Little Kitty, Big City Review (PS5)

Little Kitty, Big City is the latest in an expanding litter of animal-themed sandbox games. Much like Goat Simulator 3 or Untitled Goose Game, this is a cosy game with vague objectives and no real consequences if you make a mistake.

As the name implies, you assume the role of a feisty feline, who’s fallen from his/her high-rise apartment and is looking for a way home. Set in a Tokyo-inspired cel-shaded city – complete with konbinis and distinctive pedestrian crossing bleeps and bloops – you’ll interact with other animals, nuzzle the shiny shoes of salarymen, and generally make a nuisance of yourself.

Your primary goal is to find four fish, so you have enough Breath of the Wild-style stamina to climb the vines leading back to your house. But along the way you’ll reunite a family of ducks, recycle discarded soda cans, and even help a local artist make a masterpiece.

You don’t really have to do anything, and the game’s designed in such a way where you’ll simply stumble into the solutions to your objectives. The gameplay is playful, with the cat being largely well animated, although the platforming – which relies on a precision jumping mechanic – is unrewarding, and the frame rate makes the gameplay feel stiff at 30fps.

Furthermore, while there are some creative puzzles in the campaign – like one where you need to turn off a gardener’s hosepipe in order to steal the food from their kitchen – there’s a lot of filler, like finding boxes and bins to lie in. Yes, it’s all very playful, but we’d have liked to have seem some more in-depth puzzles as opposed to all of the filler.

You can blast through the story in under two hours, probably less if you’re not fussed about your feline’s optional objectives. But you’ll probably get the most out of it if you approach it with a sense of playfulness: this is a game that’s designed to be prodded and poked – curiosity may have killed the cat, but your inherent inquisitiveness will do a lot of heavy lifting here.

It’s cute and colourful, then, and something you can zone out with while you listen to a podcast or watch something else. But it won’t live long in the memory, even if its urban backdrop and light-hearted style offers an appreciated change of pace.