A Wild Catgirl Appears! it's NewWestGames very first released game on Steam, a short Yuri Visual-Novel.We take the role of Ami, a pretty normal girl, who enjoys drawing, watching anime, and goes to am All-Girls High School. Her traditional routine breaks when her best friend Ria announces school's new policy; every single student must join a club! Mia doesn't feel comfortable with most of the activities available, but ends up joining the Code club, a place well known to welcome nerds and video-game enthusiasts. Lise the club president, welcomes Mia, and with time, both girls join forces to create their own video-game. A Ninja Catgirl has a heroine who must protect her village and save that special someone. With the game coming along, the girls decide to 3D print a figure they both intend to connect to their video-game as an extra asset. All goes well, until one day, when that same plastic printed action figure becomes alive, in a real sized... you guessed it, cat girl! It's not every day we get to romantically fall in love with Catgirls who just came from a different dimension. Starla is a full fledged Ninja, expertise in stealth and pretzels, and Eiko is too young to be a Ninja yet, so she's just an omelette expert for now.
The game's plot had slightly changed within the different releases. Some scenes have been reduced, or cut, but the overall experience remained throughout the updates; A short romance with some choices that determinate the ending among 4 possible ones.
Theoretically the story has everything to be a huge success, but lacks on its narrative development and plot construction. Although it's a fantastic story, It should've been developed further more since each character is interesting, but not worked enough to earn the player's thoughts. A Wild Catgirl Appears! is exactly like that very first anime episode that throws everything at the viewer hopefully to gather a full audience for the next episode... Except, there isn't any for this game. Everything is thrown at the player without proper prior development to form ideas or feelings regarding characters. More was to be expected since this being a Yuri romance, and without nudity patch or 18+ mode, had to have strong feelings.
Mia feels uncomfortable assuming her sexuality, and that's slightly explored, but not as it should and could considering the importance of it. Mia doesn't get to know anyone exceptionally well, and dating some characters like Eiko who only joins the game much later, feels like a rush when choosing her as a date. The narrative is not self-conscience of what's happening through the story-line, and when it does, it feels like a rushed experience, just like the one and the only available date for each route we choose.
The design works are pretty good, and interesting. Special scenes are portrayed with Anime drawings, but in-dialogues are displayed in a much more western style, which is not a negative thing. Definitely a proof that both styles can co-exist in the same universe if anything! Character expressions are simple and go well with the backgrounds, which are basic but fits well in the game!Special scenes give a special touch, and some are actually amazing, too bad there's only a handful of them available. The overall art will make you feel like you're in a traditional sunny Japanese midday, with plenty of vibrant colours to go with. A particular scene with cherry blossom trees, stands out as maybe one of the most memorable background where character interaction occurs!Mechanically the game has also suffered some changes, and according to Steam forums, more are due, or at least were planned. Extras are not working at the current time of this review (February of 2018), and the devs know this, but so far no fix. The store pictures are outdated and don't show the game menus at their current state. Old menus were more comfortable, as the ones being used are somehow annoying to the player, as they keep popping sideways and disappear based on the player's time to advance the dialogues.The game's only language is in English, with full written dialogues, but no audio available, which makes this a classic indie Visual Novel. Playing with your own background music won't make you feel like you've missed much, since the soundtrack is simplistic and just like in many other games, creates a good background atmosphere based on smooth tunes that change accordingly to the game's mood.Those looking for easy achievements won't have to look much further, as the 5 of them are simple to get based on the outcome ending.
A Wild Catgirl Appears! is just short because wasn't properly explored, and pretty much feels like a rushed experience compared to other so-called-short games out there. It's still recommended as the story saves this title in the end.It's short, leaves everyone with an incompletion feeling, but it also leaves one happy to meet such nice Catgirls who just want food, happy thoughts, and Mia of course!