[i]Cat Girl[/i] is a visual novel about a young woman named Ginka. She is wealthy and unassuming by day, but leading a secret double life by night. Ginka is a cat burglar named Silver Cat who steals valuables from the rich. Her staff - including her two maids/servants and her butler are aware of her identity and help her by providing gadgets, outfits, floor plans, etc. Ginka's assignment is to steal a large jewel called the Emerald Queen from a wealthy woman named Mineko Kurobara. Posing as a maid, she cases Mineko's residence to find the Emerald Queen. After breaking in to the residence later as Silver Cat, she is captured by Mineko. Ginka is subjected to various forms of torture such as waterboarding, whipping, being deprived of oxygen, being tied up, shocked, burned with candle wax and treated like an animal as she is enslaved by Mineko. The story can end in two different ways. Ginka is sold as a slave in an auction if her free will is not completely broken. Alternatively, Ginka will live as Mineko's "pet". There may be some other endings that I am completely unware of, but those were the two endings that I got.
This game doesn't have as many eccentric fetishes included as some of the other SakuraGame titles, so I feel as if it's definitely tamer in a way. I can't recommend it due to the massive spelling/grammatical errors, translation issues, lack of content and disturbing nature.
[h1]Issues[/h1]
- The English translation seems like it's spit right out of Google translator and that the team behind translation of this game really had no concept of the English language. The English is terribly broken. The wrong pronouns are used (refering to Ginka as a 'he' instead of a 'she), sentances are often missing connecting words such as 'and', 'the', 'but', 'also,' etc. Words are frequently spelled incorrectly. In some instances, character names or places are not capitilized. I've even found examples where they've forgotten to (or overlooked) putting a space between two words. At times, words are not pluralized (an example being "Is this the stair?" instead of "Is this the stairs/staircase?").
- Another issue with the translation is that it is too literal. What I mean by this (and it's sort of hard to describe) is that something will be described too literally to get the point across when it is not necessary. Such as "Her anxious feelings rising," instead of something more simple like "her anxiety". Another clunky example is a sentance like, "She is imaging to step on the first stair..." or "trying to concentrate her senses." You understand the point, but it's portrayed in a way that fluent English speakers would not recognize as normal if they were having a conversation.
- It starts off strong with a promising concept. After Ginka is captured, however, the game just takes a nasty turn and it drags on and on. Ginka is in captivity for about a month. A little long, seeing as how it's all just the same stuff over and over again. You will ultimately choose the fate of what happens to Ginka throughout, choosing her "punishments." This makes it so the VN is not entirely kinetic, but it hardly seems to matter. The only choice that seemed to matter was at the end when you choose a candle wax punishment or a dog punishment.
- I read enough of the novel so that I could write an honest review, but it was very difficult. There's a difference between BDSM or bondage and torture. This game is essentially torture porn. Mineko's character exists only to torture Ginka for no other reason than to get sick enjoyment out of it. There are some instances where they've tried to throw in an indication that Ginka might be enjoying a few of the 'punishments', but it's still really sad. Near the end, I have to admit that I started to skip through chunks of it. Especially shocking the poor girl to the point of near death? That's ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. Once you pick the scene, you don't really need to read it anyways. Most of it what you might expect from whatever type of punishment you've picked.
- There's never much of a rescue attempt from Ginka's colleagues, which I think was lousy. Why go through the effort of including these characters at the start when they are pretty much never heard from again after the very beginning of the game? I would have liked a happy ending where she is rescued.
- The game says it has trading cards, but it doesn't. I would have at least liked those for going through the effort of trying to trudge through this. :/
[h1]tl;dr[/h1]
The short version is this: look at the community page for screenshots of the game if you really want to see some scenes from the game and get a glimpse into what you'd be getting. I wouldn't even bother spending money on this. There is nothing remotely arousing, fun, enjoyable (or whatever you want to call it) from this game. Unless this type of game appeals to this type of fantasy you may have, I'd stay away. I got this for 59 cents and I still feel ripped off.
