Stray (Zero Punctuation)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews Stray.
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So, doing the sidequests like getting all the sheet music, gives you button pins that go on your harness automatically.
This is "Sir, are you aware you are a cat?" Taken to it's logical extreme. Except you are fully aware you are a cat, it's everyone else that needs to do a double take.
-He saved us all from the goverment party.
-HE IS JUST A CAT
-He saved my life in the battlefield.
-HE WAS JUST LICKING HIMSELF
-He is the hero of the revolution!
"Sir, are you aware that I am a cat?"
tbf if you asked a cat if it was self-aware and it said yes, you'd probably do a double take too
An unintentional Sir Bearington.
I appreciate the effort the animators made to ensure that the cats butthole is always obscured by the tail, even if it does make the tail look broken. At least somebody learned a lesson from "Cats" the movie.
I've had like, 2 cats all my life. Those fucking tails can do some shit.
@@zackwalker2172 yeah but a cat's tail is generally up when standing if it's healthy. Though a cat's tail is part of how it communicates so they aren't constantly of course
I tend to find that the House cats do that, especially around humans, but wildcats will keep their’s down most of the time, almost like they’re trying not to be spotted by every hawk in a 30 mile radius.
I'm too lazy to confirm that so just take this upvote
I don't appreciate how you came to know that tid-bit of information.
I'm pretty sure that the robots actually don't know what a cat is and how sentient (or not) they are. The lore of the game is that this robot community has been sealed in this underground city for centuries and have no knowledge of what is outside. Your first meeting with them actually goes kinda bad because they think you're a "Zurg" (aka a mutant bacteria that eats metal) and they all hide from you. So it kinda make sense that the robots treat you like an actual sentient being because they're not aware what animals are and how they behave.
They think you're a particularly cute type of robot.
Yeah, even though one might think that upon seeing a creature someone has never encountered before, they would be super confused or afraid, the Companions have never seen anything that isn't another Companion(aside from the one's in the Slums). So it makes sense that they would treat you the same way they treat their fellow Companion
Don't most of them call you "fuzzy quadruped"? And the few who mention the concept of a pet cat talk about it in a very distant way, like they're not even sure its relevent.
Don’t try to apply logic to Yahtzee’s reviews
@@eloraandkhan3288 if you're talking about the robot in the city giving the small robot a talk, he was 100% talking about 'a small fuzzy robot' so it looks like most bots think the cat is also a some kinda robot .
See, this is what happens when a man with the personality of a cat reviews a game where you play as a cat.
Ironically enough, he's a dog person
surprisingly accurate
Catboy Yahtzee
@@thecryingsoul Cahtzee
@@Medytacjusz Cahtzee Crochet
Tbh all these emotional events sound like we need a Video of all these moments cut together with occasional reaction shots of the cat not caring and we have a pretty good comedy video without having to put in any effort
Sounds like something dunkey would do to great result
Chonkers, go on without me, you are our only hope!
*immediately begins licking its genitals*
@@acalmerkarma I need it now.
Email Dunkey. NOW!
I mean isn't this exactly what the game did? When you're falling down the hole in the beginning your cat siblings don't look like they give a f.
@@acalmerkarma Who is dunkey?
I feel like if they'd gone for more of a "Untitled Goose Game but with realistic graphics and you play as a cat" type deal rather than "Half-Life 2 mod where Gordon Freeman is replaced with a cat and no-one notices" type serious story, it would have felt more tonally consistent and led to a less confusing experience.
Goose Game was boring but I get what your saying - more cat, less cyberpunk bs
I liked the game but i can see a game where you mr beane your way through 'helping' the revolution as a little chaos gremlin (cat) would have been more fun
This, when I saw the first trailer and the game looked like jus a cat wondering around a city doing cat things I was so very excited.
Then the next trailer I saw revealed the robot companion with all the story baggage that comes with it and all my excitement just drained away.
