Answering the question what if Stray and Untitled Goose Game had a bouncy and mischievous baby, Little Kitty, Big City is a cheeky and cheery cat-centered adventure title, a fun and funny feisty feline festival of frolicking and friskiness. However, is Little Kitty, Big City the cat’s pajamas, or is it time for a catnap?
If the beginning is any indication that a safety warning should be displayed, then Little Kitty, Big City could do with one. Our protagonist kittycat is first seen having a nice sleep on a rug at the edge of its cozy high rise apartment. Once it awakes it starts stretching its body, seemingly forgetting that its body is drooping precariously over a ledge. Unfortunately, our furry hero subsequently slips off the ledge, but is luckily saved by a bird who flings it to safety where it lands on all four paws before getting spooked by a doggy in a window and falls into trash can on a bustling city street. Not knowing where it is, Little Kitty proceeds to explore this unknown metropolis so it can find its way home.
This chaotic opening wastes no time with story beats, and instead plants you into the busy metropolis as a mere four-legged feline. All you’re encouraged to do is explore the city, meet and carry out quests for your fellow animal inhabitants, and find your way back to your comfy abode.
Most of your interactions come in the form of speaking to a delightful array of animals such as your fellow felines, a raccoon with its head stuck in a bin, a bird who flies away and challenges you to find them, a hovering beetle hanging out in a construction site, and many other whacky and delightful animals. It’s a shame interactions with these creatures doesn’t verge beyond the superficial, as more could’ve been done to make you feel more attached to this city of diverse species.
The two main activities you’ll be undertaking whilst scampering through the city are finding collectibles and solving animals’ problems.

With regards to tasks, one will require you to locate a waddle of ducks for a concerned father duck, and another will find you testing out a fast travel system that momentarily plunges you into a manhole cover, where you’re greeted by a psychedelic void like you were passing through time, before you pop out in a different part of the city. Some missions will require you to solve problems like stopping a washing machine’s cycle by running headlong into the big red power button, and some will require you to pull levers.
Mission creativity is moderately pleasing as there are some amusing and interesting scenarios you’ll encounter, but Little Kitty, Big City spreads itself too thin. Sure, it’s meant to be a pleasant little semi-open world kittycat exploration game, but the flickers of charm it possesses are snuffed out by a lack of proper connection to its world – it all feels too loose to be thoroughly swept away by.
On the collectibles front there are footballs to pussy putt into goal nets, birds to pounce upon as they nibble away at bread that can be used as payment to access fast travel, little play balls hiding adorable hats for your kitty to wear, as well as fishies to devour and shinies that can help you pay for more hats from a crow.
With plenty of stuff to nab, you’ll be kept content and busy, though the incentives for doing so are minimal beyond satisfying a personal feeling of progression. There are few true highlights to recall after playing Little Kitty, Big City, but thankfully it is saved by its insatiable and lovable charm.
The one undeniable thing that makes Little Kitty, Big City worth playing is the cat and the vibrancy of the city. It’s lovely to relish in an indie adventure that prioritizes accessible and cheery fun. This isn’t like the dingy and dangerous cat adventure game Stray. Little Kitty, Big City is about the pleasure of plodding along city streets as a feline, where you can mischievously paw-slap plant pots so they smash and shatter to pieces on the ground, trip up mobile-phone obsessed pedestrians, or make a bed out of a basket of piled-up laundry. There’s also a delightful essence of Untitled Goose Game about Little Kitty, Big City, from the way it’s animated, to all the cheeky ways the kitty causes havoc to such an extent he’ll get thrown out of shops.
The city itself is continuously beaming with sunshine and is designed in such a way that it’ll feel familiar very quickly, though some aspects of how it’s built are troublesome.
At first, you might be puzzled about where to go and what to do as there are no checkpoints or a specific on-screen prompt to tell you what you need to do. You may assume you’ll have to find a way to climb back to your home, but eventually you’ll find the crow who’ll open the gateway for you to find your groove with how this game functions.

A few vicious dogs will keep you from passing through safely and alarm the poor kitty, forcing him back in the other direction – and there’s no way to get rid of those chaos-causing mutts either! These dog barriers are simply frustrating ways to keep you locked into an area, and only by traipsing around will you find another avenue to bypass these disgruntled doggies.
Another issue is there are far too many puddles – yes that sounds like a certain decade-old meme, but you’ll tread into the wet stuff frequently whether you’re patrolling the streets or pussyfooting inside a laundromat; don’t forget this kitty doesn’t like water because water is for those rubber duckies.
Controlling Kitty feels nimble and responsive if a tad awkward at times. While running and jumping up to platforms aren’t very bothersome, trying to tightrope a beam or a fence can be finnicky. There is a precise jumping option if you hold down the A button where you can target where the kitty will leap to, but the arc isn’t quite big enough to ensure he’ll get across without falling and having to clamber up to the same spot again.
When Kitty learns to climb up leaves, he’ll have a paw-printed stamina meter you’ll need to keep an eye on. There was no need to incorporate a stamina meter, but you shouldn’t have too much trouble, especially when Kitty can leap upwards, making the ascent quicker but at the cost of his stamina, so use this tactic mindfully. Also, be careful of the gust-blowing vents when you climb buildings, they’ll throw you off course very quick, so wait until they stop completely before making an effort to scramble to the nearest safe place before they blow again.
Plenty of pussycat pleasing potential lurks within Little Kitty, Big City, yet you’ll only see a fraction of it. This kitty adventure constantly seems like it’s tilting towards something far more exciting, but its design and repetitive foibles scupper its momentum. Even so, you’ll bask in just how gentle and how lovely it is to play a cuddly cat game free of generic enemies and large health bars coherent with the uninspired clutter of modern videogames.
Conclusion
A pleasant surprise akin to receiving a kitty cat on your birthday, Little Kitty, Big City is a lovely breath of fresh air, not only for indie gaming but videogaming as a whole. Playing as a pesky mischief-causing and problem-solving cat scurrying about a city while taking time to indulge in bird-catching and snuggling up with citizens is a joy. However, there is plenty of room for refinement as clunky controls and irksome design choices make exploration a wee-bit annoying. In addition, there’s also the lingering stench that Little Kitty, Big City has missed potential, and no that’s certainly not the scent of cat pee. Overall Little Kitty, Big City is certainly worth your time and is a pleasure to play, but with some more polish it could’ve been a paw-some experience, but instead it passes as a moderately paw-leasing one.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.