The greatest cat game of all time.
I truly do not think there has ever been a video game that captures the mannerisms, look, and antics of being a cat as authentically as Stray does. It's not a coincidence that there are countless videos online of peoples' pets reacting to the game. Heck, my cats (who normally don't care about anything on the TV) even reacted to the cat in Stray. Every time the cat did a very "cat" thing like scratch something, stretch, lay down, knock something off a shelf, etc. my wife and I laughed. It truly brought us so much joy.
Beyond feline antics, Stray offers a really cool new take on a post-apocalyptic world. The Cyberpunk-esque world inhabited entirely by robots was interesting and one I enjoyed exploring. I spoke to every resident to get their story and eagerly poked around to find any collectibles that opened up side conversations. The story behind the city you slowly uncover is interesting and I genuinely cared about the growing friendship between the cat and B12. And I honestly think all of it delivers in a solid and satisfying ending.
My biggest critiques in the game come down to the sometimes finicky parkour controls (that often resulted in the cat jumping down when I was trying to go up) and the lack of direction in some of the larger areas. There are a couple zones that are quite large and, as a small cat jumping all over the place, finding which things you can jump on or which nooks you can get into to find collectibles can feel a bit like finding a needle in a haystack.
Also I personally don't like a couple of the trophies in the game. There's a trophy for making it through an area of the game unscathed that took me about an hour to do due to randomness of enemy movement. There's another trophy that asks you not to use an item you just got in the story for the entire time you have said item which feels weird.
Critiques aside, I loved my time with the game - from the cat and characters, to the world I spent time in. It was a lovely experience and as a cat owner, I loved every second of watching the cat do cat things.
+ Authentically captures cat doing cat things
+ Interesting world and characters
+ Great story
+ Solid presentation - visuals and soundtrack
- Finicky one-button parkour controls that often leads to jumping down when trying to jump up
- Large areas can sometimes be hard to navigate
- A couple of bad trophies
I truly do not think there has ever been a video game that captures the mannerisms, look, and antics of being a cat as authentically as Stray does. It's not a coincidence that there are countless videos online of peoples' pets reacting to the game. Heck, my cats (who normally don't care about anything on the TV) even reacted to the cat in Stray. Every time the cat did a very "cat" thing like scratch something, stretch, lay down, knock something off a shelf, etc. my wife and I laughed. It truly brought us so much joy.
Beyond feline antics, Stray offers a really cool new take on a post-apocalyptic world. The Cyberpunk-esque world inhabited entirely by robots was interesting and one I enjoyed exploring. I spoke to every resident to get their story and eagerly poked around to find any collectibles that opened up side conversations. The story behind the city you slowly uncover is interesting and I genuinely cared about the growing friendship between the cat and B12. And I honestly think all of it delivers in a solid and satisfying ending.
My biggest critiques in the game come down to the sometimes finicky parkour controls (that often resulted in the cat jumping down when I was trying to go up) and the lack of direction in some of the larger areas. There are a couple zones that are quite large and, as a small cat jumping all over the place, finding which things you can jump on or which nooks you can get into to find collectibles can feel a bit like finding a needle in a haystack.
Also I personally don't like a couple of the trophies in the game. There's a trophy for making it through an area of the game unscathed that took me about an hour to do due to randomness of enemy movement. There's another trophy that asks you not to use an item you just got in the story for the entire time you have said item which feels weird.
Critiques aside, I loved my time with the game - from the cat and characters, to the world I spent time in. It was a lovely experience and as a cat owner, I loved every second of watching the cat do cat things.
+ Authentically captures cat doing cat things
+ Interesting world and characters
+ Great story
+ Solid presentation - visuals and soundtrack
- Finicky one-button parkour controls that often leads to jumping down when trying to jump up
- Large areas can sometimes be hard to navigate
- A couple of bad trophies