I reviewed the prequel to this game, the aptly named Cat President , earlier in this series. In that review, I discussed the intersection of the surface level absurdity of putting cats in positions of power and the more subtle and insidious absurdity inherent in the democratic process itself. All of the points I made there still ring true for Cat President 2, but if anything, are accentuated by when this game came out and what its goal actually is.

One of these cats does not understand the voter base. I’ll let you decide which one.

Cat President 2, like its predecessor, is a political dating sim, though this one seems less interested in the dating sim element, and much more interested in the visual novel element. The player once again plays as an unqualified campaign manager to a feline presidential campaign. Rather than presenting some of the same candidates as the previous game, this game focuses on the other political party and a new slate of candidates, all of whom believe they can lead the country against the incumbent president, DJ Nibbles.

Cat President 2’s gameplay mechanics are simple and straightforward. Once the player selects a cat they’d like to work with, the game follows that cat’s storyline. There are choices to make along the way, but much of the game involves just reading the story and enjoying the ridiculousness of it. Each storyline is unique and presents multiple different pathways the player can take, whether it be romance, a presidency, or falling into obscurity. The decision is entirely up to the player and their feline patron.

Banders never once got a turn with the braincell in my playthrough.

Much like Cat President, Cat President 2 derives the strength of its narrative from the twin absurdities of a society redefined in feline terms and that of the democratic process itself. In my playthrough with Banders, for instance, the focus was very heavily on the manipulation of the media and the idea that voter outreach is done less by actually speaking to voters, and more by manipulating the environment in which they vote, creating for them a reality in which the candidate is the best option, even when they blatantly are not. While this humour was present in Cat President, here, it seems laced with an icy cynicism that reflects the realities of the 2016 election. While there are references to the actual 2016 election throughout, those are less interesting than the impact of that election and the subsequent presidency on the view of democracy and the process of governing.

Fig 1.1: Cynicism

For this review, I only played through Banders’ storyline. That particular storyline focuses on Banders, a political activist turned politician who has switched parties, but doesn’t know much about politics other than to get angry at things. Banders’ popularity is fueled through social media influencers who care less about his policy stances than about the fact that he is adorable, and so, propel him into echelons of power he has no right to be in. Once there, both he and his unqualified campaign manager struggle to overcome the systemic bias of his party towards an establishment candidate, and while the game presents this as a bad thing, it’s worth considering whether it actually is.

Banders’ storyline presents a deeply cynical view of the American political process, from the very selection of candidates - Banders thinks he was chosen to make more mainstream candidates look better by comparison - to voter engagement to candidates themselves. While the world of Cat President has always been one with a cynical view of the role of the presidency in American politics, that this game sets the romance to the side to focus on Banders’ simultaneous inappropriateness and meteoric rise speaks volumes to how the devs’ beliefs have changed. There is no longer that hopeful optimism that politics will be all right, and that changing the system will somehow make democracy more functional. Banders shows that the process itself is no longer functional, and that there is perhaps no actual way to save it.

I needed to include this screenshot, but couldn’t figure out where. It can interrupt my rant. We all deserve it.

Cat President 2 is the direct consequence of electoral trauma. It is the product of an era that saw not only its faith in the electorate shattered, but its faith in every myth that has ever been told about the validity of that electorate dissolved. This is not a game that believes in democracy as a path to effective governance. This is a game that views democracy as a system that has been corrupted and taken for granted to the point that it no longer has much meaning outside its own pomp and ceremony. It is a game that could only have come out of the Trump era, and somehow provides some of the most effective commentary I’ve seen on the true experience of that era.

Rather than commentating on the existential horror of having a fascist elected into office, Cat President 2 is a commentary on the horror of watching one’s reality collapse. It’s a game that wants desperately to believe in the system it has always been told is the best system of governance devised, but is realising with increasing certainty that that system no longer exists, and worse, that it maybe never did. When the game’s storyline ends with a reminder to its players to go vote, this feels like a more desperate plea than anything I received from the Democratic Party in 2020. I was reminded to vote with a desperate, pleading sincerity, as if voting Biden into office would somehow set right the absurdity of 2016, though in its heart of hearts and with all nine of its lives, Cat President 2 already knew it was too late. That sense, that naive belief that all problems could be voted their way out of was long gone, and Cat President 2 was left, pleading for that return to innocence. There is no return to innocence. There is no answer to that plea. That idea that democracy can save us has died, and we are left only with the knowledge that we have seen the beginning of the end, and are waiting now only to see how everything collapses.

Anyway, I voted for Banders. He seemed cuddly, and I like cuddly.

Developer: Oh, A Rock! Studios

Genre: Dating Sim, Visual Novel

Year: 2020

Country: United States

Language: English

Play Time: 45 Minutes - 1 Hour/Playthrough

Youtube: https://youtu.be/tCuSHeEgzIE