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I appreciate the effort the animators made to ensure that the cats butthole is always obscured by the tail, even if it does make the tail look broken. At least somebody learned a lesson from "Cats" the movie.
@@zackwalker2172 yeah but a cat's tail is generally up when standing if it's healthy. Though a cat's tail is part of how it communicates so they aren't constantly of course
I tend to find that the House cats do that, especially around humans, but wildcats will keep their’s down most of the time, almost like they’re trying not to be spotted by every hawk in a 30 mile radius.
This is "Sir, are you aware you are a cat?" Taken to it's logical extreme. Except you are fully aware you are a cat, it's everyone else that needs to do a double take.
-He saved us all from the goverment party. -HE IS JUST A CAT -He saved my life in the battlefield. -HE WAS JUST LICKING HIMSELF -He is the hero of the revolution!
I'm pretty sure that the robots actually don't know what a cat is and how sentient (or not) they are. The lore of the game is that this robot community has been sealed in this underground city for centuries and have no knowledge of what is outside. Your first meeting with them actually goes kinda bad because they think you're a "Zurg" (aka a mutant bacteria that eats metal) and they all hide from you. So it kinda make sense that the robots treat you like an actual sentient being because they're not aware what animals are and how they behave.
Yeah, even though one might think that upon seeing a creature someone has never encountered before, they would be super confused or afraid, the Companions have never seen anything that isn't another Companion(aside from the one's in the Slums). So it makes sense that they would treat you the same way they treat their fellow Companion
Don't most of them call you "fuzzy quadruped"? And the few who mention the concept of a pet cat talk about it in a very distant way, like they're not even sure its relevent.
@@eloraandkhan3288 if you're talking about the robot in the city giving the small robot a talk, he was 100% talking about 'a small fuzzy robot' so it looks like most bots think the cat is also a some kinda robot .
Tbh all these emotional events sound like we need a Video of all these moments cut together with occasional reaction shots of the cat not caring and we have a pretty good comedy video without having to put in any effort
I like the bits where you explore the hub and interact with the robots. But I also wish there was something more rewarding than buttons and changing the color of the cat's backpack. Also Yahtzee made me realize I'd love a game that's just basically Thief with a cat.
someone tell the devs that we want 'Thief but your a cat'. The goal could be to find all the squeak toys and hide them under the couch. Or Assassins creed but your targets are birds and rats with the optional spider mini game.
It is not thief with cat..thief was multi layered level design without contextual button prompt that forces linear progression..this is more like a cinematic platformer with restrictive design..not the same.
Once upon a time there was a TV commercial from IKEA about replacing a desk lamp that continually tilted down. When the lamp is placed by the curb, tilting timed to orchestra music in a minor key and lit to evoke sadness and despair the narrator says, "Here you are feeling sorry for a broken lamp. That is because you are crazy. The new one is much better and not broken."
...I thought the thing I hated most was the prevalence of manipulative media, but now I know that it's actually being made fun of by the manipulative media for being manipulated.
@@SapphireDragon357 The scary part is commercial manipulation and all the other ways companies pressure (FOMO) and/or shame you into buying their products was invented by this one a$$hole who used psychology to target our lizard brains.
The only recognition you got was to tell you preemptively to sod off, so I worry for your self esteem if you think that's the recognition you deserve...
I feel like if they'd gone for more of a "Untitled Goose Game but with realistic graphics and you play as a cat" type deal rather than "Half-Life 2 mod where Gordon Freeman is replaced with a cat and no-one notices" type serious story, it would have felt more tonally consistent and led to a less confusing experience.
I liked the game but i can see a game where you mr beane your way through 'helping' the revolution as a little chaos gremlin (cat) would have been more fun
This, when I saw the first trailer and the game looked like jus a cat wondering around a city doing cat things I was so very excited. Then the next trailer I saw revealed the robot companion with all the story baggage that comes with it and all my excitement just drained away.
I don't get why everyone is moaning. I thought the game was great. People expect their exact criteria to be met with every game they play these days. Just accept the game and the mechanics for what it is and enjoy yourself. That's what video games are all about. You don't hear people bitching about the piranhas in sonic the hedgehog jumping up out of thin air... cos it doesn't matter and no-one got bogged down with the shit back then. Simpler, better times
@@MrRayedwards83 Most people are not moaning. The game sold multiple millions of copies on PC alone, and it currently sits at a 97% positive rating on Steam. Whenever something gets popular it invites a vocal minority of critics and trolls. That's not to say that Stray is perfect (it isn't), I just wouldn't take "internet outrage" for anything more than a small group of people who crave attention and always need something to be upset about.
Also the way the cat nuzzled and curled up next to the little drone. Yeah the face says nothing (because it's a cat) but the body language was on point.
Lorewise one of Stray's major faults is how invested each character is in the protagonist when they're just a cat who is presumably just wandering around doing its own thing. It's even referenced in the beginning when everyone thinks you're a horrible monster because they haven't seen a cat before and then they figure out you're not going to eat them, so just treat you normally. However from this point on it keeps placing value on the cat as a character, when in reality the cat just carries the drone around and they should be celebrating the drone (and kinda confused that a cat is following it). When I saw the trailers, I thought Stray was just going to be a game where you wander around as a cat and that's the main gameplay - you're a cat. While I did appreciate the plot moving forward, it definitely feels like your role could've just as easily been fit as a tiny robot alongside the tiny drone rather than a cat and a tiny drone.
The way I see it the robots don't exactly have a concept of an "animal". In their experience there're only intelligent life and monsters in the world. So when the cat is found out to be not a monster they just assume it's a fellow robot, just a very weird model.
@@Shyl1ght I dunno if it would have been a better game or just different if B12 had just introduced cat as its pack animal hauling around its portable battery recharger.
The funny implication of the robots treating the cat as a verbal and aware being means they'll likly be doing the same for every animal they meet on the outside, now that they're free. I can just imagine them meeting bigger cats like a couger or lynx. "Fine day to you sir, please refrain from mauling me please, as I find it quite unpleasant".
See, I figure if Norman Reedus throwing his own piss at ghosts can be made into a game mechanic, then a Garfield hacking hairballs at aggressive Roombas can be one as well.
There is a story that the CIA tried training cats to go into secure locations with monitoring devices. The story goes that the cats were clever enough to get in, but just could not be asked to actually complete their missions, and they kept getting distracted by anything looking tasty/shiny.
My favorite part of Stray was when the main character caught a rat in its mouth and broke its back before setting it down and watching it slowly crawl away before it ran up and brought it back, just to watch it all over again.
Honestly, I've thought a few times that a game where you pay as a cat in a survival setting would be cool. Don't give too much weight to the cat by shouldering it with high level concepts a cat wouldn't care about, but maybe frame it as one of those feel good stories where a cat treks cross country to reunite with a family that lost the cat. Add some unique cat skills via skill tree or stats you can boost, actually put the cat in some tense situations like fighting off big rats nests, a stray dog or two, animal catchers, etc., and I think there's a solid premise there if done right.
I heard about a game like that recently- don't remember the name, but you are a mother fox escorting your fox children to a nature preserve, with threats from mother nature and humans to protect your little ones from during the journey.
@@gregvs.theworld451 it's called endling, came out same day as stray! Which was honestly a little unfortunate for endling because stray definitely took a decent chunk of opening week players 🤕
I actually looked up cat behaviors when I was a kid and cats rubbing and meowing and resting near a “corpse” is relevant. Cats are indeed harder to get loyalty from but once you do it’s heartbreaking to see it, case in point the ending where it’s eluded many hrs pass. At the end of the day a cat game for animal people who aren’t trying to shag it is a good game to me
The fact Yahtzee still remember cod ghosts shows he has a better memory than the call of duty community cuz unless it’s mentioning fish ai or extinction it’s really forgotten
Even for the 4 hours it brought, it was refreshing. It was a game where you played as a cat. That could meow. And knock stuff off shelves. I was really impressed with the accuracy of the animations for the cat, being a cat-mom myself. It was a joyous breath of fresh air, even if the plot definitely got a little ahead of itself by the end there. Maybe in a year or two we can come out of the air condition bunkers xD
I've listened to a few thoughts on the matter, and I'm kind of convinced that the robots actually have no clue about what a "cat" is. They refer to Stray as a "furred robot" so honestly, they probably don't know.
@@RevolutionaryLiger In the slums one of the robots on the roof mentions it felt the urge to pet it, it said it wouldnt because it couldn't figure out why it wanted to do so.
This is a game that knows who it's core audience is, which is "cat fans with a bit of halflife-style exploration, who are there for the journey not the ending." The game itself is great for what it is. You play as a cat. You can only die by one thing, which keeps you from all the pitfalls of platformers, while occasionally breaking some tension when the cat won't jump from the deadlies because you're not facing the right direction to so so. The game has a lot of distractions like knocking over pots and books, tripping robots to make them faceplant, just cause you can. There's a fair bit of environmental storytelling. Ultimately, it's above "walking simulator" style gameplay, more of an adventure game where the puzzles are obvious and the difficulty comes from the exploration (how do I get up there), rather than the repetitive conversation tress, or inventory-object-pixel-hunt of P&C adventure games.
I don't care that much about cats but I really enjoyed the game; it's gorgeous and has a great atmosphere; it's short and to the point; it blends different gameplays with an exploration/adventure core elegantly; it's maybe not extremely involved but it's perfect for a week end. (also people say 4 hours; if you take your time it's more 7 or 8 hours).
@@valdir7426 I finished it in 10 hours, then went back to find a few missing collectables and had a final time of just over 12. I did a lot of just running around looking at the world. I wish it were longer (and that the sewer section was substantially more like the rest of the game)
"Sicking up hairballs" It'd be one of those 'watch the slider move up and down a bar and press the button in the green zone at the top' minigames. The green zone starts extremely small and every miss makes it bigger with a gross hacking sound/animation.
