I had vague memories of playing this in 2004 or so and thinking the first third of the game was cool and the rest felt like torture. It didn't last long in my library until I traded it in. Around 15 years later, I found it for dirt cheap online and decided to give it one more try.

I understand why it was dirt cheap.

The game is pretty much Bootleg Klonoa. You use your umbrella to "bubblize" enemies and use them as projectiles. You also have a few platforming moves, like a glide, a shield, and a ground pound. Overall, it has a few cool things going on, but not enough to save it. Like I said earlier, the first third of is pretty decent and varied. After the first boss though, you start getting the creeping realization that you've already seen everything this game has to offer. Most obstacles are just "do you have the patience to wait for this hazard to turn off" or "push this button and wait through an unskippable 20 second cutscene showing you that the path 2 feet away from you is now open."

It gets very repetitive very quickly. It gets worse as it goes on because the levels get longer which means more obstacles to wait through. You also need increasingly more collectibles from each level to progress through the hub, so if you don't collect enough in your first run through a level, you'll have to play it again. Each level also has a bonus round where you have to run through an obstacle course with some sort of time limit. You get an excruciatingly long cutscene that pans through the course and you have to watch it every time you die. Even the bosses are repetitive; each time you fight him, he just adds 1 new phase. The whole thing just feels like a waste of time. Your mind will go numb while you physically feel each minute ticking by while you play this game.

This is the 2nd game I've beaten in a week made by the same developer. Not as good as Muppet Monster Adventure, way shorter than it as well, and definitely on a smaller budget, but I still enjoyed it. What can I say, I've got a soft spot for mediocre licensed games of the 2000's.One thing I do appreciate is just like MMA, Cat in the Hat has a similar Gallery/Extras menu you can access by collecting clapboard collectibles in every level. They range from some generic screen grabs of the movie itself to pretty neat Concept Art of the movie. Not as crazy and extensive as Muppet Monster Adventure, but still cool nonetheless. The two biggest disappointments were that there are only 3 bosses in the whole game, and it's the same boss and attack patterns each time. It's very tedious and boring. Also, throughout the main games 10 levels, you can collect special crystals that will unlock a secret 11th level. Guess what? It's really short and easily beatable. A bit disappointing, but since it's really not hard to 100% the game I'd recommend just going for it. You could even beat the game in an afternoon if you tried. I'll also say I do still find it in the middle upper tier of licensed games from this time. There's still a surprising amount of fun and charm to be had in this game that's worth trying it out.

When you think about licensed games released in the early 2000s for the 6th generation of consoles, you probably don't think of the Cat in the Hat.
However after playing through the game for the first time since I was a very small child I can confidently say that this game maybe shouldn't be slept on quite as much as it is.

There's this genuine sense that the developers cared about the project they were working on. Despite being relatively short with only 10 regular stages, a bonus stage, and 3 almost identical boss fights, each regular level is filled to the brim with visually interesting backgrounds, each stage having its own set of dozens of unique assets slotting in perfectly with its theme.
Character & enemy models are fairly low poly, and there is some level of mismatched aesthetics in regards to general visual consistency, however these did little to impact my enjoyment of the creativity on display.

Mechanically, the game is a 2.5D platformer without a large suite of mechanics. The cat can jump, hover, shoot bubbles to capture enemies or goo and then shoot them at things, stomp the ground with his umbrella, and cower in fear under it. The goo acts as an explosive projectile that can break certain metallic objects as well as regular wooden breakables.
There are some minor hiccups within these mechanics. Turning 180 degrees at a standstill forces you to wait for the turnaround animation before the cat moves, which can be awkward, especially considering this doesn't happen if you turn while in motion. Teleport pads always without fail cause the cat to launch off them slightly, forcing you to stop holding the directional pad in mid air so you don't miss the pad and potentially fall to your doom.
Attempting to aim at objects in the background with a projectile can be finnicky depending on the camera angle you're given, which can cause some frustration if you need to backtrack.
Given its status as a tie-in licensed movie game, it's generally surprising the developers had the foresight to allow you to backtrack throughout any entire level to collect stray collectables you might have missed. This is something I've rarely encountered even in renowned sidescrolling games and I have to give the developers credit for taking this into consideration. On my journey to get 100% in the game I would backtrack in several levels because I missed something, so it's much appreciated.

