The Nardio Review
Is Naughty Kitties worth your time?
No.
What should I play it on?
Naughty Kitties is a universal app for iOS and Android.
What Did I Think Without Spoiling It?
Naughty Kitties is Freemium endless side scrolling shooter that has tons of fun potential. There is no story behind Naughty Kitties, it’s just about putting cats on an endless ride to shoot up everything in their way. For a little while when you start playing Naughty Kitties is actually really cute and fun. Unfortunately, you quickly find that you are very overpowered against the hordes of enemies attacking you. Very soon you hit a pay gate in order to upgrade your cats and ship in the form of special currency. That’s when Naughty Kitties loses steam and the grindfest/pay to play part of the freemium equation takes over. It’s a shame because Naughty Kitties has a ton of potential.
The deal breaker here is having to keep your cat happy…with lots and lots of coins. For me having to grind just to keep my cats happy was the final straw. It can take several runs worth of gold to get one cat to max happiness. I love the concept and art behind it, but because of the vicious pay wall I cannot recommend Naughty Kitties. There isn’t even an in-app purchase that seems like it’s worth it. If I could pay even $1.99 to just keep my all my cats happy I would find the game immensely more interesting. Sadly, I didn’t find Naughty Kitties to be worth the time and grind.
How it plays and why it fails:
The sad point of Naughty Kitties
Naughty Kitties has you placing cats on a flying ship to either attack enemies or heal your ship. Each cat has an energy bar that depletes over time. The more you level the cats up the stronger they become with better and faster attack or heals. They also last longer before their energy depletes. This is all well and good until you get into two huge problems that were deal breakers for me.
1. Cat Happiness. Over time your cats will start to get depressed. The only way to cheer them up is buying them treats that cost hundreds of coins. If you ignore their feelings your cats will lose energy a lot faster until you pony up the coins and cheer them back up. Unfortunately, the cost of constantly keeping your cats at max happiness will keep you broke.
2. Fish Currency. Most freemium games have a special currency that is just hard to get unless you buy it. Here it’s fish. Soon you will need lots of them to upgrade your characters and your ship. Sadly the only way to earn them is leveling up. This pretty much kills all game progression. One fish per level will not help you survive longer. This is the pay wall. Fish is also the currency used to unlock more cats to use. Sadly the cost goes from two fish for a chance at a new cat to six fish for a guaranteed cat. That’s not cool.
I love the concept behind Naughty Kitties. It’s genius! Sadly the freemium model used here just isn’t my cup of tea. There isn’t enough progression that’s possible here to make me feel like my time is well spent. Another huge problem here is even if you want to grind you find you’re only allowed a limited number of play per game. If there was a paid version of this game without overly aggressive in app purchases I would be all over it. Sadly that doesn’t exist yet.
Avoid Naughty Kitties if you don’t want to get stuck in another pay to play game without real progression.
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Basic Info:
- Free
- Energy based wait times to play.
- 3 Areas
- In-App Purchases
- 49.1 MB
Web Links:
Developer: Coconut Island