I mean, you do get a badge if you collect all the music, but then again you have to collect *all* the music to even learn of the badge's existence, so I can't exactly fault Yahtz for missing it.
0:35 a game where you play as a cat is far from unprecidented. one of the first games I ever played was one where you played as a cat and it was a rather famous one for the time. it was called "Alley cat"
The cat in this game is clearly not just a cat. It understands language (B/12 gives it directions and discuses with the cat its memories), makes conscious decisions (solving puzzles, like the one with platforms in the club where B/12 makes no explanation if I remember correctly), uses logic (getting out of a locked cage by swinging) and is emotional (sorrow for a lost friend). It knows what “a drink” is and understands the concepts of exchange (a drink for a handle). Also I’m glad the game was so short. I mean, I might one day finish Elden Ring, but I’ve finished this game three times already for a platinum trophy.
As the owner of 2 orange boys, I can confirm this for sure. The grumpy old man kitty one is pretty smart, but I have a 2 year old boy as well and he's not exactly the brightest. It's good we took him in, because he's the sort who'd pick a fight with anything regardless of his own safety, so he'd probably have gotten killed if he were still on the streets. He's a sweet boy, but definitely doesn't have much going on upstairs.
Yahtz's points and the fact that the game gives explicit indications that the cat understands language and symbols, that it has claws capable of cutting through concrete, and the very nature of the deep future setting had me expecting a classic scifi reveal that the cat isn't a cat (or at least, isn't just a cat). Just a line or two of dialogue or text indicating that Humanity uplifted and modified every living thing around itself (so the cat is as much a cat as a Boeing 747 is a pigeon) would have made a lot more things make sense. Maybe that'll be in the next game.
I think it's the robot translating the symbols n stuff, but when was it able to claw thru concrete? if u mean the Mufasa Inciting Incident then I think they're just for stylistic choice to show the urgency(?) of the cat needing to climb up.
0:35 Well technically there is "Gato Roboto," in which you play as a normal cat. The catch is that the normal cat is in a setting that includes mech suits that are designed to be operated by animals. There's also a somewhat reasonable science fiction explanation for this.
3:12-3:39 This is actually my biggest problem with Stray. They marketed it as being The Cat Game Where You Play As Cat, but like, doing cat things isn't incentivized, doing *human* things is incentivized. And the longer it goes on, the more it starts to feel like it being a cat is just a distracting and unnecessary detail.
Another commenter put it well that "Similar to Teardown, they thought of the USP first and then had to make a game around it but weren't really sure how to make it compelling on its own."
@@the8thark I mean.. I think that starting point problem never could've been overcome, but yea. basically every complaint one could level at the game's design is caused by that
I feel there’s a strong message of entropy & communication that the cat protagonist really emphasizes & enables. But I suppose if the plot doesn’t interest you, it’s just very random
@@naturegirl1999 in case you never googled it, the f-14 is a variable wing jet aircraft that was deployed mostly on the Navy's aircraft carriers because of said variable wings. TL;DR jet planes
Overall i liked this game very much. However, one thing majorly irked me… -SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING- Throughout the game, you have the option to find memories that reactivate memories in your drone. I assumed if i found them all, it would give a different ending. However, finding all collectibles in this game gives you bugger all. No different ending, no new content, just a different colour for your harness.
@@eileenheath1968 sorry to disappoint. Though, as you put it, i did play the ever loving crap out of this game. Finished it the same day i got it. All trophies, all collectibles, everything. It is really short and easy.
@@eileenheath1968 You really dont have to play the everloving crap out of it to find all the memories, I got them all on my first playthrough which took 5 hours total. Its not hard if you pay the slightest bit attention to the world.
not to mention you lose it shortly afterwards too. SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING you lose it during the heartfelt robot speech to himself because of that I wasn't "Oh no! what a touching but sad scene" but rather "Hey I just got that, why did you take it away immediately" and yes I know that you can replay the game and have it for your second playthrough but it just doesn't have the strong core gameplay loop or plot twist that contextualizes everything that makes want to play it again.
@@bitwolfy This frustrated me so because I was looking everywhere for those damned things and still missed about half of them. There was a bit that I missed by mistake (basement in nightclub) because I wanted to go back to it and didn't realise what was about to happen but other than that, I couldn't seem to find them. Guess I'll have to replay it, oh no 😺 what a travesty
I did have several moments after the robots started showing up where I was like "I miss when this was about a cat and not about a cyberpunk dystopia", but nobody else seemed to be bothered by it until I saw this. It gave me that vibe, similar to Teardown, that they thought of the USP _first_ and _then_ had to make a game around it but weren't really sure how to make it compelling on its own. I would have liked the mystery of what had actually happened to be preserved for most of the game, instead of the devs abruptly turning the dialogue knob from 0 to like 80 as your cutesy wutesy droney woney exposits everything.
the first hour of the game was beautiful and mysterious. and then the exposition bot shows up and killed the atmosphere for me. contrary to this review, I would have preferred a platforming/walking sim vibe, like Journey or Inside, where you’re just a cat trying to find your way back to your cat colony with a cyberpunk dystopia in the background. nix all the exposition and dialog and have the story be implicit, environmental storytelling
I mean you do get something for returning all the music sheets. You get a "music badge." Iirc there are like 8 badges in total which you get in mostly similar ways. They get pinned onto your little backpack thing. If you get all the recovered memories for the robot he also like transforms your backpack into an iridescent colour (although this was extremely unrewarding because if nothing else you get the last memory at the very end of the game). Although it's not really as much about the end reward for the badges/memories, but journey/experiences that lead you to it.
"sacrificing yourself for a fucking wheelchair" has got to be one of the funniest lines ive heard in a while all in all, stray feels like one of those classic games where it doesn't feel like corporate blandness or another one of those great indie games it just feels like a game you'd play in 2000's, no microtransactions, no rpg elements, a game with very few mechanics that just focuses on the plot, pretty straightforward "film-like" experience that alone piques my interest with this project, but at the end of it all, the whole plot about robots is just ok, maybe generic, but not bad at all the whole selling point was the game where you play as a cat, but i honestly think that anyone could have made that game with no plot involved, and just make a game where you play as a cat in your home, messing with your owners and stuff, and i figure people would still love it as much as stray idk how to feel about this videogame, never played it but seen the videos, it's just...a game, not bad, not amongst the great, but if majority of players say that stray is video game of the year, then that tells a lot about gaming community in general
If it stands out as unique or can break the mold of many bloated genres than it can be a GOTY candidate. There aren't many games where you are just a normal cat so that alone makes it stand out despite the average storyline. Who knows maybe they'll release a sequel where you look for your cat friends/family.
Stray isn't really a game where you take the role of the hero. More like, you're role-playing the hero's mount. Like if a Witcher game started out controlling one of the Roach iterations, you meet Geralt, and he tells you what city to ride to next, then watch as he talks to guards, townspeople, kings, then you carry him to the next battle, and so on. Or if a Shadow of the Colossus spin-off was you controlling Agro, and you ride to the next Colossus together, just to watch him hop off and start climbing it, stabbing it, falling off and jumping on you again, and on and on. I don't think the cat is the hero of the overarching story, when the drone does all the translating, remembering of his past, and eventually dying for a cause. Stray is a mount-simulator.
In the final scene the cat slow blinks at you which is their way of showing love and care. Unlike dogs cats don't have the facial control to emote like humans, so for cat people who understand cat body language, the cat is actually very emotive!!!
Easy: You make hairballs to act as traps for others. They either stop and clean up your sick, or slip up in it if they're hurrying, like, say, if they're chasing you. This allows you to either lay down distractions, or lure guards into traps to let you get away if you've been caught, further reinforcing the stealth direction you were talking about earlier.
To be fair: the cat did have some reaction to both being thrown through a door and told to go on by itself AND when the squeaky toy did its thing at the end (to the point that it became a place you could sleep! - the most important thing a cat can do in real life you know). So the cat did care, at least a little, at least until it got the fcuk out and go chill again with its cat bros (or smack them for leaving it behind). So, all in all, an unrealistic game about a cat!
I figure, the cat is just doing whatever is necessary to get the fuck out of this nightmare hellscape, and essentially saves the world by accident. But also really likes B12.
Thank you, someone finally said it! Yeah, it's not realistic, but the game clearly characterised the cat as sapient, caring about B12, and feeling sad when it died. So what if it wasn't realistic? In other games we shoot fire from our hands or eat a turkey leg off the floor to instantly patch up a bullet wound, and we suspend our disbelief there. Edit: Hello, fellow Romanian.
Yahtzee clearly doesn't own a cat, or else he would know that a bellyrub is a death sentence 95% of the time. Head scratches, chin rubs, wuffles (depending on the cat) and back scratches are much less likely to result in your arm getting shredded because you thought it was a good idea to put your hand in the cat's version of a bear trap.
tail base scratches/pats/slaps (depending on the cat, I knew one who would get in the way of a DRUMSET and then be offended when she didn't get whacked)
I want to throw Rain World into the mix for best cat games. Post-apocalyptic world where your cute sentient (slug)cat sits in the middle of the food chain and has to make an epic spiritual journey (for over 4 hours) to find its family while avoiding getting chowed on by a bunch of lizards, birds, and weird spider things.
@@kiteracer95 I don't think they ripped it off since it's pretty standard hero's journey stuff (you're with your family --> you are separated from your family and strive to get back to them. cliffs and other high places to fall off of optional) but it IS pretty hilarious how similar they ended up looking in the end ngl
OooooOoooooOOOoohh... Look at Captain Four Hours over heeeerrreee.. slow DOWN, speed runner, you slugcat savant! ...but seriously, that game is brutal. I don't remember how long it took me, but it was waaaay longer than 4 hours...
