Game: Kimono Cats
Genre: Action, Arcade
System: Nintendo Switch (Also on Steam (Windows) and iOS)
Developer | Publisher: HumaNature Studios | RedDeer.Games
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3+
Price: US $8.99 | UK £8.09 | EU € 8,99
Release Date: August 14th, 2025
Review code used, with many thanks to RedDeer.Games.
Kimono Cats is a side-scrolling stroll along the Kyoto street festival, playing games and collecting items for your village.
Will I be ambling to purr-fection or cat-astrophe!
A Pleasant Stroll
Kimono Cats starts with a cartoon style explanation of the game. To entertain your cat partner, you decide to take them to the festivals down Kyoto Road. It’s a long road (18 levels), filled with lots of different mini-games.
To activate a mini-game, you need to throw the dart and burst a bubble. You only have a limited number of darts, but more can be collected via daily bonuses, friend gifts, in bubbles along the road, or at your village via the use of a metal detector.
I always seemed to be short of darts, but perhaps that was because I didn’t use them wisely.
Bursting Bubbles
There is a wide variety of mini-games to play in Kimono Cats: throwing games, whether that’s hitting targets with a ball, or baddies with a shuriken; catching fish with a net; beating a drum; or spotting the taiyaki facing the wrong way. At the start of each game, the controls are given and a 3, 2, 1 countdown. It gets a little repetitive, but at least you don’t have to remember the buttons. Your score in the mini-game will be converted to friendship points. As you fill the friendship wheel, you’ll receive a village building, decoration or other bonuses.
Some bubbles will reward you with more darts or coins, which help to progress to the next level. Others might take you to a NPC village for a free spin the wheel game.
Unfortunately, not all the bubbles are good. You’ll lose friendship points if you hit a bad bubble, but the visual effect doesn’t last long, and luckily your cat partner doesn’t abandon you.
It’s bizarrely addictive to throw darts at bubbles. Sometimes I would forget to aim for the desired object in the thought bubble, thus missing out on the bonus; at other times, there wasn’t a clear path to hit it, which was frustrating.
Building your Village
As well as increasing the levels in Kimono Cats, the coins can also be spent at the village shop. Here you have the chance to collect new items to decorate and build your village. There are over 50 collections to complete. The most expensive jar contains different cat skins, so you can change your and your partner’s look. Luckily, some bubbles contain discount tickets to use in the shop, which makes changing your look a little more affordable!
It’s easy to gain decorations via the friendship wheel, but you have to work with what you win, which can create a unusual scene! Placing the decorations is a little annoying as the menu closes after each item.
I wasn’t able to test the online option of visiting friends’ villages, but there were a handful of NPC villages to look round for inspiration or to spend tokens on their spin the wheel game.
Gameplay
The controls are given on screen for each game, and Kimono Cats uses the touchscreen functionality. It’s a seamless transition between buttons and touchscreen, using whichever control is easier for that particular mini-game or activity. Looking for darts in your village is really easy via the touchscreen metal detector, whereas I found throwing darts quicker with the buttons.
Kimono Cats runs smoothly, and autosaves regularly, and I didn’t experience any loss of play. However, there is only one save slot.
There is no time of day as such, but there are bubbles which will control a day/night affect, as well as some for rain, snow or sunshine.
Conclusion
With bright cartoon style graphics, Kimono Cats is a joy to play. The gameplay isn’t complicated, and with the limit on the darts, it’s ideal for short gaming sessions.
Final Verdict: I Like it 
Do you like our content?
Subscribe to our daily news and never miss a review!