Cat President 2: Purrlitical Revolution by Oh, a Rock! Studios
The sequel to Cat President: A More Purrfect Union, this visual novel delivers more of what made the first game a success, which is to say a lightly absurdist visual novel take on the political process and more cat puns than you can shake a stick at, especially if it’s one of those sticks with feathers on the end of it.
The Party Purrimary
Like its predecessor, Cat President 2: Purrlitical Revolution begins with the primaries, and once again, you play the role of a recent college graduate who stumbles into the role of campaign manager to one of six potential candidates.
Oh, and they’re all talking cats, because this is a near-future that mostly looks like the present, except for the fact that America has voted to eliminate human politicians in favor of feline ones. (Just go with it.)
The game offers six separate plots to play through, one for each candidate, and options range from career politicians to celebrities. There’s even a robot.
The Demo-cat-ic Process Unveiled
In standard visual novel fashion, the action, such as it is, is mostly reading through text, with the usual anime portraits replaced by cute cats.
Fortunately, it’s actually pretty entertaining, with twists, turns and screw-ups portraying a realistic – if extremely broad – version of the primary process, warts and all.
The humor is broad, as well; as mentioned previously and stated again for emphasis: there are LOTS of cat puns.
Also worth mentioning: as is de rigueur with the genre, there are also romance elements here, though thankfully they’re G-rated and amount to little more than head-scratches and pets.
A Purrfect Antidote to Purrlitical Turmeowl
I’m hardly a visual novel expert – I’ve only played a few stand-outs, like unexpected cult favorite Doki-Doki Literature Club – but finishing a play-through of Cat President 2 during election night proved to be a pleasant distraction.
The cat pictures are charming, as are most of the jokes, and in addition to the obvious satirical elements (a partisan reporter who yells about “fake MEWS”), Oh, a Rock! Studios actually make some salient points about the political process in between the puns.
I’m not sure I’d recommend this to everyone, but if you like visual novels – especially playfully offbeat ones like Hatoful Boyfriend – and/or cats, Cat President 2 is definitely worth picking up, regardless of whether you’ve already played the first one.
I’d also recommend it to people that are worn out by current political events, but…that’s pretty much all of us these days, isn’t it?
Cat President 2: Purrlitical Revolution is available via Steam.
Check out the official trailer for Cat President 2: Purrlitical Revolution below:
