Title: Little Kitty Big City
Developer: Double Dagger Studio
Publisher: Double Dagger Studio
Initial Release Date: May 9th, 2024
Available On: PC, Xbox One and Series S|X, Nintendo Switch
Reviewed On: Xbox Series X
Dog lovers, step aside, cats in video games continue to steamroll through 2024. Little Kitty Big City is another fun feline title sandwiched between indie smash-hit Stray in 2022 and Cat Quest 3 releasing in August.
Image Credit: Double Dagger Studio
SYNOPSIS
Little Kitty Big City has a delightfully simple premise–you are lost in a city and must find your way back home. However, instead of a narrow and linear directive, this game almost has that sandbox feel where you can do “cat-things” along the way until you eventually return home. Some describe it akin to Untitled Goose Game. There similarities are there; you have checklists that grow whenever you stumble upon people, animals, or items in your environment.
During your journey, you meet other felines, a tanuki, deal-making crows, a chameleon, and a throng of humans preoccupied with phones or food. You can explore convenient stores, laundromats, arcades, construction sites, zen gardens, and more. Here, you truly feel like a little kitty in a big city.
Image Credit: Double Dagger Studio
ANALYSIS
Gameplay
Little Kitty Big City provides a large environment for you to unlock and roam, completing objectives large and small until you eventually make your way home. The developers encourage exploration, item collection, and mischief making over beelining to the overarching narrative.
After the opening sequence, you meet the crow you bumped into from your tumble from the cozy windowsill. In order to navigate your way up the towering apartment complex your human resides in, you’ll need to gain strength by eating fish. One can be obtained by collecting shinies and trading them with the crow. Shinies are scattered throughout the city, and even after earning that fish, you can then use them as currency to purchase adorable hats.
Speaking of hats…this is perhaps the biggest and most fun collectable in Little Kitty Big City. There are 42 hats total that you can find in your environment or trade in. While only a cosmetic collectable, they are quite fun, encourage exploration, and adorable. Another collectable is emotes. When speaking with other cats, you can then learn feline emotes like kneading (or “making biscuits”) and cat napping.
The controls are basic and easy to learn. Double Dagger Studio did the right thing and added a meow button. You can sneak, crawl through cervices, knock things over, jump, and eventually run and headbutt into things. The only learning curve I had was with the jumping mechanic. Before you release the jump button, you can aim and see where your cat will jump to. Sometimes this feature can be a bit wonky and a challenge to make some precise leaps. One time, I jumped prematurely as clipped into boxes where I was unable to move out of unless I reloaded the save file. However, these frustrations were limited in scope and did not make this game less enjoyable.
Image Credit: Double Dagger Studio
To keep exploration from becoming too tedious, you unlock a map with the duckling mission and fast travel with the tanuki. I unfortunately can’t speak to the fast travel though because once I collected feathers for the tanuki to unlock fast travel, she was not where I last found her. I searched the entire city and didn’t locate the tanuki again. This is unfortunate as fast travel would have made the end-game experience better when trying to find all the collectables. [UPDATE: After an update, this issue resolved itself–thank you Double Dagger Studio!]
Graphics and Sound
The bright and colorful art style goes well with the playful theme of Little Kitty Big City. It certainly has the cell-shaded look, giving characters a bit more cartoonish feel. For example, the humans in the game have minimal detail (lacking faces). The music makes great background ambiance. It’s not distracting and is something I could easily listen to when studying or relaxing as well. Little Kitty Big City is very stylish and folds in with the gameplay in one cohesive manner.
FINAL SCORE
Little Kitty Big City is a solid experience, not just for cat lovers, but also anyone that likes cozy games where you complete various objectives and complete collectathons. You can mainline this game very quickly, but it is the side content that makes Little Kitty Big City shine–and there’s lots of it. Some of the traversing and maneuvering felt a little clumsy at times, but it wasn’t a deal breaker, and it is something I feel the developers will iron out over time. I also wish you could customize your cat too (color of fur and eyes, etc), but that’s a personal preference! Little Kitty Big City is a wonderful jaunt as a cat, and I do recommend it for most players.
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Featured Image Source: Double Dagger Studio
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