Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest
Developer: Bamtang Games
Publisher: Trailmark Games
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PC, Xbox Series X (Reviewed), Switch, Switch 2
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $29.99 USD – Available Here
Overview
Although the Warrior Cats books began releasing after the point where I would have read them, it has been impossible not to notice them in some way or hear about the franchise that has been running strong for over twenty years now. Spanning across multiple authors and numerous story arcs, the Warrior Cats novels have attracted quite the fanbase but it is one that has yet to be catered to in any way when it comes to films, cartoons, or even a video game. That is until now as Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest has arrived with its own original story set in the world of the franchise, or more like four original stories, each one following a different prophecy depending on the chosen clan that the player has selected.
Story
As players begin the game they will customize their very own cat and, once they have chosen all the various types of fur patterns, colors, ear types, tail types, and more, they’ll be presented one final choice that will dictate roughly how the next six to eight hours will go depending on how much players feel like exploring the world. This choice is selecting from one of the four primary clans in the franchise: ThunderClan, WindClan, RiverClan, and ShadowClan. Each of these has a unique prophecy that has been handed down to their leader by the StarClan, some speaking of fire, others speaking of two-legged threats to come, others speaking of inter-clan warfare, and more. Depending on the player’s chosen clan, their story will roughly follow that prophecy as they begin their adventure as an apprentice and interact with the members of the clan hierarchy.
This includes helping the Medicine Cat, maintaining the food pile, listening to orders from the Elders, and of course taking on missions from the Leader such as driving off encroaching threats such as cats from other clans, snakes, foxes, or intensifying the “scent marker” that symbolizes the territory marker for a clan. As players progress through missions they will be able to talk with various cats that have speech bubbles and often make various dialogue choices to try and win their favor or, in many cases, show humility as the Warrior Cats live by a Warriors Code after all. Depending on the prophecy players will eventually see their role rise from apprentice, to warrior, and beyond though it is worth noting that not only are the ally cats’ appearances randomized, so are their names.
That doesn’t mean that players won’t be able to quickly pick up on certain personality types from each cat that they talk with such as a traumatized “Queen” cat that now focuses entirely on raising the clan’s kits and makes sure to protect them no matter what and needing reassurance that threats can be dealt with or how another apprentice grows increasingly annoyed as the player quickly advances through the ranks, even bringing other “Paw” level cats with them, as they stay at the apprentice level. That being said, it is a bit strange that there does seem to be a level of oddity to how stories unfold. For instance, during a climactic moment near the end of one clan’s prophecy where my cat had already become the new leader and promoted a new Deputy and raised the rank of the complaining cat, the feline randomly chose to betray me in the final battle claiming he was overlooked for the very position he was now in and wanted vengeance, only to be dispatched alongside the other invading threats at the time.
This isn’t a major issue with all of the clan prophecies as most of them tell a decent enough storyline but at the same time they feel like they also don’t go nearly as in-depth into the lore of the world and what the belief system of the Warrior Cats actually is nor does it really make the various clans feel too different besides their designs and home-territory. This may not be a problem for longtime fans but newcomers will be confused about StarClan, the signature cats that appear here and there throughout the world, including a certain phantom cat, nor the way some pieces of cosmetics are named or the environmental storytelling. Things such as why a normal cat collar is called a Kittypet Collar or why there are abandoned human campsites, homes, and even bones scattered here and there. This, combined with the surface level feeling of the storytelling, especially in regards to not really making most Clans feel different from one another narratively is serviceable at best.
Gameplay
As players create their cat the way they design certain aspects appears to provide at least two buffs of some sort, though how this is determined is entirely unknown. In one instance a cat saw bonuses to its wisdom gauge and any “choices” made using wise dialogue would provide an extra bond point even if it wasn’t what the cat wanted to hear as well as the ability to clamber up trees and navigate branches with less stamina drain. It is also worth noting that, depending on the clan that the player has selected to play as, there will be certain attack moves that are only available to that specific clan, though there are twenty universal moves as well as roughly fifteen “Ancestral Moves” that are unlocked through completing other tasks such as taking down hidden bosses, with seventy five different moves in total. Every cat can have four moves assigned to their skill-set at a time and players do not need to worry about min-maxing their skills.
This is especially true once players advance the story a bit and find that they are joined by an ally cat that can also be given various skills alongside the player’s cat. This even means players can opt to double-up on specific skills if they like or have specific moves that are incredibly powerful and easy to use. As for how combat actually works, as players are traveling around the world they will witness an enemy animal with a paw-print above their head. Blue means the enemy can be killed instantly with a sneak attack, Green means weaker, Yellow is equal, and Red is tougher than the player’s party. Sneaking around in tall grass or moving slowly can give the player a first strike to one of the enemies in the group before beginning the turn order.
This turn order is dictated by the characters’ stats but considering there is no equipment in the game, it eventually just comes down to levels and since the level cap is a measly 20, that means that players will be just duking it out with level 20 foes all the time once it is reached, outside of story specific enemies that will instantly be crushed by the player’s team. The game’s many moves are all broken down into various “stances” that have strengths and weaknesses to one another in a triangle. For example, an aggressive stance will deal extra damage to a tricky stance while tricky deals more damage to defensive and so on. There are two exceptions to this rule, sneaky stance attacks that give the player a lower chance to hit but deal a lot of damage and reckless stance that give all attacks 50% extra damage but allow the cat to take 50% more damage as well.