Unfortunately the audio is a mixed bag. The game features a sleuth of generic stock sounds youv'e heard a million times before, and the soundtrack is a lot of fairly generic "licensed game" music, with some standout moments in each track that made the songs bareable. However the voice acting is surpisingly solid. The majority of voice acting talent is given to the cat (Chris Edgerly) and the goldfish (Nolan North). While this may not be their best performances, it's solid, and you can tell they gave it their all to add emotion to these quite frankly weird looking models.

The Cat in the Hat isn't some magnificent hidden gem waiting to be uncovered by the masses, but it's not deserving of middling to low scores. It's a generally entertaining 2.5D platformer with some well thought out elements to make the ride smooth. Interesting & varied visuals, okay sound design, pretty good level design, and decent mechanics are what makes the game worth a look at the bare minimum.

I'm officially at the level of procrastination from revision where I'll dig out my PS2 and take a nostalgia trip. I've been wanting to replay this game ever since I rewatched the movie six months ago and realised I actually unironically love it for being so ridiculous and inappropriate and ridiculously inappropriate for a kids film, and I remembered enjoying the game as a kid, so why not?

Well, nothing I like about the movie is here, but it's a decent 2.5D platformer. Feels good to move around as The Cat and collect stuff, which is about as much as you could hope for with a mid-2000s movie tie-in game. I love seeing PS2 Alec Baldwin exist in his purple suit and be evil and pilot weird crab mechs. Something noteworthy is that 95% of the dialogue is between The Cat and that annoying fish, but they absolutely fucking hate each other, so the game is weirdly negative for a kids game. The fish will give you some passive-aggressive advice, and then pseudo-Mike Myers will make a cloying quip about how he wants to eat tha fish. This happens for every tutorial message, and there's a lot of them because this game is for babbies. Maybe sometimes playing a babby game is the moral thing to do though. So you go through 10 worlds with themes such as: hot. cold. washing machine. chemistry. and they get just barely enough mileage from the game's mechanics to make it through. The actual worlds are abstract and colourful enough that they made a decent impression on me as a kid, I remembered a surprising amount of it.

No one has any reason to ever play this game, but it was just mildly playable enough to get me through the entire thing. And I think that's worth a lot in these uncertain economic times we live in. The Cat in the Hat for Playstation 2.

This is just okay honestly. Platforming good. The levels look very creative and like it would be in Dr. Seuss. Bosses are alright.

Character models are honestly really ugly, except for Alec Baldin's character. He's the only normal looking on in this game. Even the cat looks very ugly in this game. This game feels way too quick to go through. Enemies can be annoying. The hit box is questionable at times. Also the whole taking over the world plot in this game is just so damn weird. Like where did this even came from.

Overall, nothing really special. I mean I know it's a licensed based game, but man I really don't feel anything through this game. Plot doesn't make sense. Platforming is good but not all special. Go ahead and play if you like. Honestly let your kids play if you like. Maybe they'll have fun.

A surprisingly decent game that takes pages out of Klonoa with it's gameplay and does it well. The levels are fun and imaginative, the OST is a bop, and the game plays super well despite it's short length. As someone who considers the live action film a guilty pleasure, I do wish this game wasn't a movie tie-in because it really felt like the developers poured their love and respect for Dr. Seuss' creativity, but had to hold things a bit close because it still had to stick a bit to the movie's elements.

I also wish the game had a level where you used the babysitter as a vehicle in a slide section cause that WAS in the movie, that pretty much wrote itself as a videogame level material but nah lmfao.