Recent reviews by (Phil)

A friend gifted me this game as a source of inspiration as a game developer.

I really enjoy what this game attempts to emulate. Being strongly Zelda inspired the game relies a lot on its puzzles and dungeon items to reach the end goal and nabbing all of the available side items.
Dungeon design is simple, but effective in discouraging rushing head-first into problems. The spritework and music are delightfully charming and make the most out of their forced limitations. I was really impressed with the amount of expression and characterization in the small but various foes you'll encounter.

My first blind playthrough clocked in about 45 minutes which admittedly is extremely short for a game asking more than $5. The game rectifies this with a Speedrun mode and an unfair mode. (I'll discuss the latter in a moment)
There's also an additional gamemode separate from the main campaign which features a 50 floor dungeon where you defeat all enemies on each floor to advance to the next which progressively gets harder as you go. As you defeat enemies you'll earn EXP which can be used to purchase buffs to your various tools and other stats like HP and Speed. I really enjoyed it while playing it, but certain upgrades decrease the challenge tremendously which harms any replay value it may have.

This in total put me at about 12 hours of playtime with only 1 achievement left; beating Unfair Mode.
This challenge is brutal to say the least. You must complete the main campaign without taking ONE SINGLE HIT, and there are no checkpoints. For a 15 minute game this definitely isn't too big of an undertaking compared to other hardmodes, but this game clearly wasn't designed with no damage in mind. Nothing would be more annoying than to be on the final phase of the last boss only to get caught on one of the grapple gems, getting hit by a projectile, killing your attempt. And every attempt REQUIRES you to watch a 20 second unskippable cutscene without any way to skip it.
I'm not sure how many attempts I had, but definitely in the hundreds, which is a shame, because this challenge really defeats any further drive to ever replay this game again.

I understand most casual players will never even consider attempting these challenges, but as a completionist who finds frustration with grindy based achievements like speedrunning/no damage runs, I wish I could say that playing the game this way made me appreciate it in a unique way after completing it, but unfortunately that's not the case for me.

While I may never pick up this game again, I do think this game offers a far better experience for casual fans of Zelda who want a quick unintrusive title they can easily beat in a day.

4/5
7/10

I wish I could leave this game with at *least* an 8/10, but the longer I played, the more tired I got.

Towards the last few levels, I grew really tired of seeing the same kinds of items like underwear and various small 1 x 1 knickknacks and having to put them away the same ways I had done before. I understand that the counter to this is "It's like this in real life." but to me, it just made unpacking rooms like the bathrooms especially fatiguing.

After the story is completed, there really is no reason to return to the game on a new save file, or return to your previous work because of the nature of the game's story. You know what's going to happen, and a lot of the mystery/shock is really only effective while you're pulling the items from their boxes the first time.
Some achievements are really charming and require interacting with items a certain way, while others are given out like free candy for doing nothing which makes their existence seem meaningless, and harms a lot of the replay value in trying to earn them post-game. I cleaned up the remaining 5 achievements I had in no less than 10 minutes.

While I think the pixel art in the game is outstanding and a highlight in the indie scene, I was very disappointed in the music.
For a sandbox-like game, there just isn't any tracks that stood out to me. I couldn't hum anything even if you offered me money, and they don't loop seamlessly, instead going for a few seconds of white noise before looping, making the tracks even more forgettable.

The biggest turn down for me is the asking price. The game does seem to go on sales pretty frequently, but I do not think I can recommend this game for any more than $10 maximum. There are just so many other games I would recommend for that price that offer more meaningful content which really makes me upset.

I really wish there was a complete sandbox mode that alloys you to decorate a room using any items you wish from a selection. Picture Animal Crossing New Horizon's DLC as a widespread example.

As-is, I really wish I could recommend the game, but it I have to squint my eyes a bit too much to give it a thumbs up.
Get it on sale if possible.

2/5
5/10

I recommend this game with a ‘BUY THIS GAME ON SALE’ disclaimer.
I purchased the game at a 10% discount which cost me about $22 which is just a bit too steep of an asking price for its current release.

EDIT: There’s been a patch! It’s addressed several big issues I’ve had with the initial release, and I’ve 100% the game on the current patch.

Little Kitty, Big City is a game made for cat lovers, and is designed around a sandbox open world in which you do cat-like things such as meowing obnoxiously, sneaking up and pouncing on birds, and knocking down pottery and other physics props off of shelves and furniture, all in the name of cuteness and mischievousness.

I use the word sandbox because although this game has a main objective, it encourages you to pursue the many side objectives and activities at your own pace and in your order of choice.
There’s only one form of exploration gating, and that ties into the main objective.

The game can easily be breezed through in less than two hours or so, but it strongly encourages you to explore the city and complete all of its side objectives and achievements for a more satisfying play-through.
You are doing the game a huge disservice by rushing straight to the end on a first play-through and judging it solely on that alone.

The side activities are all really charming, and the rewards are really cute. You collect hats for your kitty to wear, which range from foods to animals, with some Japanese themed ones sprinkled in as well.
I do think that the game has too many fruit themed hats for my taste, and, a nitpick for sure, but I prefer hats that allow the cat’s ears to poke out more than ones that completely cover them, which the game unfortunately has more of.

Not too far into the game you can unlock a snapshot mode, which is really cool to see in an indie title. I do wish there were some filters you could apply in the mode, but it’s a harmless addition at worst. It can be very janky to use as well, but I found a better use for it in looking around the environment for solutions to platforming puzzles which the game has a good amount of.

There is definitely a strong sense of jank and glitcheyness throughout the game as a whole. I never encountered any clipping outside of the intended play zone, but I did manage to sequence break learning a pretty crucial mechanic in the game, locking my first save out of a 100% completion, losing me a full hour of playtime. Since the first patch however, this bug has been fixed and I was actually able to continue play on that save file!

There are unfortunately some grindy achievements that fall under the “do one thing X times” which I personally find really annoying. The best way to earn some of them is to save and quit the game to reload all of the RNG checks to speed up the process, making it more of a hassle to earn, and not really fun or meaningful.

There were some buggy achievements at the game’s launch, but have since been patched, which is really good to see for any game. I have huge respect for the devs for addressing nearly all the bugs I encountered and more.
It has a really strong foundation, and if the first patch is anything to go off of, this game has the potential to be a perfect comfort game for all players. A few QoL additions like a camera reset button, and maybe a price drop, and I could absolutely recommend this title at full price.

4/5
8/10

I wish I could write a huge essay on why you should play this game, but it needs to be experienced without any expectations. It's very charming, sweet, and so emotional, yet it restrains itself from being too upfront with its storytelling.
It's just pure passion and love.

Thank-you Laura for this experience. Truly one of the sweetest games I've played, one which I did not escape without crying.
Cannot recommended it more than that.

Why are there achievements in the base game that REQUIRE this DLC?
Why was this a paid DLC in the first place?

Specs:
RAM - 16.0GB (32 GB is the recommended RAM for Ultra settings)
Graphics - RTX 3080 (the recommended GPU is RTX 4080)

First off you NEED to install Nvidia's DLSS 3 driver to run this game which is something I had look up when the game would not run after launching.

Second, the game runs poorly.
maxed out all settings, my GPU's fans screaming in pain, the game runs at 30 FPS - 50 FPS MAX, and never stays consistent.

Third, The lighting.
Lighting in any video game, especially Portal is not something you really consider vital towards intuitive map design until you factor in the obnoxious color bleeding certain lighting can do to the walls, which in a game where colored walls clue in where the player should place portals leads to a lot of confusion and misdirection.

I have replayed Portal 1 countless times on different systems and this was the first time I've ever lost my bearings in the game.




I think overall the game is harmless and if you can run it at a stable frame rate, then there's no harm in seeing the cool ray tracing, but I would not recommend this over base portal and definitely not for a player's first experience in the game.

If it's your first play-through of Portal, don't play this.

For a simple 2 hour plus game, it doesn't get stale with its level design and themes. It also packs a surprisingly decent amount of post-game content if you want more challenges.
The price point is a little too steep for my liking, but on sale it's definitely worth a try.

I'm in space