I don't get why everyone is moaning. I thought the game was great. People expect their exact criteria to be met with every game they play these days. Just accept the game and the mechanics for what it is and enjoy yourself. That's what video games are all about.
You don't hear people bitching about the piranhas in sonic the hedgehog jumping up out of thin air... cos it doesn't matter and no-one got bogged down with the shit back then.
Simpler, better times
@@MrRayedwards83 Most people are not moaning. The game sold multiple millions of copies on PC alone, and it currently sits at a 97% positive rating on Steam. Whenever something gets popular it invites a vocal minority of critics and trolls. That's not to say that Stray is perfect (it isn't), I just wouldn't take "internet outrage" for anything more than a small group of people who crave attention and always need something to be upset about.
I like the bits where you explore the hub and interact with the robots. But I also wish there was something more rewarding than buttons and changing the color of the cat's backpack.
Also Yahtzee made me realize I'd love a game that's just basically Thief with a cat.
I mean. Sly Cooper is SORT OF that but with a raccoon?
Also like "Hey all that work you did to change the backpack color? Yeah, hello ENDING, hope you intend to replay the game"
Cat Burglar writes itself. Why wouldn't a cat want to screw over every human it could by sneakily making off with their savings?
someone tell the devs that we want 'Thief but your a cat'. The goal could be to find all the squeak toys and hide them under the couch. Or Assassins creed but your targets are birds and rats with the optional spider mini game.
It is not thief with cat..thief was multi layered level design without contextual button prompt that forces linear progression..this is more like a cinematic platformer with restrictive design..not the same.
There is a story that the CIA tried training cats to go into secure locations with monitoring devices. The story goes that the cats were clever enough to get in, but just could not be asked to actually complete their missions, and they kept getting distracted by anything looking tasty/shiny.
Fun fact though in that ending where the cat turns around they're blinking in such a way that real life cats do when they like/trust you
People think cats dont mourn or know when something dies but they do
Also the way the cat nuzzled and curled up next to the little drone. Yeah the face says nothing (because it's a cat) but the body language was on point.
@@justindortheblunderwizard Of course they know when something dies, usually they're the ones killing shit so you bet your ass they're aware of it.
@@volcryndarkstar true.
The ones with the most value for life are the ones who take it.
did you just make that up?
Crying because the squirrel won't bum you a cigarette is officially the zp line I have laughed hardest at.
3:17 "Adorable toe beans"
Things I never would have imagined Yahtzee saying.
But he said it angrily for that authentic Yahtzee experience
Once upon a time there was a TV commercial from IKEA about replacing a desk lamp that continually tilted down. When the lamp is placed by the curb, tilting timed to orchestra music in a minor key and lit to evoke sadness and despair the narrator says, "Here you are feeling sorry for a broken lamp. That is because you are crazy. The new one is much better and not broken."
...I thought the thing I hated most was the prevalence of manipulative media, but now I know that it's actually being made fun of by the manipulative media for being manipulated.
@@SapphireDragon357 The scary part is commercial manipulation and all the other ways companies pressure (FOMO) and/or shame you into buying their products was invented by this one a$$hole who used psychology to target our lizard brains.
The way he says "'cause it's a fuckin' cat" at 4:25 is the perfect amount of exasperation.
My favorite part of Stray was when the main character caught a rat in its mouth and broke its back before setting it down and watching it slowly crawl away before it ran up and brought it back, just to watch it all over again.
The freaky thing here is... I don't know if this is a joke or not, I've seen things get dark just out of nowhere before.
Well researched, this is what cats do.
Yes because cats are actually evil and no one seems to have caught on...they have BARBED penises, thats something you expect from a demon.
