Bright Paw

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: Since this game’s original release, it has since been replaced on the Nintendo Switch eShop and Nintendo.com by a “Definitive Edition”. This review is for the original version of the game.)

Bright Paw is a character-based Puzzle game released on PC and Nintendo Switch in 2020. This game has players controlling an intelligent cat who goes to investigate the murder of his beloved owners. As he tracks their killer, he discovers that his owners and home hide some curious secrets of their own.

The presentation in this game is very good. While each of the game’s levels are relatively small and self-contained, they are full of wonderful little details, nice textures, good water effects, fire, spark, and smoke, and both the cat protagonist and the robotic sentries are well-animated. This game has an extremely polished look, and while it doesn’t do anything on a grand enough scale to be truly impressive, Bright Paw is still graphically stylistic enough to be a visually striking experience.

Perhaps just as enjoyable is the game’s narration, which is wonderfully voiced with a dry humor and wit that makes for a delightful accompaniment to the game’s campaign, giving both the game’s silent protagonist, as well as the game as a whole, a fantastic infusion of personality that keeps things interesting throughout the game. In addition, the gameplay is backed by a decent soundtrack that gives the whole thing a “spy movie” sorta’ feel, appropriate given some of what transpires during the game’s story.

As for the gameplay, players are given a handful of movement cards with instructions that the game’s feline protagonist follows, and must use these cards in a proper order to move the cat from the starting point to an exit point in each of the game’s stages. In the course of doing so, they must outmaneuver moving robotic guards, dodge dangerous laser beams, make use of switches, and respond to other hazards and obstacles. This game plays well with traditional gamepad controls, and the touchscreen controls in handheld mode work like a charm too, making either one a perfectly viable option.

However, I have two complaints about the gameplay here. First, a minor frustration – the game doesn’t properly explain that the orientation of the cat’s movements is dependent on the direction he’s facing, rather than some universal constant. At a few points I was annoyed that a card to move the cat a few spaces forward seemed to inexplicably insist on moving the cat to the left before I realized that this was because the cat was facing that way to begin with. This is a misunderstanding I feel could have been resolved with the briefest of explanations (but now you have it from me, and as such you won’t have to deal with that frustration).

The second complaint I have is that this game feels limited by its structure. Players will only ever have a limited number of cards to choose from, and even longer stages will limit players to only five of these cards at a time, feeding them more cards as they use the cards they have access to. Because of this, playing this game rarely makes the player feel like they’re solving puzzles as much as it feels like selecting the correct choice out of a limited set of options.

While I can’t help but feel like this results in Bright Paw being a far more limited and somewhat less engaging game than it could have otherwise been, it is still a solid Puzzle game with an absolutely superb presentation. If you’re looking for a deep or addictively engaging Puzzle game, Bright Paw may not quite live up to your expectations, but it is still an enjoyable and highly-polished game well worth playing.

tl;dr – Bright Paw is a Puzzle game where players use movement cards to direct a cat to each stage’s exit. This game’s visuals are highly polished, and its excellent narration is absolutely charming. The gameplay is a bit too simple to be truly engaging, but this is nevertheless a wonderfully enjoyable Puzzle game experience.

Grade: B

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