In this unique game you play as a regular old house cat.  You are lying on your favorite windowsill when you accidentally roll over and fall out.  You land safely via a string of comical incidents, but now you must figure out how to get back up to your owner’s apartment.  So you must explore the big city below, helping out other animals and causing cat-like mischief as well.  This game reminds me of a mix of Untitled Goose Game, as well as a PS2 game I played a long time ago called A Dog’s Life, which was kind of the same premise except you were a dog doing dog things.  The game also has a bit of a Katamari Damacy vibe with the simple graphics and the Japanese style city setting.  Little Kitty, Big City is available on some current consoles and PC, but reviewed on Switch here.

There are a lot of things you can do as a cat, but the game explains the controls pretty well and gives you button prompts when needed.  You can jump, as well as hold down the button to do a more controlled pounce.  Use the L and R trigger buttons to swipe your left and right paws, handy for knocking down pots from ledges.  The L and R shoulder buttons let you sneak and run respectively.  You can talk to animals like crows, ducks, and dogs and they may have a mission for you to complete.  You can also nuzzle up to humans or trip them underfoot and take what they were holding.  Some humans will want to pet you, but others who are allergic may chase you off.  You can collect shinies to trade for hats you can wear on your adventure, too.  The main goal of the game is to find and eat enough pieces of fish so you have enough energy to climb back up to your apartment.  It’s kind of like building up your climbing stamina meter in the most recent Legend of Zelda games.

The game does have a few problems.  The main one is that it’s way too short. I beat it in less than a week.  Granted, once you beat it, they add things on your map to find, so I think getting everything would take twice as long.  But the city area is pretty small once you play for a bit.  Also, sometimes the goals and objectives can be a little unclear, and controls could be a little better sometimes.  But the game is just so darn charming that’s it’s easy to forget the problems.  If you are a pet lover and enjoy short cozy outings like Untitled Goose Game, you may want to check this one out as well.

Kid Factor:

Nothing too violent or objectionable here.  The developers carefully crafted the city so that you won’t be in any danger when you play.  About the worst thing that can happen to your cat is if it lands in water or gets barked at by a dog, and then all that happens is the cat jumps back and hisses.  You can pounce on birds, but since the cat is a house cat, it doesn’t know what to do with birds after catching them anyway.  Plus another cat says this part of the city is ‘catch and release only.’  There is a bit of crude humor with bird poop and dogs talking about ‘losing their balls.’  Reading skill is a must and younger gamers may need help with some of the missions.  Little Kitty, Big City is rated E for Everyone.

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