@@PaladinGear15 the thing is that it isn't all that dark, it's just what cats do, play and hunting are the same thing to them
@@liamzakhaev i guess it enjoys hunting so much it gives its prey false hope of survival only to make it as long and painful as possible
Honestly, I've thought a few times that a game where you pay as a cat in a survival setting would be cool. Don't give too much weight to the cat by shouldering it with high level concepts a cat wouldn't care about, but maybe frame it as one of those feel good stories where a cat treks cross country to reunite with a family that lost the cat. Add some unique cat skills via skill tree or stats you can boost, actually put the cat in some tense situations like fighting off big rats nests, a stray dog or two, animal catchers, etc., and I think there's a solid premise there if done right.
I heard about a game like that recently- don't remember the name, but you are a mother fox escorting your fox children to a nature preserve, with threats from mother nature and humans to protect your little ones from during the journey.
@@timothycarney9652 That could be cool, I'l look out for that.
@@gregvs.theworld451 it's called endling, came out same day as stray! Which was honestly a little unfortunate for endling because stray definitely took a decent chunk of opening week players 🤕
Excuuuuuuse me Yahtzee, dog people also had Dogs Life for the PS2 and it was mind-numbingly absurd.
I've listened to a few thoughts on the matter, and I'm kind of convinced that the robots actually have no clue about what a "cat" is. They refer to Stray as a "furred robot" so honestly, they probably don't know.
Which explains why you only get pet like three times total. Which was my only real annoyance of the game, gimme the cat more pets!
@@RevolutionaryLiger In the slums one of the robots on the roof mentions it felt the urge to pet it, it said it wouldnt because it couldn't figure out why it wanted to do so.
@@RevolutionaryLiger SAAAAME! My only complains is that there were very few pets.
: No thoughts, head empty
This is a game that knows who it's core audience is, which is "cat fans with a bit of halflife-style exploration, who are there for the journey not the ending." The game itself is great for what it is. You play as a cat. You can only die by one thing, which keeps you from all the pitfalls of platformers, while occasionally breaking some tension when the cat won't jump from the deadlies because you're not facing the right direction to so so.
The game has a lot of distractions like knocking over pots and books, tripping robots to make them faceplant, just cause you can. There's a fair bit of environmental storytelling.
Ultimately, it's above "walking simulator" style gameplay, more of an adventure game where the puzzles are obvious and the difficulty comes from the exploration (how do I get up there), rather than the repetitive conversation tress, or inventory-object-pixel-hunt of P&C adventure games.
I don't care that much about cats but I really enjoyed the game; it's gorgeous and has a great atmosphere; it's short and to the point; it blends different gameplays with an exploration/adventure core elegantly; it's maybe not extremely involved but it's perfect for a week end. (also people say 4 hours; if you take your time it's more 7 or 8 hours).
@@valdir7426 I finished it in 10 hours, then went back to find a few missing collectables and had a final time of just over 12. I did a lot of just running around looking at the world. I wish it were longer (and that the sewer section was substantially more like the rest of the game)
The fact Yahtzee still remember cod ghosts shows he has a better memory than the call of duty community cuz unless it’s mentioning fish ai or extinction it’s really forgotten
In the final scene the cat slow blinks at you which is their way of showing love and care. Unlike dogs cats don't have the facial control to emote like humans, so for cat people who understand cat body language, the cat is actually very emotive!!!
"Sicking up hairballs" It'd be one of those 'watch the slider move up and down a bar and press the button in the green zone at the top' minigames. The green zone starts extremely small and every miss makes it bigger with a gross hacking sound/animation.
For some reason, the terminator wearing multiple oversized hats is one of the funniest things to me
0:35 a game where you play as a cat is far from unprecidented. one of the first games I ever played was one where you played as a cat and it was a rather famous one for the time. it was called "Alley cat"
Scrolled down to see if someone mentioned Alley Cat!
Booyah!
That bastard dog, though.
OMG YESSSS!!!
I can hear the music!
yes! alley cat was my fav game as a kid, i still remember crying when i drowned in the fishbowl XD
The funny implication of the robots treating the cat as a verbal and aware being means they'll likly be doing the same for every animal they meet on the outside, now that they're free.
I can just imagine them meeting bigger cats like a couger or lynx. "Fine day to you sir, please refrain from mauling me please, as I find it quite unpleasant".
