Little Kitty, Big City Review (Switch eShop)

When playing through Little cat, big cityIt’s hard to avoid comparisons Untitled goose game. Both see you playing as a cute, mischievous animal, and both require you to tackle a series of emerging quests that often come at the expense of the poor humans living in the surrounding area.

However, with Little Kitty, Big City, developer Double Dagger Studio took the opportunity to take inspiration from the game’s feisty feline protagonist and make the experience even weirder, more stylized than before. a little bit more ambitious. The end result is a real joy to look at and play with, but that’s also hindered from being truly great by its repetitive structure.

The general gist is that you play as a nameless cat who, after falling from a ledge after what looks like the most exciting nap, must find his way back home. However, the problem is that the house is located deep in an apartment building in the heart of a bustling city. So, armed with nothing but the fur on its back, the cat must set out on an adventure to find its way back to safety and comfort.

Now, despite the title, we’d say that the city where you play is really anything but ‘big’. To be clear, this is not a bad thing. For those who may be familiar with yakuza (Sorry, Like a dragon), whose periodic Kamurochō area is pleasingly compact, the environments here will feel quite similar, with more emphasis on density than sheer scale.

This means you can barely move your legs without tripping over something that might be worth a second look. This could be a new character, a ledge leading to a secret area, a crawl space, an item, or even a place to curl up and take a nap. There’s so much to see and so many interesting creatures to encounter, it’s a shame that most of the game focuses on basic fetch quests.

Ultimately, that’s what Little Kitty, Big City is all about: collecting stuff. Almost immediately, you are tasked with locating 25 ‘shinies’ to claim a reward from a crow. From there, additional fetch quests are added to the mix, so you’ll be hunting for feathers, tennis balls, dog bones, smartphones, etc. Small rewards and new mechanics are mixed in to encourage you forward, such as the adorable little photo mode, the ability to snatch bread from unsuspecting people, and climbing mechanics, but we wish there was a little more variety in the gameplay overall.

One type of collectible hats we love are the wide variety of hats you can wear while traveling. These include worker hard hats, ladybug hats, corn hoods, banana hats, etc. You can find these in normally hard to reach locations on the map or you are given access after completing into certain tasks. It’s worth the time and effort to locate them all just to see how they look on your character.

Thankfully, to make up for the gameplay’s repetitiveness, controlling your ‘Little Kitty’ is an absolute joy, and this is largely thanks to Double Dagger’s excellent animations. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of welcoming a cat into your family, you’ll be amazed at how genuine the game’s main character is. Every little touch, including the sound of its tiny footsteps, the way it stretches and wriggles under gaps, and the cuteness “brrrp” it plays when jumping onto the platform, all in place. If this doesn’t endear you to the endless charms of cats and kittens, nothing will.

That said, movement isn’t always perfect. Jumping in particular can be a bit difficult at times, which can be frustrating given the fact that cats are usually agile and graceful. You can quickly press ‘B’ to perform a short jump, or you can hold it down and use the on-screen instructions to aim the jump precisely.

In theory, this is great, but even if you line up your jumps to perfection, the delicate physics can sometimes send you flying off course. It doesn’t happen too often, but when you successfully clear a few gaps and then fall to the ground at the final obstacle, it will make you wish that this particular mechanic had put more polish a little bit.

In terms of visuals and performance, Little Kitty, Big City isn’t the type of game that pushes the Switch to its absolute limits, and overall it looks and runs very well. The frame rate can dip occasionally, especially when you’re panning around busy streets, but otherwise it’s mostly stable. We became aware of some bugs when we got our hands on the game at Summer Game Fest 2023, but it looks like these have also been skillfully fixed. All in all, it’s an enjoyable enough experience that you won’t regret your decision to play on the Switch instead of elsewhere.

Conclusion

Little Kitty, Big City is an adorable adventure that will almost certainly turn you into a cat lover, if you aren’t one already. It oozes charm and the realistic cat animations are simply incredible, although as fun as roaming the city is, the game relies heavily on fetching and collecting quests. collectibles, this may lead to repetition. However, if you are someone who enjoys that type of game, then you will thoroughly enjoy this game.