I find collectathons or ‘checklist open worlds’ a tough sell these days - the standard open world structure doesn’t really do it for me anymore. I was happy to learn, though, that this isn’t always the case. As a cat-person I might be a little biased, but Little Kitty, Big City is a checklist open world game that never felt like it was dragging its paws and regularly had me grinning from ear to ear. The game is stuffed with so much character and charm that it was always fun to complete a task and get a new hat - or just trip up yet another unsuspecting citizen.
In Little Kitty, Big City, you play an adorable little black cat who’s found themself astray from their favourite napping spot, which is now out of reach, atop a high-rise. Down on the streets of the city for the first time, Kitty (as the local animals call you) must learn the ways of the street cat to make their way back for a long overdue nap. Along the way, you and Kitty encounter a whole host of colourful characters, from a shiny (the game's currency) obsessed crow to a dimension hopping Tanuki who gives you the ability to fast travel through these gorgeous painted manhole covers.
Many of the animals you meet give you small tasks to complete. For example, an excitable puppy asks you to collect his favourite tennis balls that have gone for a roll about town and a ditsy father duck enlists you in finding his four runaway ducklings which ended up being my favourite questline of the game. Each of these quests is either short and sweet enough to be done there and then or spread out across the city enough that you will naturally complete them while you explore. I really enjoyed the task structure. The dialogue from the animals was endearing and it was really satisfying to help them out along the way. If you manage to fully complete a character’s quests, when you finally make the trip up the high-rise you’ll have one final meeting where they thank you and wish you all the best. A nice touch that ties the whole package together.
Exploring and completing these quests is accomplished by running, jumping, meowing and swiping at everything in Kitty’s path. This moveset will be familiar to anyone with a cat themselves, as they’ve likely had a glass or vase pushed off their coffee table by their adorable saboteur. This is basically how the game plays out, knocking objects over to access shinies or using the often fine, but sometimes finicky, aim and jump system to clamber over rooftops. I say often finicky because on a number of occasions, when more precise platforming was required to reach a shiny, I found that Kitty’s range of movement wasn’t quite connecting with the platforms as it felt like it should. The aim line would struggle to settle on a surface and the camera would make fine tuning these jumps difficult. It felt as though the jump could’ve been finer tuned to the kinds of jumps Kitty is required to make, but again, it's fine.
At the end of your parkour adventures are often more currency or little coloured gachapon balls that contain adorable little hats for Kitty to wear. As well as finding them out and about, the crow can be found at gachapon machines around the city where you can trade shinies for new headwear. A small aside: I must’ve had really bad luck but I always found the hat I really wanted was the last of the 4 available at each machine to appear. Regardless, all the hats are so fun that I never stuck with just one, changing every time a new one showed up.
The world of Little Kitty, Big City is also wonderful. It's a fairly simple cityscape, more of a downtown neighbourhood than a metropolis, but between the cartoon colour and characters it's a delight to wander through, especially as more of it begins to open up as the game goes on. Kitty has a stamina bar that, by collecting fish from various sources, will slowly increase, giving you access to previously out of reach areas until you can make the climb to your favourite napping spot. Along with the variety of tasks to complete, it felt like around every corner there was always something to do or see that put the smile right back on my face.
I think, overall, Little Kitty, Big City is a must play for any cat lovers, or even just likers out there. It provides a nice, relaxing cat-themed experience that really captures the feeling of being a loveable nuisance. For anybody else, your mileage may vary. It’s mechanically light and some of those mechanics can be frustrating at times which might turn a lot of people off. If you can look past that, though, you’ll find a short and sweet adventure with a lot of heart that puts its best paw forward in creating a satisfying, feline themed collectathon.
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