I mean it's on point with cats. They don't show emotion usually with expressions. But the part where the bot overloads itself and you pick up the drone to carry them along was pretty intense. At the end you go and lay next to the drone like cats do when their big two legged roommate they like decides to sleep for a small number of hours. Then when it's over the cat just kinda goes about it's business because that's the life of a cat. It has an agenda and the agenda is to get back to it's simple life.
@@paulrussell9632 I mean cats do what they want to do. If they want to save the world, they will save the world. Probably not for a noble cause but because "there is a can of tuna up there and I won't let the apocalypse stop me from getting it." I kept thinking the same thing "why and how is this cat doing it" and decided to suspend disbelief technically.
It makes a strange amount of sense that a cat would become the symbol of the resistance; the cat's ability to do whatever it feel likes with no concern for what others expect is inspiring to them! As for the protagonist fulfilling the tasks requested of them, well, that's just necessary to progress the story.
If they take this engine and cat mechanics and animation, and put together a game that fits cat gameplay, I would really love to play that hypothetical game.
Still enjoyed the game and found that every once and a while they would find some new way to remind me that the developers know how to cat. As far as the button prompts go there's a vary good reason for that. In earlier development they did have free form jumping. However they quickly found out that the play testers had lot's of trouble with it. People couldn't tell if they could make some jumps, common problems when figuring out what could be jumped on of what was out of bounds. Going to guess is also didn't look natural if it turned out like anything from Tokyo Jungle.
Ok but hear me out: a stray-type game you play as a dog in a zombie apocalypse and have to keep your humans safe from the zombies with your dog senses, help them find food and shelter, and keep their morale up by being the adorable dog companion.
You know it'd be a bit late for a tie-in, but technically you could piggyback this idea off of that Will Smith movie, "I Am Legend", and it'd work fairly well. The entire setup has basically already been done for you there.
@@Exkhaniber Yeah, the premise is very similar but I don't think I am Legend has a lot of storytelling potential from the dog's POV. I imagine you could do something with the language barrier, like the dog has to learn what each command from the humans mean (like IRL) and act accordingly, kinda like a reverse The Last Guardian, and of course the human characters would sound like gibberish to the player too, at first. The player would have to learn to make sense of the humans actions just like the dog, cause there would be no B-12 to help. Imagine trying to puzzle out a game's story and lore without understanding spoken or written words, well I guess Tunic already did this.
Okay, I love this. Obviously you need at least one child among the humans. Perhaps you were a service or security dog pre-apocalypse so you’re exceptionally well-trained and smart. Another thought: Have all the dialogue be unintelligible aside from some key words (like “sit” “heel” “treat” etc,) so you have to react to situations based on overall tone and body language (such as, say, during tense negotiations with other survivors. When do you start growling?)
Honestly, the entire time I was playing this game I was imagining that the cat is really just a cat with no idea what was going on. So every time I managed to complete an objective, it wasn't that the cat knew the robots asked it to do something. It was just wandering around and stuff kept happening around it. I also imagined that B-12 was leading it around with a laser pointer occasionally during specific missions.
I feel a tad disappointed about the amount of negativity about this game in these comments. I don't think it was perfect. However for a rookie release from a rookie developer it is really good. So much that people are treating it like it should be measured against top studios with hundreds of employees. They focused on a polished refined experience and this came at a cost of game length, all of development is a game of balancing resources. That said, in the sea of hacked out clones, or soulless open world "Attract every single preference" games, Stray is a rare gem. It treats your time with respect, brings a unique story with a new IP, a fresh perspective both figuratively and literally, and was clearly a game designed of love and passion. If nothing else I feel Stray deserves the respect it has earned for those reasons. It is the exact kind of game we should be encouraging the industry to aspire to be. With this success, I do hope they make a Stray 2 and that they improve on the design by adding more gameplay elements. I get the complaints I've seen, I just hope people keep in mind what they are judging and with what they have to compare it against. Last small nit-pick though. Stop calling it a cyberpunk setting. It only qualifies for that in the most basic ways. I'd place it closer to science fiction, yet clearly that isn't a great choice either. The setting is fairly unique in many ways that cause it to be hard to qualify cleanly under a single genre and I think that is to the game's credit. I am actively baffled by the people calling it a cookie-cutter setting because.... it isn't. Save that term for games that deserve it. :)
Mostly, I see _Stray_ as a way of gauging how likely your housemate, significant other or roomie would be to be alright with adopting a cat without actually having to _ask_ them as such -- just fire up the game and invite them to check it out, and if they're melting into gibbering puddles every five minutes when the ginger tabby does a cute thing, it's probably safe to call up the local shelter and ask about their kittens.
@@Nitrinoxus I have two big dogs and I feel adding a cat would be too much for all of us. If a cat fell into my life I wouldn't turn it away, but I won't go seek one out.
@@Brandyalla That's fair. And yeah, it's sometimes a hassle bringing a new animal into the herd -- I've had to introduce cats to a new dog and vice versa, and there's _definitely_ an adjustment period.
Yahtzee is the sort of person who would level up his "bollocks licking" stat despite it having very limited gameplay benefits. But before you get too comfy laughing at him, just remember: if you could, you probably would, too.
Could be a different take where your cat character isn't really the protagonist at all, just along for the ride as the plucky robot turns out to be the real hero all along.
yeah, i was expecting the robot to use a laser pointer to make the cat do more advanced things. but then i realised that the cat is also a robot. (drone connected with it (chat) but at first it could not speak with the cat "the new robot language" but then tried something else (the old code that they used) and then the player"cat robot" could understand it, its not an advanced robot, but enough to understand basic commands, and it might also have advanced over the 60000 years of time)
Sounds like they captured what playing as a cat would be like pretty well to me? Everyone's unreasonably obsessed with you, you go along for fun, and in the end just wander on wondering what the heck that was all about.
Spoiler warning I guess. I don’t know if why, but the ending made me tear up a bit. It also convinced me about something I liked, even though a lot of people complaint about. The cat is not the protagonist. B12 is the protagonist. He has a story, he has a quest, he has motivation other than “get back home”. The cat is just the player character that got attached to its robot companion on its way back home. The cat doesn’t care about the politics of a big wall or how the police wants to keep everyone locked in. It doesn’t care about the humans that in their hubris wiped themselves out before having a chance to open the gates. The game ends with the cat curling and purring next to his dead robot friend. In the background a world that’s been dead for thousands of years rises from its ashes in the most unremarkable way possible. I might not know why, but I loved it.
I played this with my niece cause I thought I was just a cute cat game, unaware of the dark themes it would gradually introduce. She cried so much at the ending, when her parents came home they had to convince her the robot just ran out of battery and needed a recharge. 😅
@@loupax Oh yeah I did NOT expect the game to go all Aliens vibe. By herself she definitely would have freaked out but luckily she handles things well with an adult's guidance. I honestly would have skipped some parts as well if I played the game by myself beforehand. Luckily she's too young to understand the darker themes but the prison part with the 1984 themes and memory wiping was pretty messed up. I definitely would have skipped that as well. I'm curious, what was you two's experience? First time I played a game with her and it was nice to see her getting hyper excited about every little thing.
@@koblasco9289 She engaged pretty differently when we played. I was reading out all dialogue and she would ask me to let her press the button that makes the kitty sleep :D She didn't interact with the darker themes because I was playing the game alone and replay the chapter later. I didn't try to hide that B12 dies in the end, or that humanity is extinct but she didn't really care much. What I was surprised by, was that she likes to bring up the characters when she plays pretend. I'm Momo for the last two weeks, but that's all in general.
So basically, the game gave you exactly what you expected; you play as a cat, end of story. Whether or not being a cat is fun is all up to you because, again, you're a cat. It's kinda hard to tell.
As a person who enjoyed the game Stray... I get where Yahtzee is coming from. I mean its a game where you control a cat from point a to point b. hard to portray human emotions when its not a human. also yeah there are prompts for the jumping spots... but you could turn the prompts off. And even though its kind of sticky to walk around the jumping platform parts... I don't mind because the alternative where I jump blindly and hope my cat model doesn't slide off like a buttery egg or glitch into a spot that I cant get out of isn't much better. I also have the mild problem where the game (in one sitting) can be done in 4 hours. and yes, I would have liked a few more hours of stuff to do because just as I was beginning to get into the game, it ends! and I'm left wanting more to see because it IS beautifully made and rendered and what not. It was a nice break from people typing "ur mom" in online shooters or half made glitchy on release games that take a year and a half to hot fix to somewhat acceptable. something where you buy a game and its complete, start to finish What I am looking forward to is people supporting this game enough that the developers have enough recourses to make more games like it but more in-depth or even have a sequel to Stray all together. spoilers: more upon the ending he said. The mini drone (B/12) that helps you out kind of dies but not really (as it hints after you exit the city) and the robots are more than just "acting as humans" because it hints at humans downloading their consciousness into the robot bodies! which is why on the last level of the city the robots have no personalities!
the robots have never seen a cat; they maybe have a vague idea of what it is; so the bit where they welcome you as a person works. I was a bit more skeptical that the cat could solve complex puzzles or have any idea at all of wtf was going on though. but well suspension of disbelief and all that; the game works; and they do incorporate cleverly the cat ethos (aka "fuck everything up") into the gameplay
3:29 They're seeing the robot drone thingy, not the cat. Remember later on when you lose the drone you also lose the ability to understand the robots. So in the core game you are both the drone and the cat in a way(?) But the robots are definitely talking to the drone.
