Summary
While dogs are man’s best friend, cats are the gamer’s best friend, sitting on our laps as we sit in front of our computers and consoles for hours on end. As such, it is no surprise that we have more and more games with our furry friends as protagonists, jumping, clawing, and meowing to victory.
The two most well known titles with a cat on the cover areStrayand Little Kitty, Big City, but which one has the best feline representation? While you play as a cat in both titles, their approach is quite different, so let’s see which one comes on top.
8Visuals - Stray
The Game Is Gorgeous Even Without The Cat
Little Kitty, Big City is not an ugly game by any means, but when compared to Stray, the setting just seems a bit dull. Little Kitty happens in a fairly simple city, after all (and a very small portion of it at that), while Stray has a sprawling adventure through a decayed metropolis.
The visual design of Stray shines through every level, with each area you explore being vastly different from the one before. You are jumping from rooftop to rooftop in one moment and exploring a chilling sewer system in the next, and that’s without mentioning the neon design of each settlement you come across.
7Collectibles - Little Kitty, Big City
The Best Part Is Collecting Things
Most games have achievements and collectibles nowadays, but not all of them are made with the idea that every player will gather everything. Little Kitty’s structure lends itself to the idea of collecting everything the game has, in part for how fun traveling as a cat is, but also because ofhow convenient the collections are.
Stray also has collections and achievements, but because the game has a linear story with multiple maps, you’ll have to replay huge chunks of the game to get to the areas you’re missing. While the satisfaction of completing Stray might be greater than with Little Kitty, you’re more likely to complete Little Kitty since no achievement is too problematic.
6Gameplay - Stray
There Is an Actual Challenge When Playing This Game
Comparing the gameplay of both these titles seems a little unfair since they aim to give entirely different experiences. Little Kitty, Big City is more of a chill game with light puzzle elements, not unlike Untitled Goose Game, while Stray has more meat on its bones with its action-adventure style.
Stray’s chase sequences, in particular, can get anyone’s blood pumping, with an actual chance for failure should you mess up there or in any sequence the game offers. While Little Kitty still has mechanics to explore, it hardly compares to Stray in the gameplay department.
5Cat Simulation - Little Kitty, Big City
Cats Don’t Usually Fight Unhinged Bioweapons
The cat in Stray is a great protagonist, but if you want to really feel like a cat, the one in Little Kitty, Big City does that job better. While the Stray cat does everything you expect it to do, it feels more like a human trapped in a feline body rather than an actual animal.
The Little Kitty, in contrast, has plenty of mechanics and puzzles that revolve around a cat’s everyday life,like hunting birds or toppling humans over. The grand adventure depicted in Stray is great, but it hardly counts as a story revolving around a cat.
4Story - Stray
Getting Home Is Slightly Harder For This Cat
If you play games for their story, Stray has a great one to tell. While the titular animal is just trying to get back to their family, the real story is the one of B-12, the little helpful drone that aids the cat and serves as its translator.
In Little Kitty, Big City, the cat falls from the window and wants to go back up. There isn’t any deeper meaning to it, and it clearly doesn’t need to have anything else, but when compared to all you end up finding out about B-12 in Stray, that just works as a better tale.
3Characters - Little Kitty, Big City
You Meet A Lot Of Colorful Animals
Little Kitty, Big City might not have the deepest plot, but it does have a lot of fun side stories involving all kinds of animals. From the Crows offering shady deals to the family of missing Ducks, each interaction is memorable in its own right.
In Stray’s case, while we already mention how B-12 has a very interesting story, all other robots you meet end up feeling interchangeable. They have their own stories to tell, sure, and the concept of the robots is very interesting, but after interacting with so many, their personalities and needs start to blur into a single idea: robots that do what humans used to do out of habit.
2Worldbuilding - Stray
We Want More Games Set In This World
Stray wasn’t just a story about a cat trying to get back to its family, it was also the story of a world after humanity is gone, and how nature and technology have taken over. It makes the world deeply interesting and complex, and once the cat manages to leave that city, you’re left wondering what might lie on the horizon.
Meanwhile, Little Kitty, Big City has a much smaller scope, and as such, a much smaller world. There isn’t any overarching conspiracy to be untangled here, which would feel out of place anyway, considering the style of game.
1Winner - Stray
The Stray Beats The House Cat
The strengths of Stray make it a great gameno matter what your tastes are, since the action-adventure genre tends to be well received by everyone. That, and the deep lore that hides in the game’s world, make it a more complete package when compared to Little Kitty, Big City.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that Little Kitty, Big City is a bad game in any way; it just aims to do a different thing. If you’re into collecting games, or you just love cats a lot, you should also give Little Kitty, Big City a try; you won’t be disappointed.