I'm surprised he never went into how a lot of the times, the cat's first instinct is to murder things.
God they really understood cats didnt they
Yahtz's points and the fact that the game gives explicit indications that the cat understands language and symbols, that it has claws capable of cutting through concrete, and the very nature of the deep future setting had me expecting a classic scifi reveal that the cat isn't a cat (or at least, isn't just a cat). Just a line or two of dialogue or text indicating that Humanity uplifted and modified every living thing around itself (so the cat is as much a cat as a Boeing 747 is a pigeon) would have made a lot more things make sense. Maybe that'll be in the next game.
I think it's the robot translating the symbols n stuff, but when was it able to claw thru concrete? if u mean the Mufasa Inciting Incident then I think they're just for stylistic choice to show the urgency(?) of the cat needing to climb up.
@@yourmomsjorts The robot translating the symbols into what? Cats don't have a language to translate symbols into.
The cat in this game is clearly not just a cat. It understands language (B/12 gives it directions and discuses with the cat its memories), makes conscious decisions (solving puzzles, like the one with platforms in the club where B/12 makes no explanation if I remember correctly), uses logic (getting out of a locked cage by swinging) and is emotional (sorrow for a lost friend). It knows what “a drink” is and understands the concepts of exchange (a drink for a handle). Also I’m glad the game was so short. I mean, I might one day finish Elden Ring, but I’ve finished this game three times already for a platinum trophy.
"sacrificing yourself for a fucking wheelchair" has got to be one of the funniest lines ive heard in a while
all in all, stray feels like one of those classic games where it doesn't feel like corporate blandness or another one of those great indie games
it just feels like a game you'd play in 2000's, no microtransactions, no rpg elements, a game with very few mechanics that just focuses on the plot, pretty straightforward "film-like" experience
that alone piques my interest with this project, but at the end of it all, the whole plot about robots is just ok, maybe generic, but not bad at all
the whole selling point was the game where you play as a cat, but i honestly think that anyone could have made that game with no plot involved, and just make a game where you play as a cat in your home, messing with your owners and stuff, and i figure people would still love it as much as stray
idk how to feel about this videogame, never played it but seen the videos, it's just...a game, not bad, not amongst the great, but if majority of players say that stray is video game of the year, then that tells a lot about gaming community in general
The “Live damn you” bit made it even funnier.
If it stands out as unique or can break the mold of many bloated genres than it can be a GOTY candidate. There aren't many games where you are just a normal cat so that alone makes it stand out despite the average storyline. Who knows maybe they'll release a sequel where you look for your cat friends/family.
@@starkiller1289 I doubt it will break the mold of unrelated games. It'll probably just create a ton of knockoffs with different animals tho.
yeah I was thinking along the same lines, like if there was an "untitled goose game" but with a cat instead of a goose it would be pretty popular.
@@akiraigarashi2874 You're probably right, when something unexcepted or "new" gets popular clones of it appear in the upcoming months/year.
I feel there’s a strong message of entropy & communication that the cat protagonist really emphasizes & enables. But I suppose if the plot doesn’t interest you, it’s just very random
That opening bit is Yahtzee's funniest in a while
0:35
Well technically there is "Gato Roboto," in which you play as a normal cat. The catch is that the normal cat is in a setting that includes mech suits that are designed to be operated by animals. There's also a somewhat reasonable science fiction explanation for this.
I did have several moments after the robots started showing up where I was like "I miss when this was about a cat and not about a cyberpunk dystopia", but nobody else seemed to be bothered by it until I saw this. It gave me that vibe, similar to Teardown, that they thought of the USP _first_ and _then_ had to make a game around it but weren't really sure how to make it compelling on its own.
I would have liked the mystery of what had actually happened to be preserved for most of the game, instead of the devs abruptly turning the dialogue knob from 0 to like 80 as your cutesy wutesy droney woney exposits everything.
