Hidden Cats in Spooky Village – PS5 Review

Continuing the theme of seasonal hidden cat games released out of sync with the expected time of year, we have Nukearts and Silesia Games most recent, being Hidden Cats in Spooky Village. Admittedly, not wholeheartedly Halloween themed, but definitely a close encounter of the spooky kind.

Across its generous array of a dozen levels, Spooky Village has you run the whole gamut of what is best described as the quiz show top answers of classic horror stories, such as Frankenstein, Nosferatu and the Headless Horseman. The last one is probably more familiar to American players by way of Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, but all that did was elaborate on the European folklore archetype from the Middle Ages.

As in the other Nukearts hidden cat games, you first unlock all the levels but the finale in the first hub level. It’s here you find all the themed cats as well as those of the devs and their friends. All we want to know, is how do we get one or all of our five furrorists to feature in a future game? Though to be honest, they’re a little out of favour with us at the moment as their usual quiet nocturnal habits have evolved into waking us up at inopportune moments throughout the night. Anyone who says sleep is for the week isn’t borderline exhausted due to nightly interruptions the past week or so.

The pennies per cat coefficient is decent with well over a thousand cats to find, not to mention the extra monsters or people to find throughout either. We suspect that this might’ve been developed prior to the previous release, Hidden Cats in Christmas, as it eschews the added mechanic that made that game that bit too easy. As a result, this hits the sweet spot. You could play through in a couple of hours, but our eyes were already tired enough from a day staring at our work laptop, let alone squinting at occasionally tiny cats.

You see, sometimes the cats depicted are so tiny as to be virtually indistinguishable from the intricately drawn art that Nukearts have made their trademark. A couple of different artists have done the images here, the more cartoony examples are less prone to eye strain, but some of the others are tough going. That’s due in part to our failing eyesight, but even with our mild prescription glasses on, it’s a struggle.

The levels are all sumptuously illustrated and are chock full of nice little details. The last level also features tons of extra people to find beyond the already generous cat quota, many of whom are amusingly depicted. Yet after a while fatigue can set in and while you’ll have a general idea of where an elusive cat is located thanks to the audio cue you get, the zoom can be a little inadequate. We found ourselves spamming the search button to find cats on occasion, but thankfully this was generally isolated.

In conclusion, Hidden Cats in Spooky Village goes some way to mitigate the fatigue we found ourselves afflicted with while reviewing the prior installment. The generous number of cats over the twelve levels makes for a veritable smorgasbord of a feline flavour. If you’re in the market for a relaxing hidden cat game, you can’t go wrong. Though we have to wonder, why no other hidden pets in the equation? Puppies or bunnies perhaps. Maybe we’ve created for a rod for our own back here and we’ll be reviewing Hidden Bunnies in Candy Paradise before we know it.