Well, that begs the question as to why the cat even matters in the narrative. Like he said, it just then feels like the player character could have been anything.
I loved this game, and everything Yahtzee said about it is true. It doesn’t change my opinion of the game one bit, and the video was freakin’ hilarious. Win-win!
Either you have been a long time roomate to a cat, or you have successfully escaped from an abode that was infested with a cat. I fall into the second catagory. Get it! 'Catagory'!...oh shut up, you. Yes...seeing a non-anthropomophized cat as a protagonist in a video game strikes me as...unlikley to be compelling.
ZP's Fifth Blandest Game of 2022, as summed up by Yahtzee: "As always, The Game Awards showers its indie prizes on whatever passing trend gains sufficient buzz to be deemed worth you hanging with the cool kids, even if it is just a linear hike whose core gameplay lacks any noteworthy feature besides a bumhole-concealing algorithm. It's Stray, a game that you can recreate at home if you happen to own a cat and a laser pointer shaped like a contextual button prompt."
Kinda hits it home for me, the game feels like it was made on the premise of "you run around as a cat" and it just beggs the question "and....?" It feels like half a game, like what we are actually supposed to do in game to have fun was never put in.
Regarding the end note at 5:14, the best use I could come up with for a game mechanic based on hairballs would be plugging certain holes or getting it stuck in machines that stop the cat from going where it wants to.
Don’t be mistaken: it’s still a super-casual game. The puzzles are easy, the brief bits of combat are easy, and everything is rather low-stakes. This is intentional. People use “a walk in the park” to mean something that’s too easy, but so what? A walk in the park is really nice sometimes!
I wouldn't say it's unrealistic for cats to react accordingly to things happening or even being spoken to. Hell, I've seen a video with a cat being taught how to loosely communicate with its owner using a series of buttons that speak different words. That and a bit of suspension of disbelief made this game a new personal favorite of mine. I had fun with it.
I figured any semblance of reality was broken when the cat started inserting whole-ass car batteries into sockets and inputting four number codes into keypads. Either this cat is bumbling his way through these puzzles like a feline Mr Magoo or it's about as smart as those genius 140 iq babies from Brazil.
Stray is just an example of what happens when you let your cat out and they disappear for a couple of days. You're just thinking they're roaming about somewhere, but they're actually on an adventure saving the world. (Or condemning it) It is a cat after all.
I think that Stray's biggest problem is exactly what you mentioned as well. In the game you're never really treated as a cat. Be it the science drone, the robots, anyone really except your other cat friends. And that just really robbed me on the immersion. Like, everyone treated you as just another character. Tze cat could have been replaced 1 for 1 by a human and the plot would not have changed in the slightest, however some mechanics would have needed to change. I would have liked it if the character was more treated for what it was. An animal. Not some human like entity.
I absolutely loved this game, but not gonna lie, I wish there was more of it. Plus, the oppressive regime section felt like it progressed too fast for my liking, I would have liked another side quest or so. Plus, the section in the sewers and all the little monsters was intense and I would have enjoyed exploring that more. Ultimately I saw it as more of a proof of concept game. I'd love to see what else they do with the idea. Also, the bit where the robot puts the harness on you killed me. So funny 😆
If I were playing as a cat, then I'd expect the world to be made by humans, and to consequently not make very much sense or be convenient to navigate. It'd be filled with people who don't know how to communicate with a cat and won't be much help to me. I'd be forced to find where ever the next set piece is based on context and my expeditioning skills. I can see why this game fell short; Making a game about being a cat sounds pretty hard, but making a game where you control a cat through a fairly standard plot doesn't.
I can't help but wonder if the original intent of the game was you playing as a human, and the robots being human, too. But then maybe human modeling was too hard, so they turned it into a cat helping robots? The robots are just so incredibly like PEOPLE, down to getting cold, and eating and drinking and getting drunk and creating art and knitting and running laundromats and stuff. And yeah, the actions you take as a cat make just as much sense if you're a human. I enjoyed the game, but couldn't shake the feeling the original intent was different.
I feel the opposite. A game without being able to communicate with anyone would become extremely boring, extremely fast, and I was very pleased when it introduced a way to make it ... a game, by being able to communicate in some way. While also never giving you direct quest markers or any way to respond or ask questions, and thus being the exploration game it needed to be. They have revitalized the silent-protagonist genre What you're describing is exactly what this game is like. None of that is the issue. The issue is that it was extremely short, and the story suffered because the losses felt meaningless when you've spent less than an hour with each character. And the story itself was rushed as well, filled with plot holes as a result of trying to drive you forward And, I think the worst infraction, which is a classic problem in most games these days that nobody seems to want to acknowledge... it is front-loaded. All the interesting content is in the first 2 hours, and after that it is empty fluff until the end. 90% of the game is in the first city, and after that they explicitly usher you past the second area, and each area past that just has one tiny quest chain at best, nothing to explore or discover beyond that, nothing to collect.
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So, doing the sidequests like getting all the sheet music, gives you button pins that go on your harness automatically.
I appreciate the effort the animators made to ensure that the cats butthole is always obscured by the tail, even if it does make the tail look broken. At least somebody learned a lesson from "Cats" the movie.
I've had like, 2 cats all my life. Those fucking tails can do some shit.
@@zackwalker2172 yeah but a cat's tail is generally up when standing if it's healthy. Though a cat's tail is part of how it communicates so they aren't constantly of course
I tend to find that the House cats do that, especially around humans, but wildcats will keep their’s down most of the time, almost like they’re trying not to be spotted by every hawk in a 30 mile radius.
I'm too lazy to confirm that so just take this upvote
I don't appreciate how you came to know that tid-bit of information.
This is "Sir, are you aware you are a cat?" Taken to it's logical extreme. Except you are fully aware you are a cat, it's everyone else that needs to do a double take.
-He saved us all from the goverment party.
-HE IS JUST A CAT
-He saved my life in the battlefield.
-HE WAS JUST LICKING HIMSELF
-He is the hero of the revolution!
"Sir, are you aware that I am a cat?"
tbf if you asked a cat if it was self-aware and it said yes, you'd probably do a double take too
An unintentional Sir Bearington.
See, this is what happens when a man with the personality of a cat reviews a game where you play as a cat.
Ironically enough, he's a dog person
surprisingly accurate
Catboy Yahtzee
@@thecryingsoul Cahtzee
@@Medytacjusz Cahtzee Crochet
I'm pretty sure that the robots actually don't know what a cat is and how sentient (or not) they are. The lore of the game is that this robot community has been sealed in this underground city for centuries and have no knowledge of what is outside. Your first meeting with them actually goes kinda bad because they think you're a "Zurg" (aka a mutant bacteria that eats metal) and they all hide from you. So it kinda make sense that the robots treat you like an actual sentient being because they're not aware what animals are and how they behave.
They think you're a particularly cute type of robot.
Yeah, even though one might think that upon seeing a creature someone has never encountered before, they would be super confused or afraid, the Companions have never seen anything that isn't another Companion(aside from the one's in the Slums). So it makes sense that they would treat you the same way they treat their fellow Companion
Don't most of them call you "fuzzy quadruped"? And the few who mention the concept of a pet cat talk about it in a very distant way, like they're not even sure its relevent.
Don’t try to apply logic to Yahtzee’s reviews
@@eloraandkhan3288 if you're talking about the robot in the city giving the small robot a talk, he was 100% talking about 'a small fuzzy robot' so it looks like most bots think the cat is also a some kinda robot .
Tbh all these emotional events sound like we need a Video of all these moments cut together with occasional reaction shots of the cat not caring and we have a pretty good comedy video without having to put in any effort
Sounds like something dunkey would do to great result
Chonkers, go on without me, you are our only hope!
*immediately begins licking its genitals*
@@acalmerkarma I need it now.
Email Dunkey. NOW!
I mean isn't this exactly what the game did? When you're falling down the hole in the beginning your cat siblings don't look like they give a f.
@@acalmerkarma Who is dunkey?
2:44 I never thought sleeping cat Yahtzee would be so adorable
Kaguya-sama: Love is War succinctly explained how cat ears would make anyone look adorable.
His feet look weird tho.
cursed yet cute
Cahtzee
Catzee is fine too. *unzips*
I like the bits where you explore the hub and interact with the robots. But I also wish there was something more rewarding than buttons and changing the color of the cat's backpack.
Also Yahtzee made me realize I'd love a game that's just basically Thief with a cat.
I mean. Sly Cooper is SORT OF that but with a raccoon?
Also like "Hey all that work you did to change the backpack color? Yeah, hello ENDING, hope you intend to replay the game"
Cat Burglar writes itself. Why wouldn't a cat want to screw over every human it could by sneakily making off with their savings?
someone tell the devs that we want 'Thief but your a cat'. The goal could be to find all the squeak toys and hide them under the couch. Or Assassins creed but your targets are birds and rats with the optional spider mini game.
It is not thief with cat..thief was multi layered level design without contextual button prompt that forces linear progression..this is more like a cinematic platformer with restrictive design..not the same.
Crying because the squirrel won't bum you a cigarette is officially the zp line I have laughed hardest at.
Once upon a time there was a TV commercial from IKEA about replacing a desk lamp that continually tilted down. When the lamp is placed by the curb, tilting timed to orchestra music in a minor key and lit to evoke sadness and despair the narrator says, "Here you are feeling sorry for a broken lamp. That is because you are crazy. The new one is much better and not broken."
...I thought the thing I hated most was the prevalence of manipulative media, but now I know that it's actually being made fun of by the manipulative media for being manipulated.
@@SapphireDragon357 The scary part is commercial manipulation and all the other ways companies pressure (FOMO) and/or shame you into buying their products was invented by this one a$$hole who used psychology to target our lizard brains.
