Since its announcement on 2020, when gifs emerged with the name HK_Project, Stray had always attracted curiosity because it’s a game that you play with a cat in a cyberpunk city.

Since then, lots of announcements, publications, and speculation emerged around this game that filled our hearts with hype, cuteness, and anxiety until its release which brought us one of the most beloved games of this generation.

The player we interviewed is Guilherme Cortez, who played Stray on PlayStation 5 on its release and has passed us some prints and information that we needed for this review here in Mundo Gamer Network. We didn’t have early access, but yet, this didn’t stop us to have fun and enjoy every little piece of this feline adventure, meow.

About story

The story begins when we see a colony of cats sleeping, stretching themselves with a pleasant rain sound in a place that looks a little like an abandoned construction and that was taken by nature where the cats live.



As soon as the tutorial begins, the game teaches us to interact with some of these cats, scratch some things, drink water, and meow. One interesting point here is that the meowed sound is reproduced in the game and also on the PlayStation 5 control.

Going through canes, as if we were in a morning walking, the cats go from one place to another, when our feline is separated from the rest of its colony by a cane that comes loose and launches it down on this construction which looks like a landfill site surrounded by concrete.

After walking up on this landfill part, the cat sees itself in a place totally different and the adventure begins as it searches for the way back to its home and friends. The challenges are being introduced little by little, and there is a pleasant way of learning how to jump, scratch, and go through the map to find characters and puzzles that will be our way home.

In the scenario, we will see some neon lights telling us where we should go and which side to follow. These figures are what guide us for basically every game quest.



One of the first ones leads us to Droid B/12 which we carried on our backpack and will follow us for all our journey besides having a fundamental role in the story.

As soon as we arrived in the city, we realize that doesn’t exist humans on it, (without spoilers here, of course). The city is dominated by droids and Zurks, one creature with orange eyes, that look like mites and crowds and attacks you every time we pass through them or when they feel threatened.
 

Graphics and Gameplay

It’s during the chases of these beings I felt the greatest need for a free command to jump. Only running and dogging these Zurks doesn’t seem like a good feline escape, I’m sure Paçoca and Penelope would run and jump in these runs. And I doubt that if someone who has a cat and plays the game wouldn’t agree with me that the cat probably would jump like a crazy popcorn through the scenery to run away from these warts.

In the first impression, the game comes with a sensation of an open world but it isn’t. Even though the city where our cat is running is big and full of places to explore, many of them don’t have one object or collectible item. Others places that arouse your curiosity, don’t have any explorable place. Also, the jump is restricted to some places. There’s no use in touring around and wanting to jump because the cat won’t jump if there isn’t a command for this action. 

However, the commands of the game are all explicit on the screen. You just need to be close to the location of the action. Little dot to roll up on robot legs, little dot to sharpen the claws, little dot to interact with some elements and so it goes.Details are even more charming when we realized that the cat lowers itself when receiving the backpack and purrs when caressing someone’s legs, a satisfying factor that Blue Twelve equip did since they studied really well felines mannerisms.



The gameplay is fluid and linear, which leads us in a subtle way to each place that we need to go. Commands are simple: walking, running, jumping, interacting with some objects, meowing, and observing, that is a focused vision.It’s entertaining to realize the reaction of each robot on their facial screens when they see us meowing or interacting with them. The cat movements are also something characteristics of felines, that wiggling when they walk or run is really realistic.

The graphics are very beautiful and well-done, and the first city is well planned and rich in details. Wreckage, cracks, and even a dark air contrast with the places with neon lights and even with some very dark areas, there is a color palette so well defined that makes us think that maybe this is the vision of a cat at night. Another point for the developers, right?

Rendering follows each dispositive resolution, without frame dropping or cracks and distortions of scenery. Complementing the beautiful visual to fill the eyes. In 12 chapters, Stray brings puzzles, exploration, a platform with stealth areas, and chase scenes. Quests and puzzles don’t bring something complex or challenging but entertain us anyway.

During the entire gameplay, you’ll find some collectible items, memories to unlock, and music scores that you can deliver to the music bot for it to play for you. Sleeping is also one ability, it’s one of the first ones introduced at the beginning of the game for you to recover your health but later is only used as a game trophy.



Sounds and Soundtrack 

As for the soundtrack, I’d remember certain points of the Pink Panther soundtrack, one soft track and even a little fun that gives the tune of the game scene, going well with the scene and situation since the game is silent on the parts that you go through the scenario.

Gives the right amount of suspense where it’s needed and lively when it needs to be lively, making up the scene except in the frantic head-banging with the dancers in town. The dialogue is entirely made of dictated subtitles by B/12 and by androids that we find in the city, but none of them has vocabulary, everything is a distorted blip blop and subtitled lines.

Conclusion

Stray takes us to a naïve concept and even a little childish in this world, having one genuine story lived by a cat brings us a sensation different from everything that we’d played before for the simple fact that we are controlling a cat. It’s captivating and sweet not only because of the main character but also because of the story that is being told through it. One great adventure about hope, resilience, and friendship, it was definitely made for cat lovers.