That being said, it is entirely possible to very quickly break this system through reckless stances and even universal moves, though a certain Ancestral move is even more devastating despite its lower hit rate. These attacks deal such overwhelming damage that it often one-shots a foe or, in team battles, allows the entire team to focus on a single target and drop them from the fight, whittling their opponents down and that isn’t even counting later clan abilities that can target an entire enemy team. Now it is worth noting that all moves cost “stamina” to use and reckless attacks take a large portion of stamina but not only does this recover entirely after every battle but fights rarely drag on long enough for it to play a factor with the exception of a few multi-stage boss battles.
Players can also make use of herbs they have gathered around the open world or traded with the Medicine Cat to create to heal, restore stamina, heal or buff the entire team, and more. However this rarely feels like an issue as gathering ingredients and healing items are incredibly easy and rarely is worth the effort, especially since interacting with a “travel stump” warp point that players can unlock throughout the map also instantly heals the player’s cat. Speaking of which, the player only ever needs to worry about their own cat’s health as the rest of the team automatically heals after battle.
Anyways, navigating the world of Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest is both an interesting and frustrating experience. Interesting in the way that every clans’ territory at least matches their Clan’s theme, even if there is no discernible difference between how they play or move around the world, and that there is plenty of environmental storytelling going on as mentioned before, but also frustrating that there are far too many invisible walls in locations that players, especially cats, should be able to squeeze through or jump over. It is also worth noting that the map the players explore will be exactly the same no matter what clan the player is choosing to run through other than giving the player access to that clan’s home base and initial travel stump. This means that any “sunning spots” that permanently boost a cat’s movement stamina must be found again even if they do not move and any shortcuts players unlocked will be locked again in a subsequent run.
The same can be said about the enemy types players will face down. While it is clear that enemy clan cats will appear more frequently when navigating through their turf or taking on rogue cats here and there, standard enemies range from standard rats, mice, squirrels, birds, foxes, dogs, snakes, and even badgers. During combat players will occasionally be given the choice to target a weaker or stronger foe for a temporary stat boost or, after winning a fight, be given the option to spare the enemy for bonus XP or slay them for an extra item, which is all well and good until players hit the small level cap.
As mentioned before, players can talk with various cats in their clan and take on side-missions from them when they have voice bubbles over their heads or purple icons and doing these, or saying the right thing, will increase the bonds with the other felines, even though apparently a maxed out bond won’t stop a betrayal that’s baked into the story of a certain prophecy. Speaking of annoyances, there are more than a few bugs and other issues throughout the game and while none are game-breaking, they are quite odd. Occasionally when triggering a sneak attack on an enemy the fight would instantly flash that my team had won, then that my team had lost, then simply had me standing there with zero HP against a Green enemy. Similarly another time saw my cat getting stuck entirely in the environment to the point that the game had to be restarted to respawn at the most recent save.
Also, while this is more of a pet peeve, at the time of this writing the “customization” of the player’s personal den is something of a joke. While the options available are plentiful, the fact that it takes forty-eight real hours to pass to craft a bunny pelt bed or string of ribbons dangling from a branch is a joke and while it is clear players are meant to invite friends to see their “den” and speed things along, it is more of an annoyance than anything else. Speaking of which, while players can choose to fight online, we didn’t have a chance to test out this mechanic, but those wanting to take their favorite felines online and face down others can do so.
Audio & Visuals
Now those coming into Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest may be in for two entirely different experiences depending on one option that may not be available to everyone and this is the cel-shaded option. The standard graphics are pretty decent with some decent variety to the cat designs, especially since they are almost entirely randomized outside of specific cats from the franchise’s lore, but adding the cel-shading to the game brings it up to an extra level. The details on the feline’s fur is exceptional in this mode and combined with the various cosmetic accessories that players can have worn on their cat’s head, neck, body, and paw are an extra nice touch to help change things up.
The title does have a bit of voice work though it is handled entirely through the “Narrator” who serves as the voice of the world and explains some of the details about what is happening in some events, or providing voice work for specific scenes such as naming ceremonies or finales. The narrator’s voice acting is decent and the many cat noises, ranging from simple meows and mews to hisses and yowling cries were believable enough that my own cats were looking at the TV more than once. The background music is decent enough and each of the four clan locations feature its own theme song as players explore.
Overall
Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest is not the type of turn-based RPG that will set the world on fire, nor is it one that will likely satisfy the desires that longtime fans of the franchise could have hoped for, though those expectations would likely have been built so high by now that nothing could have matched them. Instead what Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest is is a solid turn-based RPG that provides just enough flavoring for new fans to get into the franchise and those who have been longtime fans something to sink their claws into, even if they will find that they are a bit dull by gameplay that grows repetitive quite quickly and lacks the depth one would hope for in an RPG.
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