Wooo! Blinx the timesweeper fans get the recognition we deserve!
This once, and never again
All six of them!
The only recognition you got was to tell you preemptively to sod off, so I worry for your self esteem if you think that's the recognition you deserve...
@@rayanderson5797 Blinx fans deserve to be told to sod off, you see
hello i'm blinx fan 3/6 reporting for duty
I feel like if they'd gone for more of a "Untitled Goose Game but with realistic graphics and you play as a cat" type deal rather than "Half-Life 2 mod where Gordon Freeman is replaced with a cat and no-one notices" type serious story, it would have felt more tonally consistent and led to a less confusing experience.
Goose Game was boring but I get what your saying - more cat, less cyberpunk bs
I liked the game but i can see a game where you mr beane your way through 'helping' the revolution as a little chaos gremlin (cat) would have been more fun
This, when I saw the first trailer and the game looked like jus a cat wondering around a city doing cat things I was so very excited.
Then the next trailer I saw revealed the robot companion with all the story baggage that comes with it and all my excitement just drained away.
I don't get why everyone is moaning. I thought the game was great. People expect their exact criteria to be met with every game they play these days. Just accept the game and the mechanics for what it is and enjoy yourself. That's what video games are all about.
You don't hear people bitching about the piranhas in sonic the hedgehog jumping up out of thin air... cos it doesn't matter and no-one got bogged down with the shit back then.
Simpler, better times
@@MrRayedwards83 Most people are not moaning. The game sold multiple millions of copies on PC alone, and it currently sits at a 97% positive rating on Steam. Whenever something gets popular it invites a vocal minority of critics and trolls. That's not to say that Stray is perfect (it isn't), I just wouldn't take "internet outrage" for anything more than a small group of people who crave attention and always need something to be upset about.
3:17 "Adorable toe beans"
Things I never would have imagined Yahtzee saying.
But he said it angrily for that authentic Yahtzee experience
Fun fact though in that ending where the cat turns around they're blinking in such a way that real life cats do when they like/trust you
People think cats dont mourn or know when something dies but they do
Also the way the cat nuzzled and curled up next to the little drone. Yeah the face says nothing (because it's a cat) but the body language was on point.
@@justindortheblunderwizard Of course they know when something dies, usually they're the ones killing shit so you bet your ass they're aware of it.
@@volcryndarkstar true.
The ones with the most value for life are the ones who take it.
did you just make that up?
Lorewise one of Stray's major faults is how invested each character is in the protagonist when they're just a cat who is presumably just wandering around doing its own thing. It's even referenced in the beginning when everyone thinks you're a horrible monster because they haven't seen a cat before and then they figure out you're not going to eat them, so just treat you normally. However from this point on it keeps placing value on the cat as a character, when in reality the cat just carries the drone around and they should be celebrating the drone (and kinda confused that a cat is following it).
When I saw the trailers, I thought Stray was just going to be a game where you wander around as a cat and that's the main gameplay - you're a cat. While I did appreciate the plot moving forward, it definitely feels like your role could've just as easily been fit as a tiny robot alongside the tiny drone rather than a cat and a tiny drone.
The way I see it the robots don't exactly have a concept of an "animal". In their experience there're only intelligent life and monsters in the world. So when the cat is found out to be not a monster they just assume it's a fellow robot, just a very weird model.
Reminds me a bit of Charlotte's Web
@@Shyl1ght I dunno if it would have been a better game or just different if B12 had just introduced cat as its pack animal hauling around its portable battery recharger.
@@Shyl1ght this is actually backed up by a couple characters straight up referring to the cat as a quadriped robot
Yeah the moment the drone got introduced it took so much away from the game for me.
The funny implication of the robots treating the cat as a verbal and aware being means they'll likly be doing the same for every animal they meet on the outside, now that they're free.
I can just imagine them meeting bigger cats like a couger or lynx. "Fine day to you sir, please refrain from mauling me please, as I find it quite unpleasant".
See, I figure if Norman Reedus throwing his own piss at ghosts can be made into a game mechanic, then a Garfield hacking hairballs at aggressive Roombas can be one as well.
There is a story that the CIA tried training cats to go into secure locations with monitoring devices. The story goes that the cats were clever enough to get in, but just could not be asked to actually complete their missions, and they kept getting distracted by anything looking tasty/shiny.
My favorite part of Stray was when the main character caught a rat in its mouth and broke its back before setting it down and watching it slowly crawl away before it ran up and brought it back, just to watch it all over again.
The freaky thing here is... I don't know if this is a joke or not, I've seen things get dark just out of nowhere before.
Well researched, this is what cats do.
Yes because cats are actually evil and no one seems to have caught on...they have BARBED penises, thats something you expect from a demon.
@@PaladinGear15 the thing is that it isn't all that dark, it's just what cats do, play and hunting are the same thing to them
@@BeefMeisterSupreme i guess it enjoys hunting so much it gives its prey false hope of survival only to make it as long and painful as possible
The way he says "'cause it's a fuckin' cat" at 4:25 is the perfect amount of exasperation.
Honestly, I've thought a few times that a game where you pay as a cat in a survival setting would be cool. Don't give too much weight to the cat by shouldering it with high level concepts a cat wouldn't care about, but maybe frame it as one of those feel good stories where a cat treks cross country to reunite with a family that lost the cat. Add some unique cat skills via skill tree or stats you can boost, actually put the cat in some tense situations like fighting off big rats nests, a stray dog or two, animal catchers, etc., and I think there's a solid premise there if done right.
I heard about a game like that recently- don't remember the name, but you are a mother fox escorting your fox children to a nature preserve, with threats from mother nature and humans to protect your little ones from during the journey.
@@timothycarney9652 That could be cool, I'l look out for that.
@@gregvs.theworld451 it's called endling, came out same day as stray! Which was honestly a little unfortunate for endling because stray definitely took a decent chunk of opening week players 🤕
I actually looked up cat behaviors when I was a kid and cats rubbing and meowing and resting near a “corpse” is relevant. Cats are indeed harder to get loyalty from but once you do it’s heartbreaking to see it, case in point the ending where it’s eluded many hrs pass. At the end of the day a cat game for animal people who aren’t trying to shag it is a good game to me
The fact Yahtzee still remember cod ghosts shows he has a better memory than the call of duty community cuz unless it’s mentioning fish ai or extinction it’s really forgotten
Even for the 4 hours it brought, it was refreshing. It was a game where you played as a cat. That could meow. And knock stuff off shelves. I was really impressed with the accuracy of the animations for the cat, being a cat-mom myself. It was a joyous breath of fresh air, even if the plot definitely got a little ahead of itself by the end there.
Maybe in a year or two we can come out of the air condition bunkers xD
@Squant Yahtzee said it first! 🤣 I'm just agreeing with him hahaha
For some reason, the terminator wearing multiple oversized hats is one of the funniest things to me
I've listened to a few thoughts on the matter, and I'm kind of convinced that the robots actually have no clue about what a "cat" is. They refer to Stray as a "furred robot" so honestly, they probably don't know.
Which explains why you only get pet like three times total. Which was my only real annoyance of the game, gimme the cat more pets!
@@RevolutionaryLiger In the slums one of the robots on the roof mentions it felt the urge to pet it, it said it wouldnt because it couldn't figure out why it wanted to do so.
@@RevolutionaryLiger SAAAAME! My only complains is that there were very few pets.
This is a game that knows who it's core audience is, which is "cat fans with a bit of halflife-style exploration, who are there for the journey not the ending." The game itself is great for what it is. You play as a cat. You can only die by one thing, which keeps you from all the pitfalls of platformers, while occasionally breaking some tension when the cat won't jump from the deadlies because you're not facing the right direction to so so.
The game has a lot of distractions like knocking over pots and books, tripping robots to make them faceplant, just cause you can. There's a fair bit of environmental storytelling.
Ultimately, it's above "walking simulator" style gameplay, more of an adventure game where the puzzles are obvious and the difficulty comes from the exploration (how do I get up there), rather than the repetitive conversation tress, or inventory-object-pixel-hunt of P&C adventure games.
I don't care that much about cats but I really enjoyed the game; it's gorgeous and has a great atmosphere; it's short and to the point; it blends different gameplays with an exploration/adventure core elegantly; it's maybe not extremely involved but it's perfect for a week end. (also people say 4 hours; if you take your time it's more 7 or 8 hours).
@@valdir7426 I finished it in 10 hours, then went back to find a few missing collectables and had a final time of just over 12. I did a lot of just running around looking at the world. I wish it were longer (and that the sewer section was substantially more like the rest of the game)
: No thoughts, head empty
Yhatzee saying "adorable toe beans" needs to be it's own clip.
"Sicking up hairballs" It'd be one of those 'watch the slider move up and down a bar and press the button in the green zone at the top' minigames. The green zone starts extremely small and every miss makes it bigger with a gross hacking sound/animation.
I'm surprised he never went into how a lot of the times, the cat's first instinct is to murder things.
God they really understood cats didnt they
I mean, you do get a badge if you collect all the music, but then again you have to collect *all* the music to even learn of the badge's existence, so I can't exactly fault Yahtz for missing it.
Every time he said "but you are just a cat" i felt like that was still on brand for how a cat would actually act in that moment.
0:35 a game where you play as a cat is far from unprecidented. one of the first games I ever played was one where you played as a cat and it was a rather famous one for the time. it was called "Alley cat"
Scrolled down to see if someone mentioned Alley Cat!
Booyah!
That bastard dog, though.
OMG YESSSS!!!
