Review: Hidden Paws Mystery

[Infernopommes]

A review copy of the game has been provided for me by @hiryu. This had zero effect on my opinion of the game or this review.

 

Hidden Paws Mystery has no story. You can make up one in your mind on your own if you so desire. The gist of the game is to find cats, and, since we don't want them to get bored, yarns for them to play with (presumably). To do that, you go from isle to isle. Each isle has a set amount of cats and yarns for you to find. You do this by moving the camera around and clicking on cats and yarns respectively when you see them, which makes this game essentially a Hidden Objects game. If you peeked at the trophy list, you might have seen that there is also some other stuff to do. But worry not, nothing is missable, as you can replay isles. You also don't have to finish an isle to progress to the next one.

 

Let's get one negative right out of the way: The hardest thing in this game will not be to find the cats and the yarns (and we will talk about that shortly) - the hardest thing in this game is getting used to the controls. Counterintuitively, you move the camera with the left stick while holding L2, to rotate up/down or left/right. Using just the left stick will let you move around horizontally or vertically or any combination of that. You can zoom in with R1, and zoom out with L1. The right stick lets you move the cursor, and when you hover over a cat or a yarn, you can press X to collect it. This is by far the biggest flaw of the game. Just switching the functions of the left and the right stick would already have been a huge improvement. Using the right stick for your cursor, and then pressing X, takes the momentum out of it, since you can't let your thumb rest on the right stick while pressing X, whereas you could have done that, were you to control the cursor with your left thumb. While this may be frustrating at times, you will get used to it over the course of the game, although there will still be times where you initially struggle to move around, even on the later isles.

 

You can't remap the controls. The game lets you adjust the Move Speed, the Rotate Speed, the Zoom Speed, the Music and the Sounds to your liking. You might want to leave most of those settings untouched, except for the Zoom Speed, which this reviewer considerably lowered for a better experience. You can select from a lot of languages, although this only affects the menu, since there is no dialogue. It is unknown if the game has an autosave function, so you might want to occasionally use the manual save, just to be ... safe. You get one savefile. The game also lets you to delete your progress - be careful not to accidentally click it. If that should happen though, the game will warn you that you are about to erase your progress, and asks for confirmation. R3 lets you use a generously bright lantern, which will come in very handy during some darker parts.

 

The game has a hint system, and the mystery the title is alluding to seems to be the question: Why was it implemented? Other Hidden Object games will let you give a literal hint where an object might be located. Here, it works differently: If you press square, the game tells you how many cats there are left to be found on that specific isle, or will tell you that you found all of them. If you press triangle, it will essentially do the same for the yarns, however it will also tell you the color of the next yarn to find - this is merely a suggestion though, you can pick up whichever you find first. So if it tells you "Find a red yarn.", and you see a blue one, just grab that. That by itself would already pretty useless, but it gets even more absurd when you factor in that there is a picture of a cat and a picture of a yarn in the bottom left of the screen, each has a number attached to it. You might have guessed it: The number indicates, how many of each are left ... What the game doesn't tell you anywhere, is that you can hide the bottom line by pressing R2. You might want to do this to clean up the screen, it also prevents the game from asking you if you want to travel to the next isle when you accidentally pressed circle. If you are ready to move on, press R2 again, then circle.

 

Finding the cats is very doable. Some of those furry little animals are admittedly enjoying their lives in very tricky places, but none of them are as well hidden as some of the yarns. It is a pretty safe bet to say that you will usually find all cats on an isle before you have found all yarns on it. While searching for the cats most likely won't get frustrating, searching for the yarns might on every isle from the fourth onwards. However, the sense of accomplishment a player may experience after finally finding that darn last yarn is a neat reward.

 

When you start up Hidden Paws Mystery for the first time, it throws you right on the first isle. You don't have to watch three billion logos, you don't have to endure a "Press any button to continue" screen, you can simply play the game right away. That's pretty awesome. The music is soothing, which will help the player to stay grounded during some of the more frustrating parts. The art design of the isles is nice to look at. The game is colorful, but not aggressively so. If you are colorblind, some of the yarns might be harder to find.

 

You can probably finish the game in less than two hours if you know where to look for everything. If you are going in blind, this will provide considerably more playtime. This game is suitable for kids and adults, although it might prove to be too difficult for kids at times. It is advisable to tackle this in small increments of a few isles per sitting, if you are not a patient person.

 

Conclusion:

Hidden Paws Mystery lets you search for cats and yarns, and more. The controls are counterintuitive and will take quite some time to get used to. The music is soothing, the artstyle pleases the eye. While some of the cats and especially the yarns are sometimes hidden all too well, and the hint system is absolutely useless, this game might provide you with some hours of fun (as well as frustration - but mostly the good kind).
6/10

Edited March 26, 2023 by Infernopommes

[Leesider]

Hey there, I'm with the publishers, Silesia Games.

Thanks for Your feedback, really cool review. For our budget I'll take 6/10 any day

 

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More interesting games coming in 2023

Lot's of stuff happening on our YT channel, feel free to comment & stuff.

Take care and.. May the good games be with You!

[esstee11]

Edit: Visually it's cute, but the game would be much more enjoyable with a simpler control system..

Edited May 28, 2023 by esstee11

[Eispan]

All this game needed was proper dual-stick controls to make it more easier and simpler to navigate.  I am on the third island and already frustrated and a bit tired and somewhat drained in what I would expect to be a relaxing game. 

 

EDIT: Nah we will eventually get used to the controls and the  +  navigation becomes second nature.  Got the hang of it playing in the 4th isle.  I might actually enjoy the game now.

 

Good bits:

Lovely soundtrack - takes me back to the OG FFVII days and this is a good memory to be pulling at.

Cute graphics and I absolutely loved the art style.

 

 and the Hint System is also a nice feature.  It is great to be reminded and guided on what collectibles we need to find.  The hints helps reduce the frustration because we will know how much more we need to do in an island.  The cats meowing is another clever way to give away hints.  I wished that the yarns had something similar though, like a wind-chime or even just a pleasant ding would have suffice.  Perhaps even a 'post-game' upgrade that would make the collectibles have a subtle glow when we find 90% of the cats and yarn and also had visited all the islands.

 

Good trophies - not elitist like some other games out there.

No Speedrun - finish all levels in x-minutes would have been horrendous.

No Permadeath - click the wrong thing x-times and it is game over kind of thing or click the same cat twice, madness if this were the case.

 

Lantern was a great addition, remember how insane FFXV Beta was initially, all dark - no light.  So glad it was never the case for this game.

 

I was always expecting an 'aha found you beautiful moggy' moment but there are times I end up saying 'there you are you dirty bastard'.  I love cats but this game reminds me of a ragdoll cat we had when I was a child, who despite given so much love does not love us back - I say all this in jest. 

 

My final review can be read HERE. 

 

 

Edited January 1 by Eispan
Just finished the game and it is BRILLIANT!