Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest Review – Declawed Diversion 

Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest Review

Call my ten-year-old self, because today would have been the best day of her life. That’s how big of a deal Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest would have been for me.  

Developed by Bamtang Games and published by Trallmark, Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest is a turn-based roleplaying game based on the popular long-running children’s series about clans of wild cats. In the books, cats from these four clans — Thunderclan, Windclan, Shadowclan, and Riverclan — fight for survival from inside their clan and without.  

Young readers explore politics, friendship, and religion through these warriors (the term for adult cats who commit to following the warrior code of their clan, of course). Or, put it this way: you’d never believe cats could do so much backstabbing.  

Creating Your Kitty

The game opens with a character creation screen, letting players of all ages finally realize their dreams of making a warrior cat of their very own. The PC’s (player charact-cat) personality traits are tied to their appearance, and some players will chafe at having to sacrifice style or personality in creating the cat of their dreams.  

However, I love the game’s clay-like art style. Players can also display their cats in the cell-shaded style reminiscent of Warriors’ long-ago manga volumes. 

Familiar Territory 

That series-accurate attention to detail is everywhere in Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest. Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest was like coming home. The open world map immediately felt like sinking into one of a beloved Warriors book from childhood. 

The story, too, was beat-for-beat book accurate. Upon starting the game, our kitty is immediately thrust into life as a young apprentice in the process of earning their way to adulthood in the midst of complex interpersonal cat-namics. Its beautiful, book cover-art inspired art design and dialogue thrusts players right into the heart of the series.  

Unfortunately, this adherence to familiar plotlines is also one of the game’s weaknesses. The absolute dedication to representing the world of Warrior Cats isn’t welcoming to unfamiliar players.  

More than that, the story is so devoted to recreating the novels that it didn’t tread any new ground. Even though it’s been fifteen-plus years since the last time I read a Warriors book, I not only remembered distinct similarities to previous plotlines — in-game characters pointed them out, too. 

Character interactions earn friendship (or enmity!) with other cats for a light role-playing element. My cat moved through the ranks through the ranks quickly — too quickly, perhaps. I felt like I’d hardly begun before I was already clan deputy, and I didn’t feel that my in-game interactions justified the story’s direction.  

I wanted to love this game. It’s clear that a lot of care went into it, and I love the books. I still like it, but it was genuinely disappointing to discover that this world’s immersion ends so quickly, especially when this framework is strong enough to accommodate so much more interesting — or even compelling — material.  

Instead, Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest plays it so safe that it’s boring.  

Taming the Wilderness

The game’s mechanics and exploration are basic but serviceable, especially for a middle grade audience. 

Players rise through the ranks while fulfilling quests, feeding the clan, and exploring their clan’s territory. They can choose between any of the four clans in the story-based Prophecy Mode. In fact, the narrative comes together best when all four are experienced. Each campaign takes less than ten hours to complete — probably closer to five if you don’t get lost as often as I do. 

Certain features might be technically outdated, but I think they actually add to the overall experience. I don’t mind one bit that there’s a specific cat that can highlight side quests for you. I think having everything handed to players can diminish the joy of discovery and satisfaction of progress.  In this way, Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest is a lot like Dragon’s Dogma 2 (everyone is saying this). 

The turn-based combat is extremely reminiscent of early Pokémon battling. Missions largely take the form of fetch, collect, or kill quests. This is where the game’s repetitive structure really starts to strain.   

The open world pathing is somewhat restrictive, and it was sometimes a pain to ferret out the map markers that unlocked fast travel. As a result, when I’d die in battle (so sue me, my beautiful boy Lionsong is both adventurous and head empty) it took longer than I’d like to wind my way back to the path I’d been following.  Playing more than one clan route highlights how repetitive each path’s first hours are, a feeling that creeps in even if you just stick with one. 

In addition to Prophecy Mode, there’s a boss rush mode and an asynchronous multiplayer mode, but these suffered from the same shallow systems as the rest of the game.  

Dressing the Part

I thoroughly enjoyed the cutely confusing crafting system. Who cares how cats are crafting den trinkets and ear jewelry? I think it’s a great, kid-friendly addition that lets players personalize their kitties for themselves and friends. (On the other hand, some of these fighting moves are crazy. If I ever saw a cat kick rocks at another cat using only its back legs, it would haunt me forever.)  Once the novelty of seeing the world of Warrior Cats come to life wore off, players are left with shallow systems that only reward players with more of the same. A strong narrative could have overcome too-simple mechanics and quest design.  As it is, Warrior Cats: Clans of the Forest’s wilderness remains untamed. 

***PC code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review***