Stray (2022)

I've had this on my backlog for a while and after finally having gotten around to it, I'm glad that I did!

I really liked the characters and the setting was interesting. The puzzles weren't all that challenging and I more-so felt like I would just get confused with the layout of the levels (perhaps I just don't have that cat-like intuition), but I really enjoyed my time here.

The music, while hit or miss in some areas, had absolutely stunning moments that made walking around and enjoying the scenery just perfect.

Highly recommend, especially if you are a lover of cats.

I had always been interested in playing Stray right from when I heard the premise - who doesn't love wandering around a post-apocalyptic underground city as a cat? While the mechanics of the game are quite simple (the cat has basically three abilities, jump, scratch and using a torch) the introduction of the story about 10 minutes into the gameplay immediately engaged me and made me want to continue.

Stray doesn't disappoint: the story is intriguing and one of the things I most loved was the beautiful Bladerunner-esque sceneries that you get to explore, which reminded me of the eerie underground landscapes in Portal 2. I also enjoyed the fact that hints towards the story are delivered through Memories, which do not need to be collected to complete the game, giving the player an incentive to search every area and a reward for doing so. The same goes for the special badges/achievements you can collect by finding secret items. it didn't bother me that most of these weren't difficult to find, because I feel that having to spend ages looking for a certain item would have detracted from the pace of the game.

However, Stray is not perfect. There are basically three types of gameplay in Stray: puzzles, roaming an area freely to explore for items, and fighting/running. I feel that the game is at its best when the player is allowed to explore the beautiful cities, as this is where the ability to play as a cat feels most unique. In contrast, the parts where you have to run and swerve to avoid enemies felt like other games I had played before (any number of Nintendo games for example).

Also, there were moments where it felt like the plot was building towards a crescendo, and it did not always follow this up. For example, when the Stray travels through the underground and sees the massive Flesh Eyeballs, I kept expecting that this would build to some sort of confrontation between the eyes and the Stray, or perhaps that the player would have to attack them with the light. Yet what actually happened was a brief chase by some Zurks, which felt slightly anticlimactic. Furthermore, the design of the final area felt like it could have been pushed a bit further, to show what the long-destroyed human society had been like, although perhaps the game creators wanted to save this for a possible sequel.

I have seen others comment that the game is not adapted to PC very well, and while the game did run fine on my (mid level) PC, it did lag occasionally. However, this was not a massive issue.

Overall, a really great game and definitely worth the money, even though its not quite enough to become one of my favourite games.

Stray was a fun family game. The kids loved the cute cat motions and sounds. The cat moved very realistically and for an indie game was very creative graphically and in level design.

My biggest issue with the game was that gameplay mostly amounted to pressing 'x' to hop around on and off things. The gameplay was a little more interesting when we received the item that would fight the Zurks, but overall the vibe of the game was much more chill. Ultimately, it was a fun 5ish hour experience but is not something that I will remember much after a few games. I was blown away to see how many times this game showed up on people's GOTY lists last year...it's by no means a bad game, but the gameplay is just not very strong. I think cat nostalgia gets a lot of people.

Stray is a game of simple pleasures, as it should be with a cat as the main character. You jump around, drop stuff from shelves, scratch every surface you can and make people trip as you move between their feet. The problem is, there isn't much else to do to satisfy our human sensitivities.

Game looks and sounds beautiful, but exploration is very limited aside from the two hub areas. The story can be intriguing, but it's also kinda predictable and it has a very lackluster payoff. I never cared about any of the characters except the cat himself.

The game has some clear limitations, but also a very important pro: you play as a cat and can cause mayhem around you without any consequence, and then curl and rest on the belly of some random stranger. Charming moments like these are what really elevates this game above its mostly pedestrian game design, along with a gorgeous art style and a sensibly brief length with a brisk pace. Even when you are simply doing fetch quests, controlling a cat makes them feel distinct and somewhat unique compared to other games.

If you got it free on any of the PS+ higher tiers, you should play this game ASAP. Otherwise, it's still worth a playthrough if you find it on sale. And, as expected, it's a mandatory buy if you are a cat lover.

Great indie game for 1 or 2 evenings. I really like aesthetics of post-apocaliptic underworld, inhabited with not humans but robots. Every single location in this game is beautiful, atmospheric, and feels alive, even though most of this worlds inhabitants are not organic. Artists did magnificent job when worked on this project.

Story telling in Stray is also on point, when i walked around the locations and was listening to our flying robot friend and talking with strangers, i felt greatly attached despite the game being so short.

Gameplay is decent, i really liked it overall. Run segments with zurks and stealth chapters with sentinels were intence, puzzle and exploration levels were atmospheric and comforting. But in my opinion controls in Stray are way too simplified, all you have to do mostly is press walk, sprint and action buttons. Developers could come up with way more interesting and responsive movement than this, especially when you are playing such a agile and nimble creature as cat.

Overall Stray is a great game for short time, highly recommended. Too bad that it gets so hyped and appreciated just for a cat, even though it would be as good as it is, if you played human/robot/bird or anything else. People really miss the point when they are trying to like this game.

I am on the rooftop now and up to this point I liked everything about the game.

Unfortunately I got stuck at a section, where no matter how I tackle this, there are too many Zurks. It does not help that I play this with an XBOX controller for the cute purring and I have not used one for years, so my fingers do not always work fast enough.

Might give it another try tomorrow, maybe with mouse and keyboard too.

I thought how high can i expect from a game where u play as a cat. Damn i was blown.

• Pros

Really good visuals.Some scenes were really jaw dropping.

Gameplay was smooth with only minor inconveniences.

Characters were really fun to interact with eventhough some were plain and dead.

Surprisingly really scary at times.

- Cons

Puzzles were fun but too simple.

Could've added more lore about what actually happened before this all happened.

Gave me a nostalgic feeling of playing Jak 2 as a kid. Being interested in this dingy slum in a curious explorative way. Being a driving force in a story I knew I wasn’t fully involved in. I haven’t felt this sense of explorative wonder in a while.

Which makes it regrettable that there’s areas you can’t come back to. The wonder I felt eventually became a source of anxiety knowing that missing a collectible meant replaying a whole chapter.

I really love this game, from the beginning to the end!

Today i finished the story and i really can't express how good this game was.

The story, the sounds, the graphics, it's just a completed really good game. It's not that hard too.

Sometimes i was lost on what to do, but after a bit lookaround i found everything.

If you looking to play a story game that has really good graphics, a good story and a cat as the main character i really reccomend it to you. The story is not too much, you don't need to really think while playing and it's not graphic so children can play it too.