Little Kitty, Large Metropolis places gamers behind the paws (and toe beans) of an lovely black cat in a metropolis harking back to Tokyo’s residential areas. After falling excessive from the consolation of their dwelling’s window, the unnamed feline finds itself on the town’s streets beneath. With one factor on their thoughts – returning dwelling to the right spot for a nap – this cat goes on its largest journey but. Admittedly, Little Kitty, Bit Metropolis didn’t must do a lot to impress me. I really like cats, and it instantly nails why I and different cat lovers get pleasure from these furry buddies. However developer Double Dagger Studio additionally created a cute and humorous exploration of our world via a cat’s eyes that doubles as a pleasant puzzle recreation. 

Instantly, Little Kitty, Large Metropolis is dropped at life with a visible type that sits someplace between conventional animation and anime, enveloping your complete three-hour expertise like a heat blanket. Controlling the titular cat is a pleasure, too, because of mechanics that solely make sense in a recreation like this. This cat would not dash – holding LB on the Xbox controller unleashes their “zoomies.” The triggers swipe left and proper, excellent for knocking that plant on the ledge to the bottom. Holding the A button to leap lets you goal the pounce, which is nice for catching birds and reaching new heights, and holding Y opens a wheel of emotes for issues like a “Biiiiig Stretch,” nap, a scary face, or one thing else. It felt like I would uncover some new endearing mechanic or collectible like wearable hats that jogged my memory of my very own cat, Bonny, right here at dwelling each jiffy, and it stored me exploring the town past the golden path. 

The mainline quest is simply as pleasurable, too, because it brings you throughout numerous different animal characters like a duck who retains dropping their ducklings, a crow obsessive about shiny issues, a canine who cannot discover his favourite balls, an engineer tanuki messing with timelines and the physics of the world, and extra. Between hilarious dialogue and the bite-sized quests every doled out, working into new buddies and serving to them out by no means felt like a chore. For probably the most half, finishing these quests is easy: discover the world utilizing clues or a map, discover what’s wanted, and convey it again. Positive, these are fetch quests, however none took greater than 10 minutes, and since Little Kitty, Large Metropolis always encourages exploration, I at all times discovered new issues that caught my eye alongside the best way. 

The overarching narrative is much more easy – get dwelling. To do this, although, you could discover and eat 4 fish unfold throughout the town as a result of each provides you extra power to climb larger. Every fish builds on the final, unlocking further climbing power and, subsequently, new areas of the vertical metropolis you have not visited in a satisfying, evenly Metroidvania-esque means. And after amassing all 4, it’s time in your most treacherous climb but. Whereas I felt most annoyed with this ultimate climb, largely as a result of the climbing is finicky, gradual, and imprecise, it is also some of the heartwarming moments of the sport, because of reflective run-ins with everybody you have met to this point.

Little Kitty, Large Metropolis may have simply over-relied on its cute cat, forgetting that controlling it and interacting with the world round it must be simply as nice. As a substitute, a wonderfully paced runtime, feline-forward mechanics, and fascinating exploration coalesce right into a reminder of why we love these animals a lot within the first place.