Doctor Cat (Nintendo Switch) Review

From the start, this Doctor Cat sounds intriguing - puzzles and cats sound like a great combination! The premise is simple: players are viewing the office of the anthropomorphic Doctor Cat, who receives patients that have different issues they wish to discuss.

However, there is immediately some confusion about how to start the game. It is definitely not clear on how to change difficulty and especially how to get the first patient to come in. Once that is figured out, the first patient appears on Doctor Cat's couch and explains what the problem is. Everyone in this game is a cat, but the problems are similar to things encountered in the real human world, such as grief, depression, anxiety and similar issues. Once the patient has explained what the issue is, a puzzle appears. This is a simple jigsaw-type of puzzle. Generally, these puzzles can be fun, but the controls are not ideal. It is not always very clear where the cursor is, and moving things around is also a bit of a chore. This title is purely played with buttons, so the touchscreen is not utilised at all, which could have made things a bit easier. A clearer highlight of which puzzle piece the cursor is currently on could also help a lot here.

While solving the puzzle, the patient or Doctor Cat may suddenly speak, which appears as text over the puzzle. For this reviewer, it was completely unclear of how to get rid of this text, until trial and error revealed that the B-button needed to be pressed.

Once the puzzle is solved, Doctor Cat explains shortly how they will help the patient, after which they leave, and a new patient can be received. This repeats for all patients, and while each patient comes with a different puzzle, it all feels a bit repetitive. There are no highlights in the story, and while the music is relaxing to begin with, it becomes repetitive soon because it does not change. The end is sudden, with simply the last patient leaving. While this opens the opportunity to now replay puzzles at an even harder mode, even getting there is surprisingly confusing, as is activating the difficulty and actually starting the puzzle.