Little Kitty, Big City Review (Synik)
TLDR: Fun open world catventures where you complete humorous quests, collect various items, and cause chaos to humans. It’s a lot of fun, but the length and price make me want to say wait for a sale.
PROS:
➕Humor
➕Fun world to explore
➕Fun quests
NEUTRALS:
🔹The weird sound your cat makes EVERY time you jump and land
CONS:
➖Jumping can be a bit janky
➖Short length + price
Content (Game world/Narrative) –
The game world here resembles a smallish Japanese neighborhood. There are lots of sights to see, chaos to cause, and collectables to find. I felt that while the size was a bit small, I think it's a good fit for being a cat.
The narrative is pretty simple - you must return to your home. While exploring the city, you meet other various animals and partake in quests to assist them. It's nothing deep or profound, instead it's a lighthearted adventure that has some great humor and well-written dialog.
My biggest problem is not that the content isn’t fun, it's how quick it goes by. This is a short game and I wish I could have been engaged in it longer.
Gameplay (Mechanics/Difficulty) –
Mechanics consist of open world exploration, traversal, and collecting. I found the mechanics to be good and fun with some spotty jumping mechanics at times, but this is to be expected when you have free-form cat traversal, I imagine it would be very hard to get the jumping flawless.
The difficulty is easy. This is a chill and cozy game that allows you to just have fun as a cat. No pressure, no failure.
Graphics (Quality/Technical) –
Graphics are good, nothing amazing, but done well.
I experienced no technical issues and only a small number of non-gamebreaking bugs. Things like my cat kept auto walking after being forced into a talking cutscene (Beetle and Taffy).
i9-13900KF | RTX 4090 | 64GB RAM | 1440p @ 240hz | Windows 11 installed on SSD
Audio –
Audio is fine. There is no voice acting and the music is a pleasant sounding elevator-esque style score that plays, by default, at lower volume. It's a good backdrop, but otherwise unremarkable.
Replay Factor (Longevity) –
I don’t think this is a great replay value game since its shortness and the linear nature of quests and item collection means that the only reason to replay is for achievements.
Final Verdict –
In Little Kitty, Big City (LKBC) you play as a cat exploring their big neighborhood after falling off their home perch. What entails is a short adventure where you meet animal denizens of the city and help them by completing quests through your agile catyness.
For my biggest negative, I would have to say its the length of the game as well as some jumping mechanics, but I’m really reaching here, as there isn’t much wrong with LKBC.
The length is only around 4 hours to complete, and I wish there was more to do and explore. I just don’t feel like there’s enough time to get into the freedom the game offers. Right when I was having the most fun, I noticed there were only 2 or 3 quests left, and then I regrettably climbed the tower, wishing there was more content.
The jumping mechanics can also be a bit inaccurate because you have freeform control over where you jump. This isn’t like Stray (review: https://steamcommunity.com/id/Synikx/recommended/1332010?snr=1_5_9__402) where you can only jump to pre-defined areas, you have total freedom here, which comes with its own drawbacks.
For my positives, this is a fun to explore open world with excellent cat mechanics and great writing.
The cat mechanics are the best I’ve seen in any game. The jumping, while not perfect, really does make you feel like a small agile speed demon. The catching birds, the emotes, everything about this game screams like it was made by cat lovers for cat lovers.
Finally, a special nod to the great writing. It's humorous, witty, full of puns, and compliments the open world well by adding some wonderful characters into it.
Overall, Little Kitty, Big City is a great game. Despite its shortness, I would recommend this, doubly so if you are fond of felines. Due to its sub 4-hour playtime and its $25 price tag, I would recommend waiting on a sale, but still definitely worth picking up.
Recommend?
Yes
You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR