I just played this game called 'Stray' over the week just to check out what all the hype was about. Before I go on, I would like to say that it's a pretty decent game. I can see why there are people who loved and hate it. Here I'm just going to pen down thoughts I find about the game.

Sorry about the word vomit in advance, and of course, spoilers from here on!

The UI design of the game starts of minimalistic and that kind of fell off as the game progresses. I fully empathize that it is very difficult to have a truly 'minimalistic' UI but still, I think they can do a bit better.

I really loved the setting and the design of the robots in the game. The cats are really cute and the animations were done well. The designers clearly put a lot of care into the cats.

I'm a bit disappoint over some of the details though. For example, I was able to trip a person once, but never again. In this way, it felt like every event I experienced in the game felt too scripted and static.

Gameplay was generally okay.

It was actually surprisingly difficult to predict what kind of 'level' the game is going to throw at me next, which is good because I did not lose interest throughout the game. This is probably attributed to the vastly different genre that each level represents (i.e. runners, 'parkouring', exploration, stealth...beat 'em up?).

The basic parkour gameplay felt a LOT like Assassin's Creed, so I didn't feel any 'magic' in that regard. If anything it felt like a less dynamic version of Assassin's Creed's implementation. This was when I realized that AC is made in 2007; almost 15 years ago? We have really come a long way. But then again, people love cats so...that makes it better I guess?

Okay now for things I couldn't stand.

Maybe it's just me but I wasn't sure why I needed to help the robots. All I was interested in was returning to the three cats that abandoned me, which I didn't and that made me felt that there is no closure to the game (yes yes, there's a closure to the setting, but meow! I have to get back at my bros!)

I also tilted at every uneven steps the game had. They clearly have the collision of a slope, so that kind of broke immersion for me in an otherwise beautiful world.

Finally, I cannot understand why are there conveniently placed 'platforms' on every two steps of a ladder. I understand that it helps the player proceed but c'mon, it felt so lazy.

I think that's all I have to say about Stray. Good game. Good music. Good experience. Definitely worth the buy in my opinion. The developers wanted to make an adventure game with a cat main character and they did it.

I look forward to their next game.

I give this game a meow out of 10.