalconDevelops' youtube channel is completely missing?) & we won't be getting anything of substance from this game again. Which is a real shame because it has real potential!

However, the point still stands. Until this game gets more post-game content, I cannot recommend it :( I would simply just suggest games like Stardew Valley or even this game's predecessor, Cattails.

I really recommend it as I've had plenty of fun so far. The character sprites are especially well-made so huge props to the artist!

While I wish there would be more stuff to do in-game, I still find myself sitting down to play for hours on end so that says a lot.