Soooo, I finished the cat game and feel like sharing some thoughts.
First of all, I wrote this JoJoestar before the game introduced the backpack mechanics and a bunch of robots started talking to me about a whole lot of things I personally didn’t care about. I think it’s a huge misstep how the game sets up a non-verbal experience about being a cat in a post-apocalyptic city during the first hour or so, figuring out the narrative via environmental clues, only to then do the switcheroo and introduce a bunch of bland npc’s displacing the whole narrative to whatever nonsense they suddenly start dropping over you.
That’s one problem, but it’s something you can choose to look past (I personally did) and then you’ll be finding the second problem, which is that this is a game a bit too sparse and unfocused in most ways. This is the kind of experience that keeps throwing surface level ideas to the player without developing or providing any depth to most of them, constantly recycling itself to fill the duration of the adventure (which isn’t even that long, took me about 5 hours).
Keep in mind that most of the ideas are functional and do what they are intended for at least decently, they aren’t brilliant but they don’t suck either. The issue here is that the game ends up feeling a bit too lightweight and frankly bland. It’s not a bad game by any means, what I mean is more along the lines that it’s not going to leave a very deep mark in most people and in most ways.
But hey, it’s a game about being a cat, there aren’t many of those. If nothing else, the art direction and the music carry it forward, and traversing spaces designed in human scale with a creature that is significantly smaller is fun because you need figure out where to go, so I get it. In fact: here’s when I do a 180º and say that, while yes, this is a wobbly and low nutritional value game in most ways… man, it’s summer, it’s too hot, it’s hard to think about anything too important and it’s alright feeling inclined to put time into something that is easy to digest and doesn’t demand too much of you. If that’s the particular mood you’re feeling right now, Stray is the perfect game to fill the spot.
