Stray Review

Stray pushes the concept of silent protagonists in video games. This cyberpunk world full of neon-soakedrobots transforms into a giant jungle gym from your perspective, which is just one foot off the ground. Stray uses the idea of putting you in the paws of an average cat to tell a compelling story with some entertaining action along the way. It was impossible to shake the fuzzy feeling it gave me right from the beginning.

To be clear, you are not a magic cat, a weird sci-fi cat, or a sentient super cat, but a cute cat that displays the sort of intelligent awareness we all like to pretend our own cats do. The idea of being a cat doesn't really matter to the people you interact with or the things you are asked to do. The only way it is relevant to the story or the action is because you can fit into tight spaces they can't, and the robotic denizens of this cyberpunk world talk to you like they would any other person.

Stray's launch screens.

Stray is happy that it has made you a cat. Your feline form brings a lovely and lighthearted flavor to this otherwise dark world, and there are moments all throughout that encourage you to just play. Walls and carpets can be scratched, knees can be lovingly rubbed against, objects can be pushed off shelves, and there is a dedicated meow button. If you want to enjoy a nicely staged scene with one of the many impressive songs in Stray, you can take a nap and let the camera pull out.

I really liked learning about this world. The conflict you end up stumbling into is very well told, even if your cat's story is a simple tale of a lost adventurer trying to get home. The beautifully designed city you have to make your way through is bleak without feeling pessimistic, full of history to learn and charming robot citizens to chat with, even though the situation around them is pretty bleak. I talked to everyone I could, whether they were relevant to the story or not, and I loved seeing what their computer screen faces looked like as I excitedly meowed around their feet, be that annoyance, surprise, or just a big heart.

That's right.

Stray puts you in either a linear level full of platforming challenges and light puzzle solving or a more open town area where you can collect items. It was almost like a 3D version of Inside, with relatively simple obstacles being elevated by the exemplary atmosphere built around them. Stray is shifted into a genre more akin to a point-and-click adventure game, except for the fact that your cat is the one pointing.

You don't have a dedicated jump button to jump up air conditioners mounted to the side of buildings or walk along railings. When prompted, you can press a button to hop to the spots you want. The only difficulty associated with platforming is wrestling the camera into the right position to hop to the spot you want, and you don't move with the agility of a cat once you do.

It took me five hours to beat Stray, but the linear sections are still enjoyable even though they are easy to understand. There are exciting chase scenes as you run from Zurks, stealth sections as you avoid security drones, and puzzles where you may have to lure the enemy to your advantage. The weakest of these ideas gives you a weapon to kill the Zurks, which quickly devolves those previously tense encounters into a pattern of killing a few and then running backwards while you replenish it.

The small towns between these sections are a lot of fun to explore from a four-legged perspective, with each area full of nooks and crannies and a great use of vertical space. There are a lot of optional collectibles and quest lines that I enjoyed stumbling upon. You could be required to find a hidden safe in a classic adventure game, or you could be required to collect sheet music for a musician bot to play back to you. If you want to find every last secret, there is at least a bit more than five hours of stuff to do.

That's right.

B-12 is an adorable floating robot companion who is hanging out in your backpack. B-12 accompanies your cat most of the time, and the relationship that forms between them is a nice cornerstone for the plot. It is as much B-12's story as it is the cat's, and it makes your cat feel more like a furryavatar in someone else's tale a lot of the time. Writing for B-12 and the rest of therobots you meet is more than good enough to make up for the limited conversation skills of your cat.

B-12 doesn't get all of the interactive glory, as I enjoyed when initially superfluous cat actions were occasionally reinvented into actual game mechanics You may need to wake someone up by knocking something off of a shelf above them or open a door by scratching at it. If I hadn't been hiding in a cardboard box, the meow button I was pressing would have been meaningless, and I would have been in danger. None of these tricks were very complex or challenging but they were entertaining.