Stray is the long-awaited game where we control an adventurous feline looking to get back to his friends. We tested the game on PC via Steam, and PS5, and we tell you how we live this experience.
The simulation genre has several edges to explore. We could say that the GTA or the Red Dead Redemption They are, in quotes, a kind of title where we simulate living the daily life of another person, whether it is a thug who has to exercise and go out to steal, or someone from the old west, complying with the rules of that time and with a horse as the main vehicle. There are also simulators like the Euro Truck simulator, PowerWash Simulatoror the House Flipper, where the simulation is limited to a particular profession. Or maybe games like The Sims, Planet Coaster or SimCity. Either way, Stray is nothing like anything already established. You have a different quest.
We tried Stray in its PC version via Steam and on PS5 through the download included in the PS Plus Deluxe service.
For many, Stray is just a cat simulator. And yes, minimizing the proposal and being terribly basic with the statement, the descent would be correct. But the game is much, much more than just a simulator: it is an immense, emotional experience, which has a particular search in its message. Those of us who are animal lovers in general or, well, those who have or have been lucky enough to have a cat in their lives, surely they can live this title from another side. Not better, not worse, just different.
And it is that, although we are controlling a kitten in a dystopian future, the behavior of our main character has a very distinctive down to earth. The beginning of the game, the first minutes, set that pattern: literally, we are forced to interact with our kitty friends as any cat would, with their characteristic movements.
After a few minutes, and once inside this lifeless city, we are going to see how our kitten scratches itself or washes itself with its paws if we leave the control still, or how it digs its claws into a carpet or the walls, how it pulls the things on top of any table or shelf, how it reacts to different elements that we come across. That composition of the character, trying for maximum realism to generate empathy with the player, is one of the best decisions in the game. When we let our protagonist take a nap, the camera slowly moves away, with a very relaxing ambient music, making it clear what is intended with the game.
Tricoin The Last Guardian, also generated that unconditional love for his behavior. His movements, his implied tenderness. But everything was tied to the friendship with the main character. The search was to empathize precisely with that friendship, with the feeling that can unite any of us with our counterparts in the animal kingdom, be it a dog, a cat, or the animal that is part of our lives.
In stray, the search aims to connect us as players, directly with the feline protagonist. You don’t have to live a friendship from the outside, being spectators of two characters who forge that feeling during their adventure. Here, it is to put ourselves in the shoes of that adventurous kitten, but without losing our role as a player, making it clear that although we can make the cat do what we want, it is as if it had a life of its own. It is as if we only marked the way for him.
The environment, a cyberpunk Hong Kong-style city, full of illuminated signs and robots that act like human beings, with their ancestral clothing and customs. The game, although it allows you to intelligently navigate the entire city, does not allow you to climb or climb everything you see. very cleverly, the game points you to which places you can access, but it does not feel like the paths are linear, since many times we can get to the same place in different ways.
And in times where there is only one way to get there, the design and layout of elements like air conditioners, ledges, railings, and roofs are so well integrated with the apartments and buildings that they really give that much-needed sense of freedom.
As we said before, only when a jump is possible does the indicator appear on the screen. This means that we have to move the game camera to find the best possible place to reach the desired destination. This detail means that decision-making power remains in our hands. And as Stray has a much more emotional search, seeking to be a visual experience and for our sensesthere is no danger of death.
The jumps are always accurate, because the focus is on the route and how we get to know the story, and not on its difficulty. In this case, the platforms are not an excuse to generate moments of tension or influence the difficulty of the game, but they are the way to go. The search for freedom, the necessary route to return to our friends.
But beware, It’s not that we can’t die on Stray. Perhaps it is not because of the heights, because of a miscalculation or because of some slippery surface. The danger that resides in the streets of this industrialized and robotized metropolis are the Zurk, small robots with a shape that looks like a mix between crabs, turtles, echinoderms and armadillos, which although they have a cute appearance, are dangerous and lethal. Our only way to get out alive if we reach an area infested with these enemies is simply to run, move to all sides, dodge them and, if they catch us from the body when they jump, we must meow and press the indicated button quickly, since that, if we manage to get them off our back right away, they are going to take our life and hopes with them.
The game, if we start spinning fine, is a game of exploration. Most of the time we are going to spend going through balconies, rooftops or the interiors of certain buildings, looking for something in particular or solving different puzzles. When they appear Zurkeverything turns to chaos and the gameplay turns into a frantic high-speed chase, where not only do we have to move around and get rid of enemies, but we also have to make quick decisions about which way to go.
These decisions are almost instantaneous, while we control everything else, and although they are spaced out in game time, they are a good contrast to the tranquility that the game transmits during the rest of its minutes. And in order not to break this sense of continuity, the developers of BlueTwelve Studio They put checkpoints very often, so that if we lose, we can continue not too far in the advance.
It is worth mentioning, at this point, that BlueTwelve Studios is not a giant studio. In fact, it’s a small studio that managed to do something huge on a shoestring budget. In terms of production design, what it achieves visually is incredible. Not only the exteriors, full of green and life, but the city itself, which, although devoid of organic life, is full of life thanks to the masterful movement capture of the robots, and the entire city that seems to be a swarm of digital life , as if I could breathe in a heap of cement, steel and neon lights.
That’s where the visual section comes into play, which beyond its cyberpunk conceptual beauty, also has some great designs, very careful in detail. Every door, every window, every interior with its rugs, its books, its outdated technology, its posters, its memories. Every corner of the city, its corridors, its alleys, its small houses, its billboards. The light work you have stray It’s wonderful, and it gives the game immense realism. They give you life. Like the faces with LED lights of the robots, which give them personality and feelings. It’s worth mentioning again, but the work on the visuals of the game really left us speechless.
How we see this game is going to be crucial to enjoy it. The best posture, at least for us, is to sit back and let the game guide us. Let the experience take us by the hand throughout the proposal. Enter without expectations. Because strayas we said at the beginning, It is not a typical game, it is not part of a genre that we can question. It is a game that does not admit comparisons, and where any comparison is, perhaps, only a small part of its totality.
If we expect a God of Warif we expect a tomb Raidera Unchartedif we expect a Mirror’s Edge… everything will, at some point, be unnecessary. stray you may like it more, you may like it less. But there is something that the game does have, and it is its particular quest, its originality from that point of view, and as such, it turns out to be a beautiful and, moreover, rewarding experience.
RELEASE DATE | July 19, 2022 |
DEVELOPER | BlueTwelve Studio |
DISTRIBUTOR | Annapurna Interactive |
PLATAFORMS | PC, PS4, PS5 |