I can hear the music!
yes! alley cat was my fav game as a kid, i still remember crying when i drowned in the fishbowl XD
The cat in this game is clearly not just a cat. It understands language (B/12 gives it directions and discuses with the cat its memories), makes conscious decisions (solving puzzles, like the one with platforms in the club where B/12 makes no explanation if I remember correctly), uses logic (getting out of a locked cage by swinging) and is emotional (sorrow for a lost friend). It knows what “a drink” is and understands the concepts of exchange (a drink for a handle). Also I’m glad the game was so short. I mean, I might one day finish Elden Ring, but I’ve finished this game three times already for a platinum trophy.
That opening bit is Yahtzee's funniest in a while
You play as an orange cat. They only have one brain cell that has to be shared with every other orange cat on the planet
As the owner of 2 orange boys, I can confirm this for sure. The grumpy old man kitty one is pretty smart, but I have a 2 year old boy as well and he's not exactly the brightest. It's good we took him in, because he's the sort who'd pick a fight with anything regardless of his own safety, so he'd probably have gotten killed if he were still on the streets. He's a sweet boy, but definitely doesn't have much going on upstairs.
Yahtz's points and the fact that the game gives explicit indications that the cat understands language and symbols, that it has claws capable of cutting through concrete, and the very nature of the deep future setting had me expecting a classic scifi reveal that the cat isn't a cat (or at least, isn't just a cat). Just a line or two of dialogue or text indicating that Humanity uplifted and modified every living thing around itself (so the cat is as much a cat as a Boeing 747 is a pigeon) would have made a lot more things make sense. Maybe that'll be in the next game.
I think it's the robot translating the symbols n stuff, but when was it able to claw thru concrete? if u mean the Mufasa Inciting Incident then I think they're just for stylistic choice to show the urgency(?) of the cat needing to climb up.
@@yourmomsjorts The robot translating the symbols into what? Cats don't have a language to translate symbols into.
0:35
Well technically there is "Gato Roboto," in which you play as a normal cat. The catch is that the normal cat is in a setting that includes mech suits that are designed to be operated by animals. There's also a somewhat reasonable science fiction explanation for this.
3:12-3:39
This is actually my biggest problem with Stray. They marketed it as being The Cat Game Where You Play As Cat, but like, doing cat things isn't incentivized, doing *human* things is incentivized. And the longer it goes on, the more it starts to feel like it being a cat is just a distracting and unnecessary detail.
Another commenter put it well that "Similar to Teardown, they thought of the USP first and then had to make a game around it but weren't really sure how to make it compelling on its own."
Well said!
@@the8thark I mean.. I think that starting point problem never could've been overcome, but yea. basically every complaint one could level at the game's design is caused by that
"there's a specially dedicated meow button".... that was all the reason I needed to buy this game full price
Until you meow on impulse and attract the zurks/sentinals! I made that mistake at least 3 times. I just couldn’t help myself.
I feel there’s a strong message of entropy & communication that the cat protagonist really emphasizes & enables. But I suppose if the plot doesn’t interest you, it’s just very random
I love how one of the first mods for this game is to replace the cats with F-14 Tomcats
What are those?
@@naturegirl1999 in case you never googled it, the f-14 is a variable wing jet aircraft that was deployed mostly on the Navy's aircraft carriers because of said variable wings.
TL;DR jet planes
@@CocoNut-yd1ri thanks
Overall i liked this game very much. However, one thing majorly irked me…
-SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING-
Throughout the game, you have the option to find memories that reactivate memories in your drone. I assumed if i found them all, it would give a different ending. However, finding all collectibles in this game gives you bugger all. No different ending, no new content, just a different colour for your harness.
Aww, I went to your channel to see if you uploaded any of this because you played the ever-loving crap out of this game to get all the memories.
@@eileenheath1968 sorry to disappoint. Though, as you put it, i did play the ever loving crap out of this game. Finished it the same day i got it. All trophies, all collectibles, everything. It is really short and easy.
@@eileenheath1968 You really dont have to play the everloving crap out of it to find all the memories, I got them all on my first playthrough which took 5 hours total. Its not hard if you pay the slightest bit attention to the world.
not to mention you lose it shortly afterwards too.
SPOILER WARNING! SPOILER WARNING
you lose it during the heartfelt robot speech to himself because of that I wasn't "Oh no! what a touching but sad scene" but rather "Hey I just got that, why did you take it away immediately" and yes I know that you can replay the game and have it for your second playthrough but it just doesn't have the strong core gameplay loop or plot twist that contextualizes everything that makes want to play it again.
@@bitwolfy This frustrated me so because I was looking everywhere for those damned things and still missed about half of them. There was a bit that I missed by mistake (basement in nightclub) because I wanted to go back to it and didn't realise what was about to happen but other than that, I couldn't seem to find them.
Guess I'll have to replay it, oh no 😺 what a travesty
I did have several moments after the robots started showing up where I was like "I miss when this was about a cat and not about a cyberpunk dystopia", but nobody else seemed to be bothered by it until I saw this. It gave me that vibe, similar to Teardown, that they thought of the USP _first_ and _then_ had to make a game around it but weren't really sure how to make it compelling on its own.
I would have liked the mystery of what had actually happened to be preserved for most of the game, instead of the devs abruptly turning the dialogue knob from 0 to like 80 as your cutesy wutesy droney woney exposits everything.
Does the game explain why it is that the cat can read?
@@DavidJoh The robot that follows the cat reads and translates things to it
the first hour of the game was beautiful and mysterious. and then the exposition bot shows up and killed the atmosphere for me. contrary to this review, I would have preferred a platforming/walking sim vibe, like Journey or Inside, where you’re just a cat trying to find your way back to your cat colony with a cyberpunk dystopia in the background. nix all the exposition and dialog and have the story be implicit, environmental storytelling
@@Casin Agreed.
@@DavidJoh it can't? Thought the whole robot jumping out and reading it for you explained that
The main thing I learned from this review is that Yahtzee is not a cat person.
I mean you do get something for returning all the music sheets. You get a "music badge." Iirc there are like 8 badges in total which you get in mostly similar ways. They get pinned onto your little backpack thing.
If you get all the recovered memories for the robot he also like transforms your backpack into an iridescent colour (although this was extremely unrewarding because if nothing else you get the last memory at the very end of the game).
Although it's not really as much about the end reward for the badges/memories, but journey/experiences that lead you to it.
"sacrificing yourself for a fucking wheelchair" has got to be one of the funniest lines ive heard in a while
all in all, stray feels like one of those classic games where it doesn't feel like corporate blandness or another one of those great indie games
it just feels like a game you'd play in 2000's, no microtransactions, no rpg elements, a game with very few mechanics that just focuses on the plot, pretty straightforward "film-like" experience
that alone piques my interest with this project, but at the end of it all, the whole plot about robots is just ok, maybe generic, but not bad at all
the whole selling point was the game where you play as a cat, but i honestly think that anyone could have made that game with no plot involved, and just make a game where you play as a cat in your home, messing with your owners and stuff, and i figure people would still love it as much as stray
idk how to feel about this videogame, never played it but seen the videos, it's just...a game, not bad, not amongst the great, but if majority of players say that stray is video game of the year, then that tells a lot about gaming community in general
The “Live damn you” bit made it even funnier.
If it stands out as unique or can break the mold of many bloated genres than it can be a GOTY candidate. There aren't many games where you are just a normal cat so that alone makes it stand out despite the average storyline. Who knows maybe they'll release a sequel where you look for your cat friends/family.
@@starkiller1289 I doubt it will break the mold of unrelated games. It'll probably just create a ton of knockoffs with different animals tho.
yeah I was thinking along the same lines, like if there was an "untitled goose game" but with a cat instead of a goose it would be pretty popular.
@@akiraigarashi2874 You're probably right, when something unexcepted or "new" gets popular clones of it appear in the upcoming months/year.
You completely forgot about all the badass Lo-Fi music and the button collecting
Stray isn't really a game where you take the role of the hero. More like, you're role-playing the hero's mount.
Like if a Witcher game started out controlling one of the Roach iterations, you meet Geralt, and he tells you what city to ride to next, then watch as he talks to guards, townspeople, kings, then you carry him to the next battle, and so on.
Or if a Shadow of the Colossus spin-off was you controlling Agro, and you ride to the next Colossus together, just to watch him hop off and start climbing it, stabbing it, falling off and jumping on you again, and on and on.
I don't think the cat is the hero of the overarching story, when the drone does all the translating, remembering of his past, and eventually dying for a cause. Stray is a mount-simulator.
If you played as Roach in a Witcher game, would you have all of her space-time-bending powers?
In the final scene the cat slow blinks at you which is their way of showing love and care. Unlike dogs cats don't have the facial control to emote like humans, so for cat people who understand cat body language, the cat is actually very emotive!!!
Excuuuuuuse me Yahtzee, dog people also had Dogs Life for the PS2 and it was mind-numbingly absurd.
Easy: You make hairballs to act as traps for others. They either stop and clean up your sick, or slip up in it if they're hurrying, like, say, if they're chasing you. This allows you to either lay down distractions, or lure guards into traps to let you get away if you've been caught, further reinforcing the stealth direction you were talking about earlier.
To be fair: the cat did have some reaction to both being thrown through a door and told to go on by itself AND when the squeaky toy did its thing at the end (to the point that it became a place you could sleep! - the most important thing a cat can do in real life you know). So the cat did care, at least a little, at least until it got the fcuk out and go chill again with its cat bros (or smack them for leaving it behind). So, all in all, an unrealistic game about a cat!
I figure, the cat is just doing whatever is necessary to get the fuck out of this nightmare hellscape, and essentially saves the world by accident. But also really likes B12.
It might be a bit to anthropomorphizing the cat buy I refuse to believe the cat wasn't bummed about what happened to B12. They were bros!