Does the game explain why it is that the cat can read?
@@DavidJoh The robot that follows the cat reads and translates things to it
the first hour of the game was beautiful and mysterious. and then the exposition bot shows up and killed the atmosphere for me. contrary to this review, I would have preferred a platforming/walking sim vibe, like Journey or Inside, where you’re just a cat trying to find your way back to your cat colony with a cyberpunk dystopia in the background. nix all the exposition and dialog and have the story be implicit, environmental storytelling
@@Casin Agreed.
@@DavidJoh it can't? Thought the whole robot jumping out and reading it for you explained that
The main thing I learned from this review is that Yahtzee is not a cat person.
I mean you do get something for returning all the music sheets. You get a "music badge." Iirc there are like 8 badges in total which you get in mostly similar ways. They get pinned onto your little backpack thing.
If you get all the recovered memories for the robot he also like transforms your backpack into an iridescent colour (although this was extremely unrewarding because if nothing else you get the last memory at the very end of the game).
Although it's not really as much about the end reward for the badges/memories, but journey/experiences that lead you to it.
You play as an orange cat. They only have one brain cell that has to be shared with every other orange cat on the planet
As the owner of 2 orange boys, I can confirm this for sure. The grumpy old man kitty one is pretty smart, but I have a 2 year old boy as well and he's not exactly the brightest. It's good we took him in, because he's the sort who'd pick a fight with anything regardless of his own safety, so he'd probably have gotten killed if he were still on the streets. He's a sweet boy, but definitely doesn't have much going on upstairs.
Easy: You make hairballs to act as traps for others. They either stop and clean up your sick, or slip up in it if they're hurrying, like, say, if they're chasing you. This allows you to either lay down distractions, or lure guards into traps to let you get away if you've been caught, further reinforcing the stealth direction you were talking about earlier.
Yahtzee clearly doesn't own a cat, or else he would know that a bellyrub is a death sentence 95% of the time. Head scratches, chin rubs, wuffles (depending on the cat) and back scratches are much less likely to result in your arm getting shredded because you thought it was a good idea to put your hand in the cat's version of a bear trap.
tail base scratches/pats/slaps (depending on the cat, I knew one who would get in the way of a DRUMSET and then be offended when she didn't get whacked)
The fuck is a wuffle?
Yes OP What’s a waffle?
He is a dog lover, they usually show up on shows
Spoiler warning I guess.
I don’t know if why, but the ending made me tear up a bit.
It also convinced me about something I liked, even though a lot of people complaint about. The cat is not the protagonist.
B12 is the protagonist. He has a story, he has a quest, he has motivation other than “get back home”. The cat is just the player character that got attached to its robot companion on its way back home.
The cat doesn’t care about the politics of a big wall or how the police wants to keep everyone locked in. It doesn’t care about the humans that in their hubris wiped themselves out before having a chance to open the gates.
The game ends with the cat curling and purring next to his dead robot friend. In the background a world that’s been dead for thousands of years rises from its ashes in the most unremarkable way possible.
I might not know why, but I loved it.
Well said.
I played this with my niece cause I thought I was just a cute cat game, unaware of the dark themes it would gradually introduce.
She cried so much at the ending, when her parents came home they had to convince her the robot just ran out of battery and needed a recharge. 😅
@@koblasco9289 Was she there when the walls had eyes?
I used to play this with my 4yo and luckily she skipped that part :D
@@loupax Oh yeah I did NOT expect the game to go all Aliens vibe.
By herself she definitely would have freaked out but luckily she handles things well with an adult's guidance.
I honestly would have skipped some parts as well if I played the game by myself beforehand.
Luckily she's too young to understand the darker themes but the prison part with the 1984 themes and memory wiping was pretty messed up.
I definitely would have skipped that as well.
I'm curious, what was you two's experience?
First time I played a game with her and it was nice to see her getting hyper excited about every little thing.
