Little Kitty, Big City Review - A City Block’s Worth of Adventure

Little Kitty, Big City is the perfect name to describe this fun feline open-world collect-a-thon. First shown to the public in 2021, developer Double Dagger’s debut title delivers on its premise by keeping its ambitions in check with a focused open-world experience oozing with charm and comfy vibes. If you’re on the fence, love cats, or are shopping for a younger audience, this is one animal-packed odyssey you won’t want to miss. 

The game kicks off with your character, a little black kitten, falling from your perch at a high-rise apartment window in the middle of Tokyo. The poor kitten grabs a crow’s legs on the way down and lands at ground level. The crow, the first of many friends, helps you get your start in the local economy. In order to get back home, you’ll need to trade ‘shinies’ and do odd jobs, scouring for opportunities to eat hard-to-find fish to increase your stamina enough to climb ever-longer stretches of vines until you can tackle the climactic ascent. 

Perfectly Capturing the Cat Vibe

Little Kitty, Big City’s charm shines through best in its writing, level design, and animations. On paper the map isn’t huge, at about the size of a couple of blocks in one of Tokyo’s many districts, but seeing as you’ll be exploring it at many multiple heights, it boasts a variety of secrets, challenges, and vertical puzzles. There are 42 hats to unlock, nap spots to seek out, plenty of side-quests to tackle, birds to catch, dogs to tame, soccer balls to knock into goals, fast travel points to unlock, a series of hide-and-seek challenges with a poetic chameleon, poses to learn, and four ducklings to round up for their hapless father. 

Every one of the many characters you’ll interact with has a distinct personality, making for a whimsical experience. You’ll even get to pitch in as the game offers some humorous dialogue choices. Some jokes might fly over the heads of younger players, but the game is mostly very accessible.

Seamless interactivity, simple pleasures

Speaking of accessibility, the controls felt excellently responsive. The masterstroke here is in the jumping controls. Holding down the jump button allows you to see the arc of your jump, as well as the projected landing spot. This is essential not just for pouncing on tiny birds to acquire feathers, but gauging rooftop jumps. Whenever you’re pouncing on a bird, the game goes into super-slow-mo, letting you subtly change your angle on the fly to try and catch your fleeing target. The game’s controls are very well thought-through, as you can swipe left or right, sneak, run, and strike poses. 

The world and its inhabitants are also well-suited to the control scheme. Some people will want to pet you, while others will pick you up and take you outside or spray you with a hose. Due to a tanuki meddling with spacetime, puddles of water abound in this city, blocking your progress and complicating the routes you’ll need to take, until you can unlock more shortcuts. Eventually you’ll get a crude but functional map, and be able to fast travel.

Not a purr-fect experience, but close

I did encounter the occasional visual glitch on the Nintendo Switch version. Once, the kitty froze as if stuck in a pouncing animation and I had to disconnect my controller and reconnect it to fix things. The camera will sometimes get stuck behind geometry, in rare situations. There were two times where I felt like I dropped down while climbing ivy when I really shouldn’t have, but there was nothing infuriating or game-breaking to spoil the fun.

And perhaps I was enjoying the experience a little too much, but I didn’t want this game to end as soon as it did. Rushing through, you can beat its main quest in a couple of hours, although that hardly seems the point. Completionists will take between six to eight hours to see it all, and of course this will all depend on the player’s skill with platforming games. This feels like an adequate length for the game, especially given the introductory sale price offer of $22.49 on both Steam and the Nintendo Switch eShop, but I wouldn’t have minded if this kitty stayed lost a little bit longer.

Little Kitty, Big City has appropriately-sized ambitions, as it manages to be both grounded and lofty, keeping the player’s eyes scanning the city for open windows, holes in fences, nooks and crannies in which to hide, and vent pipes to climb. Exploration and character interactions are a joy, and I look forward to Double Dagger Studios’ next creation.

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Verdict: 4/5 (Fantastic)

PROS

• Well-realized world building complemented by tight platforming controls

• Charming and whimsical characters with strong personalities

• Lots of collectibles and secrets to provide replay value

• Great for young gamers

CONS

• The main quest is arguably over too soon

• Occasional glitchy camera

What I’ve Played 

• Beat the game at around 6.5 hours

• Unlocked 39/42 hats

• Unlocked all fast travel points

• Beat all major side quests

• Played on the Nintendo Switch

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