Little Kitty, Big City review – Pretty much the purrfect cat simulator

There are those games that just make you happy; that from start to finish put a big ol’ smile on your face. Pretty much from the instant of release, Little Kitty, Big City has joined those esteemed, feel-good ranks. From indie game makers Double Dagger Studio, this feline adventure is a wholesome and charming delight – a must-play for cat lovers of all ages.

In Little Kitty, Big City, players assume the role of the titular little kitty, who finds themselves on the bustling streets of an unnamed Japanese city after they accidentally tumble out of their comfy high-rise home. To climb back up to their apartment, they’ll need to find and eat fish to make themselves stronger, but in all honestly Little Kitty, Big City is far more about the journey than the destination.

If you focus on the end goal, you can blast through the game in a single sitting – a comprehensive, if not 100%, playthrough can be achieved in three hours – but that’s really not the point. Little Kitty, Big City lets players live out all their mischievous feline fantasies sandbox style against an urban backdrop. Bat plant pots off ledges. Trip people up by running under their legs. Casually stroll over a surface with paint on your paws. Catch (and release) unsuspecting birds.

Then there are all the idiosyncrasies of these loveable little weirdos that Double Dagger has managed to cram into the open world game, whether it be freaking out over cucumbers and human sneezes, entering zoomies mode, or using an emote range that includes the likes of “Big Stretchies.” Of course there’s a basic in-game photo mode to capture these moments, and dozens of equippable hats (typically found in gashapon balls) to make your kitty even more adorable.

You should never provoke a cat fight but Little Kitty, Big City is probably the kind of feline-fronted exploratory platformer that a lot of people craved when they loaded up 2022’s Stray. Stray is a strong, heartfelt adventure but it’s also a sci-fi mystery with a deeper message about human experience that just so happens to have a cat protagonist. Notably, it also routinely puts its protagonist in peril, and can even get him killed.

By comparison, Little Kitty, Big City is focused on delivering a wholesome, emotionally “safe” experience where you’re encouraged to be a cat. That’s it. Nothing deeper. It’s grounded in recognisable reality but also cartoony and colourful. For the record, if you’re someone sensitive to animals in distress, it’s impossible to hurt the kitty in any way here. The most that happens is being unceremoniously carried out of a convenience store or off a building site. Tonally, the game stays bright and cheerful throughout, which is underlined by a jazzy, lounge-esque score by Riley Koenig.

If you want to compare Little Kitty, Big City to anything, it should be the delightful The Spirit and the Mouse, where you roam around a French village as a sweet little rodent, helping people, hunting for collectibles as you overcome traversal challenges, and interacting with local creatures. Little Kitty, Big City has a similar energy as you meet other animals in this Big City, including a cat mayor, overenthusiastic shiba inu, shiny-obsessed crow and tanuki inventor. These exchanges are friendly and upbeat, frequently leaning into light-hearted comedy.

With the exception of the crow early on, and maybe the tanuki, these encounters are also optional, but as already stated, Little Kitty, Big City should be about leisurely exploration; not rushing to the finish line.

Your experience of the game will be lesser if you don’t pause for chat, or agree to help the quirky critters. The longest mission in the game is, in fact, a search to find four missing ducklings that will take you across the patch of city that serves as the game’s setting.

It’s a chance to appreciate not just the attention to detail in capturing cat mannerisms but also the stunningly accurate recreation of metropolitan Japan. The photocopier in the kombini, the temple squashed in between office blocks, the individually decorated manhole covers – they’re all there.

Now, charm and cuteness do a lot, but they don’t make a game. I played the demo of Little Kitty, Big City while the game was still in development, and there was a sense back then that the game could rely too heavily on a checklist of tasks to drive gameplay – a potentially tiresome prospect after a while. Fortunately, the final release has a more natural flow. In your walkabout you’ll likely end up ticking things off by default, and there are several smart design element inclusions like gated progress relating to little kitty’s climbing stamina, and a smattering of light puzzles to add cerebral depth.

The result is a delightful adventure that doesn’t overstay its welcome, and will be an ideal game to return to when you need a pick-me-up, and crave something a bit more interactive than thumbing through derpy cat videos yet again on Instagram.

Little Kitty, Big City is out now for PC, Nintendo Switch and Xbox consoles. You can also play it with Xbox/PC Game Pass membership.