Little Kitty, Big City Review (Switch eShop)

When playing through Little Kitty, Big City, it’s difficult to avoid drawing comparisons with Untitled Goose Game. Both see you play as a cute, mischievous animal, and both have you tackle a series of emergent tasks that often come at the expense of the poor humans that inhabit the surrounding area.

With Little Kitty, Big City, however, developer Double Dagger Studio has taken the opportunity to draw inspiration from the game’s feisty feline protagonist and make the experience a bit more whimsical, a bit more stylised, and a bit more ambitious. The end result is a true joy to behold and play, but one that’s also held back from true greatness by its repetitive structure.

The general gist is that you play as an unnamed cat who, after falling from a ledge following what looked like the most delightful nap, must find its way back home. The problem, however, is that home is all the way up in an apartment building in the middle of a bustling city. So, armed with nothing but the fur on its back, the cat must set off on an adventure to find its way back to safety and comfort.

Now, despite the title, we’d say that the city in which you play is really anything but ‘big’. To be clear, this isn’t a bad thing. For those who might be familiar with the Yakuza (sorry, Like A Dragon) franchise, whose own recurring Kamurochō area is pleasantly compact, the environment here will feel quite similar, placing far more emphasis on density rather than sheer size.

What this means is that you can barely move two feet without stumbling across something that might be worth a second look. This could be a new character, a ledge leading to a secret area, a crawl space, an item, or even a place in which to curl up and take a nap. There’s so much to see and so many interesting creatures to meet, it’s ultimately a shame that the majority of the gameplay is relegated to basic fetch quests.

That’s ultimately what Little Kitty, Big City is all about: collecting stuff. Almost immediately, you’re tasked with locating 25 ‘shinies’ in order to retrieve a reward from a crow. From there, additional fetch quests are added to the mix, so you’ll be hunting for feathers, tennis balls, dog bones, smartphones, and more. Little rewards and new mechanics are mixed in to coax you forward, such as a lovely little photo mode, the ability to snatch bread from unsuspecting humans, and a climbing mechanic, but we do wish there was a tad more variety with the overall gameplay.

One collectible type that we did enjoy was the plethora of hats that you can wear on your travels. These include a workman’s hard hat, a ladybug hat, a corn hood, a banana hat, and so much more. You can find these in generally hard-to-reach spots on the map, or you’re given access once you complete certain tasks. It’s well worth the time and effort to locate them all just to see how they look on your character.

Thankfully, to make up for some of the gameplay’s repetition, controlling your ‘Little Kitty’ is an absolute joy, and this is largely down to Double Dagger's fantastic animation. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of welcoming a cat into your family, then you’ll be blown away at just how realistic the in-game protagonist is. Every little touch, including the little pitter-patter of its feet, the way it stretches and wriggles its way underneath gaps, and the adorable “brrrp” it emits when leaping onto platforms, is all spot on. If this doesn’t endear you to the endless charm of cats and kittens, then nothing will.

That said, movement isn’t always perfect. Jumping in particular can be a bit fiddly at times which, given the fact that cats are typically agile and graceful, can prove particularly irritating. You can quickly tap ‘B’ to execute a short hop, or you can hold it down and use an on-screen guide to aim your jump accurately.

This is great in theory, but even when you line up your jump to perfection, the occasionally dodgy physics can sometimes send you flying off-course. It doesn’t happen too often, but when you’ve successfully navigated a few gaps only to tumble back down to the ground at the last hurdle, it’ll make you wish that a bit more polish had been applied to this particular mechanic.

In terms of visuals and performance, Little Kitty, Big City isn’t the kind of game to push the Switch to its absolute limits, and for the most part, it looks and runs just fine. The frame rate can drop every now and then, particularly when you pan the camera around the busy streets, but it’s otherwise mostly stable. We were aware of a few bugs when we went hands-on with the game back at Summer Game Fest 2023, but it seems that these, too, have been stamped out nicely. All in all, it's a pleasant enough experience that won't have you regretting your decision to play on Switch rather than elsewhere.