Little Kitty, Big City Review

As a cat owner, I spend an excessive amount of time looking these fur-covered creatures in the eyes and wondering what they truly want. Would they enjoy the world outside, or would they immediately come running back to their parents’ protective embrace? Little Kitty, Big City attempts to answer this question for me and every other indoor cat owner out there through an adventure that fictionalizes the thoughts and feelings of a feline friend lost in a small Japanese metropolitan sandbox. Solving platforming puzzles in this charming environment is a relaxing time from the get-go, but like a cat aiming to jump up to the top of a dresser and not quite making it, Little Kitty, Big City falters in a few areas that keep it from being a wholly satisfactory experience.

Little Kitty, Big City finds its main character, a short-haired black cat that lacks a defined name, trying to return to their high rise home after a fall from an apartment window. You’ll cross paths with all manner of obstacles, be that busy humans staring at their phones or other animals, that can either help or delay your progress. Along the way, your titular kitty makes friends both large and small in a quest to regain the strength needed to climb back up to its apartment.

That opening fall worried me slightly that Little Kitty, Big City would contain aspects of animals suffering that I was not eager to see, but that concern was quickly dismissed. At no point are you actually at risk of harm – the kitty’s biggest problem is finding a way around disgusting puddles of water in a flooded street, and even aggressive dogs simply bark to assert authority before being easily distracted by a handy treat. Smaller animals, such as a father duck and his flock of baby ducks he wants to bring back home, are never in any danger and are enjoying their outlandish captive circumstances more than fearing them.

The “Big City” in the title actually refers to a relatively small group of interconnected streets with more of a neighborhood feel than that of a metropolis. For the proportional size of a cat, there’s a decent amount of space to cover, with cat-repellent standing water forcing you toward certain puzzle-lined areas, but this is not the four-footed equivalent of a massive open world. Instead, Little Kitty, Big City encourages you to find your way up and over buildings and obstacles rather than simply walking down the sidewalk.

The main campaign is all about regaining enough strength to make the climb home by eating fish. The first of four is simply given to you as part of the story, but others require some feline sneakiness to obtain, like stealing one from a fisherman’s catch. Going in a straight line to these objectives, something cats are not exactly well known for, can get you to the credits in just an hour or two max, but the meat (or dry food equivalent) of this adventure is in its side quests. You can stop and help various other animals to cross off items off a list, be that a Shiba Inu digging up its yard or a bird desperate to live out a Kaiju battle fantasy in the streets.

That is the entire campaign in a nutshell: find fish, do side quests, collect some cute hats as you go, and scratch it all off of your kitty agenda. It is hard to consider that light structure a flaw since Little Kitty, Big City does not aspire to be anything greater than a cozy game where you guide a cat around town to do things a cat might do. It’s interested in being a fun way to spend an afternoon, not one you lose yourself in for the rest of the month. It is cute to watch the kitty sunbathe in a pile of laundry just because it can, but getting to that pile of laundry will not necessarily fill you with a sense of accomplishment.

All this could make Little Kitty, Big City seem over-simplistic, but I came to believe its simplicity is actually its strength. There was no part where I was at a loss of what to do, nothing to disturb the good vibes of being a little cat in a world full of new discoveries. There was no danger around any corner or combat I needed to stay ready for – it is entirely about making friends with other animals who have big personalities while celebrating a fun-filled neighborhood alongside them. Little Kitty, Big City is not failing to be more, it is choosing not to be more than it needs to be.

Where it can grate on my patience, unfortunately, is in the actual act of reaching these goals. Climbing up various buildings through a patchwork path of air conditioners, pipes, and vents can occasionally feel outright frustrating due to imprecise jumping and camera controls. Jumps do not always travel accurately to where the landing interface indicates you’ll go, sometimes leaving you halfway between one pipe and another with no choice but to jump off the wall like a spring. This is complicated further by the camera slamming against walls and violently zooming in to compensate, something that happens quite often when you are trying to scamper up somewhere and need a better view.

The cute cartoon aesthetic at least holds up over the course of the entire campaign. The animations were clearly created by someone who has spent a lot of time watching actual cats, and are realistic enough to make me instinctively whisper “big stretch” under my breath at least once. I also had a fun time pressing the “Meow” button and watching my real-life cats whip their heads around in confusion.