What an excellent game, easily my favorite that I've played on Newgrounds so far.
From the very beginning of the experience it's clear that the game has a very distinct style that is executed nearly flawlessly, honestly in the visuals department I couldn't be happier. I've read some comments complaining about the visual noise of the game, but this is actually a good thing in my opinion as it adds to the frantic atmosphere and makes the game difficult to parse at first. This is very in line with the arcade games it is clearly inspired from, namely MAPPY and Q*bert. Also this complaint I think looses all water when realizing that you're given comprehensive options to help make the game easier to see and play that should be enough to satisfy any given player.
Gameplay feel is another highlight, with the controls being extremely simple and intuitive. Both arrow keys and wasd work for controlling your character in the cardinal directions, while in specific scenarios being able to move diagonally when prompted. The most important part of any game's feel is in my opinion directly related to the responsiveness of the controls. this game excels in this area especially, with essentially no noticeable input lag and notably no loading times. This makes even entering and exiting levels fun and was something that I as a player really appreciated. My only beef with the game feel is that you have to wait maybe 2-3 seconds after the level cleared graphic appears when you reach the round limit before you can go back to the main screen. (yes I know you can pause and exit that way but you shouldn't have too). But this was so minor I honestly believe most players won't take the time to get good enough to reach that screen enough to find it annoying like I did.
The music, while not being anything lifechanging, fits the game extremely well and didn't get old or annoying, a good blend of repetitive and quirky that just has that classic arcade feeling. The sound effects are distinct and cut through the mix nicely. I do wish you could adjust the volume of the cats independently of the rest of the sound FX but this is a minor point that I don't really see as an issue.
In case you aren't aware of this I will point out what I believe to be a glitch. If you have the Shield powerup active when you finish the round and there are still cheese to collect while the cats are crying, the shield timer bugs out and it never goes away. This allows you to keep hitting all the cats with the shield over and over to keep multiplying your points allowing you to "cheese" (heh) the game and get basically infinite points on round one and easily S rank every level. I personally think this was really fun to figure out and game as it felt like discovering an exploit in an old game on the nes or at the arcade.
My only bit of criticism I could offer is that it can start to get a bit monotonous in the higher rounds if you've gotten good enough to get a lot of points each round using the powerups efficiently and already achieved your score goal ie. I've already gotten enough points to get the S rank but still have multiple rounds left before you've reached the end of a given level. I do know that you can just exit out and it will keep you're score, but it takes away a bit of the satisfaction of getting that clear screen with the S on it. I understand that there probably isn't enough of an issue to do anything about it and some people might like it because they might enjoy trying to get as high of a score as possible within a given round constraint. So considering that, I am fine with it being in the game, just something that was a little bothersome to me personally.
SUMMARY:
If you haven't, you should play the game. If you have you should play it again and go for S ranks. If you made this game you should be proud. Compelling visuals, fluid controls, learnable and exploitable enemies that are difficult to manage at first but extremely fun to master, unprecedented accessibility options, extremely responsive and no lag. These are just a few of the traits that make this game an expertly crafted a online arcade experience. Great job!!
All in all I give the game an easy 9/10
Sorry, I initially made a really short review that gave some praise but then I couldn't help myself and decided to go crazy. hope you didn't fall asleep reading my novel ;).