Yeah, I left myself to sleep by B12 at the end for ages while I did errands IRL
because it seemed like the right thing to do
Thank you, someone finally said it! Yeah, it's not realistic, but the game clearly characterised the cat as sapient, caring about B12, and feeling sad when it died. So what if it wasn't realistic? In other games we shoot fire from our hands or eat a turkey leg off the floor to instantly patch up a bullet wound, and we suspend our disbelief there.
Edit: Hello, fellow Romanian.
@@FishSomething If you're going to get the nap acheivement, that's probably the place to do it, imo.
Yahtzee clearly doesn't own a cat, or else he would know that a bellyrub is a death sentence 95% of the time. Head scratches, chin rubs, wuffles (depending on the cat) and back scratches are much less likely to result in your arm getting shredded because you thought it was a good idea to put your hand in the cat's version of a bear trap.
tail base scratches/pats/slaps (depending on the cat, I knew one who would get in the way of a DRUMSET and then be offended when she didn't get whacked)
The fuck is a wuffle?
Yes OP What’s a waffle?
He is a dog lover, they usually show up on shows
Never thought he would use so much baby talk on a game about being a cat.
If you tell a cat to return a stick, they'll go "Why throw it away, if you want it so badly?"
I want to throw Rain World into the mix for best cat games. Post-apocalyptic world where your cute sentient (slug)cat sits in the middle of the food chain and has to make an epic spiritual journey (for over 4 hours) to find its family while avoiding getting chowed on by a bunch of lizards, birds, and weird spider things.
Stray completely ripped off Rain World's premise right down to the opening cutscene
@@kiteracer95 I don't think they ripped it off since it's pretty standard hero's journey stuff (you're with your family --> you are separated from your family and strive to get back to them. cliffs and other high places to fall off of optional) but it IS pretty hilarious how similar they ended up looking in the end ngl
@@kiteracer95 Being seperated from friends is literally the premise of damn near everything.
Rain World seems like if you combined Stray with the world building of Kenshi
OooooOoooooOOOoohh... Look at Captain Four Hours over heeeerrreee.. slow DOWN, speed runner, you slugcat savant!
...but seriously, that game is brutal. I don't remember how long it took me, but it was waaaay longer than 4 hours...
I mean it's on point with cats. They don't show emotion usually with expressions. But the part where the bot overloads itself and you pick up the drone to carry them along was pretty intense. At the end you go and lay next to the drone like cats do when their big two legged roommate they like decides to sleep for a small number of hours. Then when it's over the cat just kinda goes about it's business because that's the life of a cat. It has an agenda and the agenda is to get back to it's simple life.
Which is fine except the cat just spent 4hrs doing things a cat would never have done, and would have no desire to do, hence the inconsistency.
@@paulrussell9632 I mean cats do what they want to do. If they want to save the world, they will save the world. Probably not for a noble cause but because "there is a can of tuna up there and I won't let the apocalypse stop me from getting it."
I kept thinking the same thing "why and how is this cat doing it" and decided to suspend disbelief technically.
People keep saying this but I can recognise emotions on the face of a cat and it's not all that different to on a human.
@@DGneoseeker1 I mean my cat I can tell when he's happy or angry but it's very subtle but my cat isn't everyone's cat.
@@tieflingcody7493 I'd say that a lot of them have very recognisable equivalents to frowning or smiles.
Cat ear Yahtzee is something I never realized I needed, but now can't imagine my life without
Watch his Nino Kuni 2 review
It makes a strange amount of sense that a cat would become the symbol of the resistance; the cat's ability to do whatever it feel likes with no concern for what others expect is inspiring to them! As for the protagonist fulfilling the tasks requested of them, well, that's just necessary to progress the story.
If they take this engine and cat mechanics and animation, and put together a game that fits cat gameplay, I would really love to play that hypothetical game.
I thought of a hairball mechanic: some electronic device needs to be disabled, so sicking a hairball on it shorts out that device.
I like when he reviews short games, because the length to depth ratio is higher.
Still enjoyed the game and found that every once and a while they would find some new way to remind me that the developers know how to cat. As far as the button prompts go there's a vary good reason for that. In earlier development they did have free form jumping. However they quickly found out that the play testers had lot's of trouble with it. People couldn't tell if they could make some jumps, common problems when figuring out what could be jumped on of what was out of bounds. Going to guess is also didn't look natural if it turned out like anything from Tokyo Jungle.
Ok but hear me out: a stray-type game you play as a dog in a zombie apocalypse and have to keep your humans safe from the zombies with your dog senses, help them find food and shelter, and keep their morale up by being the adorable dog companion.
You know it'd be a bit late for a tie-in, but technically you could piggyback this idea off of that Will Smith movie, "I Am Legend", and it'd work fairly well. The entire setup has basically already been done for you there.
plausible, but needs more detail on the core mechanic
@@Exkhaniber Yeah, the premise is very similar but I don't think I am Legend has a lot of storytelling potential from the dog's POV. I imagine you could do something with the language barrier, like the dog has to learn what each command from the humans mean (like IRL) and act accordingly, kinda like a reverse The Last Guardian, and of course the human characters would sound like gibberish to the player too, at first. The player would have to learn to make sense of the humans actions just like the dog, cause there would be no B-12 to help. Imagine trying to puzzle out a game's story and lore without understanding spoken or written words, well I guess Tunic already did this.
Okay, I love this.
Obviously you need at least one child among the humans. Perhaps you were a service or security dog pre-apocalypse so you’re exceptionally well-trained and smart.
Another thought:
Have all the dialogue be unintelligible aside from some key words (like “sit” “heel” “treat” etc,) so you have to react to situations based on overall tone and body language (such as, say, during tense negotiations with other survivors. When do you start growling?)
No
A game where you play as a cat and watch those dumb fucking humans get eaten by yhose zombies while you just live your best life
Honestly, the entire time I was playing this game I was imagining that the cat is really just a cat with no idea what was going on. So every time I managed to complete an objective, it wasn't that the cat knew the robots asked it to do something. It was just wandering around and stuff kept happening around it. I also imagined that B-12 was leading it around with a laser pointer occasionally during specific missions.
So when do you make Cat Yahtzee merchandise?
I feel a tad disappointed about the amount of negativity about this game in these comments. I don't think it was perfect. However for a rookie release from a rookie developer it is really good. So much that people are treating it like it should be measured against top studios with hundreds of employees. They focused on a polished refined experience and this came at a cost of game length, all of development is a game of balancing resources. That said, in the sea of hacked out clones, or soulless open world "Attract every single preference" games, Stray is a rare gem. It treats your time with respect, brings a unique story with a new IP, a fresh perspective both figuratively and literally, and was clearly a game designed of love and passion.
If nothing else I feel Stray deserves the respect it has earned for those reasons. It is the exact kind of game we should be encouraging the industry to aspire to be. With this success, I do hope they make a Stray 2 and that they improve on the design by adding more gameplay elements. I get the complaints I've seen, I just hope people keep in mind what they are judging and with what they have to compare it against.
Last small nit-pick though. Stop calling it a cyberpunk setting. It only qualifies for that in the most basic ways. I'd place it closer to science fiction, yet clearly that isn't a great choice either. The setting is fairly unique in many ways that cause it to be hard to qualify cleanly under a single genre and I think that is to the game's credit. I am actively baffled by the people calling it a cookie-cutter setting because.... it isn't. Save that term for games that deserve it. :)
Mostly, I see _Stray_ as a way of gauging how likely your housemate, significant other or roomie would be to be alright with adopting a cat without actually having to _ask_ them as such -- just fire up the game and invite them to check it out, and if they're melting into gibbering puddles every five minutes when the ginger tabby does a cute thing, it's probably safe to call up the local shelter and ask about their kittens.
I melted into gibbering puddles at the cuteness...still don't want a real live cat in my house lol
@@Brandyalla Allergies, or just too busy to add a cat to your life?
@@Nitrinoxus I have two big dogs and I feel adding a cat would be too much for all of us. If a cat fell into my life I wouldn't turn it away, but I won't go seek one out.
@@Brandyalla That's fair. And yeah, it's sometimes a hassle bringing a new animal into the herd -- I've had to introduce cats to a new dog and vice versa, and there's _definitely_ an adjustment period.
Yahtzee is the sort of person who would level up his "bollocks licking" stat despite it having very limited gameplay benefits. But before you get too comfy laughing at him, just remember: if you could, you probably would, too.
Could be a different take where your cat character isn't really the protagonist at all, just along for the ride as the plucky robot turns out to be the real hero all along.
yeah, i was expecting the robot to use a laser pointer to make the cat do more advanced things.
but then i realised that the cat is also a robot. (drone connected with it (chat) but at first it could not speak with the cat "the new robot language" but then tried something else (the old code that they used) and then the player"cat robot" could understand it, its not an advanced robot, but enough to understand basic commands, and it might also have advanced over the 60000 years of time)
Sounds like they captured what playing as a cat would be like pretty well to me? Everyone's unreasonably obsessed with you, you go along for fun, and in the end just wander on wondering what the heck that was all about.
Spoiler warning I guess.
I don’t know if why, but the ending made me tear up a bit.
It also convinced me about something I liked, even though a lot of people complaint about. The cat is not the protagonist.
B12 is the protagonist. He has a story, he has a quest, he has motivation other than “get back home”. The cat is just the player character that got attached to its robot companion on its way back home.
The cat doesn’t care about the politics of a big wall or how the police wants to keep everyone locked in. It doesn’t care about the humans that in their hubris wiped themselves out before having a chance to open the gates.
The game ends with the cat curling and purring next to his dead robot friend. In the background a world that’s been dead for thousands of years rises from its ashes in the most unremarkable way possible.
