Should cats be given weapons of mass destruction in the form of a mech suit? Gato Roboto doesn’t necessarily answer that question, but makes a case for why it’s fun at least.
Gato Roboto is a metroidvania leaning its inspirations closer towards the Metroid spectrum. The game opens with Gary a space patrol officer receiving a distress signal from a planet while on his typical patrol. Before he can disregard the call, his feline companion Kiki jumps up on the keyboard hurtling them into the planet. Now crashed on the planet, Gary is pinned inside the ship and tasks Kiki with exploring the planet and finding help.
From that point on you are tasked with exploring an abandoned station that you’ll have to bring back online using a mech suit conveniently fit for a cat. All your standard power missiles, double jumps and dashes are here as power ups to find. These abilities will help you break down barriers or reach new heights and new areas. The game looks like a GameBoy game the leaped of that tiny screen and right onto my monitor, and even has fun unlockable colors that you can swap between. The interactions between Gary and Kiki are always a delight and give the game a fun lighthearted vibe even when I felt like I was a mass frog murderer with the amount I was killing. But luckily when I was tired of shooting frogs the game wrapped up having completed it in just a little over four hours.
While the game has a lighthearted approach, the soundtrack and sound design do a great job at giving you the feeling of being on this dangerous alien planet. The mech’s shots have a satisfying sound when hitting enemies and hearing Kiki meow every time she jumps out of the mech is never not adorable. Gato Roboto doesn’t ultimately set a new course for metroidvania games, but it doesn’t feel like it ever had those intentions. Each of the four major areas offers different gameplay, like an underwater submarine section or a tight quarters area with tight timing and platforming playing as just the cat. The boss battles are tough and will take you a couple tries, but once you start learning the patterns you can watch your evil mouse nemesis go down in flames.
In this day and age of metroidvanias and rogue-likes, many lack a definitive end so players can continue to replay them. It was refreshing to have this little bite size game along those genres to play through in a weekend sitting. That being said, I would have still liked just a bit more variety to some of the enemy types I encountered and the areas themselves to could have felt a little more distinct. Gato Roboto is only an $8 title on PC and Switch, so it’s ultimately not asking for a lot from you and it’s a neat little game if you’re looking for a one and done weekend session.
This game was reviewed on PC with a review code provided by a PR Representative for the game.
