Game Review: Little Kitty, Big City (Xbox Series X)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a cat? Wandering the streets, meeting other animals, chasing birds, sleeping in the sun, and climbing across roofs? Well, wonder no more, as Little Kitty, Big City puts you in the paws of a lost cat.

Players take on the role of a cat, one that falls from the balcony of a high-rise apartment and ends up in the streets. It’s an indoor cat, and has never been outside before, so the bustling neighbourhood is quite disconcerting at first. Especially as folks are rushing through the streets, there are pools of water everywhere because of broken pipes, dogs bark from alleyways, and the kitty doesn’t have the stamina to climb back up to the apartment.

It’s your job to direct the lost moggy back home. Exploring the streets and landmarks, completing quests for other animals, and hopefully getting your paws on a fish or two so you can get the stamina to climb back up the apartment building.

Little Kitty, Big City is semi-open-world, in that you can explore the location fully (once certain unlock parameters are met), but it quickly becomes clear that it’s not a big world at all. Nor is it populated in quite the way it initially promises. You can get from one end of the map to the other in around a minute, and there are only a handful of buildings you can actually go inside.

While it is a nice area (a Japanese neighbourhood), it quickly becomes stale to explore. Especially as many of the hazards, such as the water pools, are there permanently, meaning there is always something impeding your path.

Thankfully, Little Kitty, Big City makes up for this by stuffing the world with fun quests and clever achievements. From finding all the fish to increase your stamina to full, to helping a mother duck find her kids, to placating angry dogs with bones, to immortalising yourself in wet concrete, to playing hide and seek with a chameleon, to finding all the cosmetic hats in the world, there is plenty to do in the game, and most of them are fun.

Oddly, it’s the character driven quests that are often the least fun, but that comes down to the dialogue. Some of which feels never-ending, cheesy, and pointless. You’ll find yourself spamming the skip button just to get through the lengthy dialogue pop-ups.

While this is a minor issue, so forgivable, the major issue of the controls is far less forgivable. This game needed to nail this aspect as running and climbing is part of a cat’s DNA, and it doesn’t. Moving, especially at speed, is clunky and the littered streets means you’re almost always bumping into something. Whereas climbing and platforming can be extremely frustrating, especially with many jumps that requires precession. Fall from height and you’ll be fine, but you’re going to have to make the climb all over again.

Despite these complaints, Little Kitty, Big City is a good game. It promises a lot, and while it doesn’t manage to deliver on all of that, it does deliver a fun and relaxing experience that, briefly, allows you to live out some feline dreams.