Stray’s strength is delivering a fun gameplay experience in playing as one of the world’s most adored animals. While its story isn’t going to be attempting to say anything new about the world, it’s hard to pass up the opportunity to play as a cat.
Stray is everything you’d want out of a game playing as a cat, even if it never fully reaches the potential it lays out for itself. Ask any random person on the street to name the one animal they’d want to play in a video game, and I’d wager to say that at least one out of every 3 people would say a cat. Stray takes everything that we love about cats and puts as much as it possibly can into an 8-hour experience without ever becoming over-indulgent.
From the ever-adorable Meow-on-Demand button to being able to scratch on random carpets or vertical objects, Stray encapsulates every bit of the fantasy of living the life of a cat. There are even random locations where you can take a well-deserved cat nap! All of these little touches bring Stray’s protagonist to life, even if none of them offer any gameplay benefit.
Stray’s biggest strength is its simplicity and restraint. Before beginning Stray, I would have thought it was a guarantee that scratching the cat’s claws on carpets or random couches would have sharpened its claws, thereby increasing its combat ability. Instead, these moments are treated with the simple beauty of a cat just being a cat. Yes, some video-game-y elements are thrown into the story for key bits to keep the game moving, but none of them are so indulgent to turn this gorgeous creature into some sort of superhero.
However, I was left wanting just a bit more from some of Stray’s gameplay mechanics. The ability to meow on-demand was adorable and never got old, and certainly added plenty of dynamic moments in cutscenes, but I would have liked to have seen it be utilized more to solve puzzles or navigate the world. Plenty of the robot inhabitants throughout Stray’s world are aware of the cat’s existence; however, none of them seem to react when the cat meows outside of pre-programmed interactions. It’s most certainly a minor gripe, but one that would have made the “Meow Button” more than just a novelty.
Stray’s simplicity does get in the way of its traversal option. While the ability to leap to any clear surface is nice, most paths for puzzles or to navigate the world are non-variable ones that don’t allow any experimentation to solve. With how easy it is to navigate the world, it would have been nice to see a few different options in terms of branching paths to reach the same location. Instead, the world felt like it was guiding the cat as opposed to it using its intellect to find multiple paths.
This review is mostly going to remain spoiler-free, as many of the pieces of equipment and tools that are given to the player are surprises that first-time players should have the joy of experiencing for themselves. However, the cat’s robot companion B-12 is a fantastic addition that expanded how the game is played. While mostly being a narrative companion throughout, B-12 does offer several great tools like a flashlight and a collectible tracker.
Stray is a wonderful game to play through as a cat, but there is one single flaw that I can’t help but acknowledge: the inability to play other breeds/colors of cats. I have 3 cats living with me: Jonesy (my lovable orange cat), Pearl (the Queen herself), and Eevee (Our little black cat, AKA Ze Bo Beeb). While it was fun to play through Stray as an orange cat, it would have been amazing to be able to play as a grey or black cat (like my cat Pearl and Eevee, respectively). Even if this was a feature locked behind needing to play through the story once to unlock, it would have been a welcome one.
Stray is both hit and miss on its visual styling. The overall world, while seeping with dread and despair, is often lit beautifully with its neon aesthetic. It’s my understanding that the cat animations are all motion-captured, which gives the cat so much life on-screen. On the other hand, the cat model itself can look a bit visually wonky at times in certain conditions. It’s not always apparent, and let’s be real: it’s hard to make a cat not cute.
I think my biggest letdown with Stray was its story. Throughout, it felt as though the writers of Stray were attempting to take a stand on many different social issues that we face today. Classism, xenophobia, and gross industrialist tendencies take the forefront of Stray’s story, but I never got the impression that the game was trying to say anything at all. It often took the route of laying out all of these issues the world is dealing with, without actually either addressing or offering any semblance of commentary on them. I’m not sure there are many stories set in Stray’s world that haven’t already been told, and seeing them through the perspective of a cat is not one that I feel was handled well. Especially when the cat’s robot companion B-12 is easily able to translate everything going on in the world, all of Stray’s subtlety is lost.
Stray’s strength is delivering a fun gameplay experience in playing as one of the world’s most adored animals. While its story isn’t going to be attempting to say anything new about the world, it’s hard to pass up the opportunity to play as a cat. Each level never overstays its welcome, and Stray’s puzzles are never so complicated that they become infuriating. It’s a game that knows what its players want out of playing as a cat and delivers.