I might not know why, but I loved it.
Well said.
I played this with my niece cause I thought I was just a cute cat game, unaware of the dark themes it would gradually introduce.
She cried so much at the ending, when her parents came home they had to convince her the robot just ran out of battery and needed a recharge. 😅
@@koblasco9289 Was she there when the walls had eyes?
I used to play this with my 4yo and luckily she skipped that part :D
@@loupax Oh yeah I did NOT expect the game to go all Aliens vibe.
By herself she definitely would have freaked out but luckily she handles things well with an adult's guidance.
I honestly would have skipped some parts as well if I played the game by myself beforehand.
Luckily she's too young to understand the darker themes but the prison part with the 1984 themes and memory wiping was pretty messed up.
I definitely would have skipped that as well.
I'm curious, what was you two's experience?
First time I played a game with her and it was nice to see her getting hyper excited about every little thing.
@@koblasco9289 She engaged pretty differently when we played. I was reading out all dialogue and she would ask me to let her press the button that makes the kitty sleep :D
She didn't interact with the darker themes because I was playing the game alone and replay the chapter later. I didn't try to hide that B12 dies in the end, or that humanity is extinct but she didn't really care much.
What I was surprised by, was that she likes to bring up the characters when she plays pretend. I'm Momo for the last two weeks, but that's all in general.
If you give the musician the music, he gives you a button, like a lot of other buttons you can get that actually appear on the backpack so
So basically, the game gave you exactly what you expected; you play as a cat, end of story. Whether or not being a cat is fun is all up to you because, again, you're a cat. It's kinda hard to tell.
As a person who enjoyed the game Stray... I get where Yahtzee is coming from. I mean its a game where you control a cat from point a to point b. hard to portray human emotions when its not a human. also yeah there are prompts for the jumping spots... but you could turn the prompts off. And even though its kind of sticky to walk around the jumping platform parts... I don't mind because the alternative where I jump blindly and hope my cat model doesn't slide off like a buttery egg or glitch into a spot that I cant get out of isn't much better.
I also have the mild problem where the game (in one sitting) can be done in 4 hours. and yes, I would have liked a few more hours of stuff to do because just as I was beginning to get into the game, it ends! and I'm left wanting more to see because it IS beautifully made and rendered and what not. It was a nice break from people typing "ur mom" in online shooters or half made glitchy on release games that take a year and a half to hot fix to somewhat acceptable. something where you buy a game and its complete, start to finish
What I am looking forward to is people supporting this game enough that the developers have enough recourses to make more games like it but more in-depth or even have a sequel to Stray all together.
spoilers:
more upon the ending he said. The mini drone (B/12) that helps you out kind of dies but not really (as it hints after you exit the city) and the robots are more than just "acting as humans" because it hints at humans downloading their consciousness into the robot bodies! which is why on the last level of the city the robots have no personalities!
2:20 Interesting that Yahtzee chose the Snarks from Half-Life when every other review made comparisons to the headcrabs.
I can't stop giggling at the terminator png in that pose, looking like it wants to square up but is absolutely scared to do so
"why was my squeaky toy trying to have a moment." That's the same reaction ever cat owner gets when they tell their cat they love them.
the robots have never seen a cat; they maybe have a vague idea of what it is; so the bit where they welcome you as a person works. I was a bit more skeptical that the cat could solve complex puzzles or have any idea at all of wtf was going on though. but well suspension of disbelief and all that; the game works; and they do incorporate cleverly the cat ethos (aka "fuck everything up") into the gameplay
In FF7R you can play every bit of combat as a frog in NG+. So, we COULD get Cat Cloud in the future if they implemented a cat transformation.
In FF3 on DS you could play the entire game as a frog once you get that spell
3:29 They're seeing the robot drone thingy, not the cat. Remember later on when you lose the drone you also lose the ability to understand the robots. So in the core game you are both the drone and the cat in a way(?)
But the robots are definitely talking to the drone.
Well, that begs the question as to why the cat even matters in the narrative. Like he said, it just then feels like the player character could have been anything.
I loved this game, and everything Yahtzee said about it is true. It doesn’t change my opinion of the game one bit, and the video was freakin’ hilarious. Win-win!
Either you have been a long time roomate to a cat, or you have successfully escaped from an abode that was infested with a cat. I fall into the second catagory. Get it! 'Catagory'!...oh shut up, you.
Yes...seeing a non-anthropomophized cat as a protagonist in a video game strikes me as...unlikley to be compelling.
I want to hear him say "adorable toe beans" more often.
ZP's Fifth Blandest Game of 2022, as summed up by Yahtzee:
"As always, The Game Awards showers its indie prizes on whatever passing trend gains sufficient buzz to be deemed worth you hanging with the cool kids, even if it is just a linear hike whose core gameplay lacks any noteworthy feature besides a bumhole-concealing algorithm. It's Stray, a game that you can recreate at home if you happen to own a cat and a laser pointer shaped like a contextual button prompt."
Kinda hits it home for me, the game feels like it was made on the premise of "you run around as a cat" and it just beggs the question "and....?" It feels like half a game, like what we are actually supposed to do in game to have fun was never put in.
Regarding the end note at 5:14, the best use I could come up with for a game mechanic based on hairballs would be plugging certain holes or getting it stuck in machines that stop the cat from going where it wants to.
Frankly I expected this to just be a nicely themed walking simulator. The fact that there is more I would call a positive.
Don’t be mistaken: it’s still a super-casual game. The puzzles are easy, the brief bits of combat are easy, and everything is rather low-stakes. This is intentional. People use “a walk in the park” to mean something that’s too easy, but so what? A walk in the park is really nice sometimes!
I wouldn't say it's unrealistic for cats to react accordingly to things happening or even being spoken to. Hell, I've seen a video with a cat being taught how to loosely communicate with its owner using a series of buttons that speak different words. That and a bit of suspension of disbelief made this game a new personal favorite of mine. I had fun with it.
I figured any semblance of reality was broken when the cat started inserting whole-ass car batteries into sockets and inputting four number codes into keypads.
Either this cat is bumbling his way through these puzzles like a feline Mr Magoo or it's about as smart as those genius 140 iq babies from Brazil.
Or it's nearly 7 million years in the future and cats have gotten a little smarter. :P
The drone was doing all that I think
@@naranciagaming To activate the drone, the cat has to find and slot in 4 batteries after being locked in a room. It is a smart cat.
@@TheColdZephyr ah I see, I'm not good at remembering the starts of games lol
I prefer to think the cat was Magoo-ing through the entire plot. But the emotional bit at the end was real.
Stray is just an example of what happens when you let your cat out and they disappear for a couple of days. You're just thinking they're roaming about somewhere, but they're actually on an adventure saving the world. (Or condemning it) It is a cat after all.
I think that Stray's biggest problem is exactly what you mentioned as well. In the game you're never really treated as a cat. Be it the science drone, the robots, anyone really except your other cat friends. And that just really robbed me on the immersion. Like, everyone treated you as just another character. Tze cat could have been replaced 1 for 1 by a human and the plot would not have changed in the slightest, however some mechanics would have needed to change.
I would have liked it if the character was more treated for what it was. An animal. Not some human like entity.
I absolutely loved this game, but not gonna lie, I wish there was more of it. Plus, the oppressive regime section felt like it progressed too fast for my liking, I would have liked another side quest or so. Plus, the section in the sewers and all the little monsters was intense and I would have enjoyed exploring that more.
Ultimately I saw it as more of a proof of concept game. I'd love to see what else they do with the idea.
Also, the bit where the robot puts the harness on you killed me. So funny 😆
There was a game 4 years ago called Cat Tales that is an rpg where you play as a cat/cats, so Stray isn't the first
0:48 Alley Cat them ol' 8bit computer systems.
my only complaint about this review was that it was too short X'D
“sacrifising yourself for your wheelchair” is one of my new favourite quotes, gotta remember that one
If I were playing as a cat, then I'd expect the world to be made by humans, and to consequently not make very much sense or be convenient to navigate. It'd be filled with people who don't know how to communicate with a cat and won't be much help to me. I'd be forced to find where ever the next set piece is based on context and my expeditioning skills. I can see why this game fell short; Making a game about being a cat sounds pretty hard, but making a game where you control a cat through a fairly standard plot doesn't.
Pretty much. The main character could have been LITERALLY ANYTHING, but everyone thinks it's so cute because they chose a cat.
I can't help but wonder if the original intent of the game was you playing as a human, and the robots being human, too. But then maybe human modeling was too hard, so they turned it into a cat helping robots? The robots are just so incredibly like PEOPLE, down to getting cold, and eating and drinking and getting drunk and creating art and knitting and running laundromats and stuff. And yeah, the actions you take as a cat make just as much sense if you're a human. I enjoyed the game, but couldn't shake the feeling the original intent was different.
I feel the opposite. A game without being able to communicate with anyone would become extremely boring, extremely fast, and I was very pleased when it introduced a way to make it ... a game, by being able to communicate in some way. While also never giving you direct quest markers or any way to respond or ask questions, and thus being the exploration game it needed to be. They have revitalized the silent-protagonist genre
What you're describing is exactly what this game is like. None of that is the issue. The issue is that it was extremely short, and the story suffered because the losses felt meaningless when you've spent less than an hour with each character. And the story itself was rushed as well, filled with plot holes as a result of trying to drive you forward
And, I think the worst infraction, which is a classic problem in most games these days that nobody seems to want to acknowledge... it is front-loaded. All the interesting content is in the first 2 hours, and after that it is empty fluff until the end. 90% of the game is in the first city, and after that they explicitly usher you past the second area, and each area past that just has one tiny quest chain at best, nothing to explore or discover beyond that, nothing to collect.