Cat Quest II
I'm really disappointed with CQ2. I finished Cat Quest five times and have all the achievements. I loved it. CQ2 adds some new stuff, but for some reason they added multiplayer and completely ruined the single player experience. I put it on the backlog for a while, then saw there was a huge update (Mew World) with improvements to gameplay and managing the gear for two characters. Now that's out, I don't really feel like it's made any difference at all - the UI for managing the spells and equipment of the two characters is still clunky. Sadly, adding co-op makes playing the single-player version inferior to Cat Quest 1 in every way.
Pros
- You can now pan the map while paused to look around
- There are now ranged weapons
- Audio and visual feedback if your attack is ineffective - like a dull thud when you melee a rock creature
- Enemies that are significantly higher than you now show a level instead of a skull
- There are now teleporter pads back to the beginning of long dungeons
- Environmental hazards can damage enemies too
Cons
- Some enemies now shoot projectiles with no warning
- Same system for upgrading weapons as before - every chest gives you a random weapon. If you already have it, the weapon levels up. So there's no deliberate progression
- When playing solo, adding a second character has the following downsides:
- Enemies don't target the AI character, which means they come straight for you, making ranged weapons mostly unusable
- The AI is often killed by random AoE attacks. The game is balanced for two players, so it makes it harder for solo
- Having two characters on screen (with the AI following you) makes it harder to see the enemy telegraphed attacks and dodge
- The UI for managing gear and spells for two characters is clunky
- If one of the characters dies, you're suddenly playing a different character with different gear and abilities
- Having a second character on screen makes it hard to tell which one you are playing as
- Both characters have different gear and spells, which means you're never sure what your abilities are if you swap between them regularly