@@koblasco9289 She engaged pretty differently when we played. I was reading out all dialogue and she would ask me to let her press the button that makes the kitty sleep :D
She didn't interact with the darker themes because I was playing the game alone and replay the chapter later. I didn't try to hide that B12 dies in the end, or that humanity is extinct but she didn't really care much.
What I was surprised by, was that she likes to bring up the characters when she plays pretend. I'm Momo for the last two weeks, but that's all in general.
I want to throw Rain World into the mix for best cat games. Post-apocalyptic world where your cute sentient (slug)cat sits in the middle of the food chain and has to make an epic spiritual journey (for over 4 hours) to find its family while avoiding getting chowed on by a bunch of lizards, birds, and weird spider things.
Stray completely ripped off Rain World's premise right down to the opening cutscene
@@kiteracer95 I don't think they ripped it off since it's pretty standard hero's journey stuff (you're with your family --> you are separated from your family and strive to get back to them. cliffs and other high places to fall off of optional) but it IS pretty hilarious how similar they ended up looking in the end ngl
@@kiteracer95 Being seperated from friends is literally the premise of damn near everything.
Rain World seems like if you combined Stray with the world building of Kenshi
OooooOoooooOOOoohh... Look at Captain Four Hours over heeeerrreee.. slow DOWN, speed runner, you slugcat savant!
...but seriously, that game is brutal. I don't remember how long it took me, but it was waaaay longer than 4 hours...
If they take this engine and cat mechanics and animation, and put together a game that fits cat gameplay, I would really love to play that hypothetical game.
Stray isn't really a game where you take the role of the hero. More like, you're role-playing the hero's mount.
Like if a Witcher game started out controlling one of the Roach iterations, you meet Geralt, and he tells you what city to ride to next, then watch as he talks to guards, townspeople, kings, then you carry him to the next battle, and so on.
Or if a Shadow of the Colossus spin-off was you controlling Agro, and you ride to the next Colossus together, just to watch him hop off and start climbing it, stabbing it, falling off and jumping on you again, and on and on.
I don't think the cat is the hero of the overarching story, when the drone does all the translating, remembering of his past, and eventually dying for a cause. Stray is a mount-simulator.
If you played as Roach in a Witcher game, would you have all of her space-time-bending powers?
Ok but hear me out: a stray-type game you play as a dog in a zombie apocalypse and have to keep your humans safe from the zombies with your dog senses, help them find food and shelter, and keep their morale up by being the adorable dog companion.
You know it'd be a bit late for a tie-in, but technically you could piggyback this idea off of that Will Smith movie, "I Am Legend", and it'd work fairly well. The entire setup has basically already been done for you there.
plausible, but needs more detail on the core mechanic
@@Exkhaniber Yeah, the premise is very similar but I don't think I am Legend has a lot of storytelling potential from the dog's POV. I imagine you could do something with the language barrier, like the dog has to learn what each command from the humans mean (like IRL) and act accordingly, kinda like a reverse The Last Guardian, and of course the human characters would sound like gibberish to the player too, at first. The player would have to learn to make sense of the humans actions just like the dog, cause there would be no B-12 to help. Imagine trying to puzzle out a game's story and lore without understanding spoken or written words, well I guess Tunic already did this.
Okay, I love this.
Obviously you need at least one child among the humans. Perhaps you were a service or security dog pre-apocalypse so you’re exceptionally well-trained and smart.
Another thought:
Have all the dialogue be unintelligible aside from some key words (like “sit” “heel” “treat” etc,) so you have to react to situations based on overall tone and body language (such as, say, during tense negotiations with other survivors. When do you start growling?)
No
A game where you play as a cat and watch those dumb fucking humans get eaten by yhose zombies while you just live your best life
Honestly, the entire time I was playing this game I was imagining that the cat is really just a cat with no idea what was going on. So every time I managed to complete an objective, it wasn't that the cat knew the robots asked it to do something. It was just wandering around and stuff kept happening around it. I also imagined that B-12 was leading it around with a laser pointer occasionally during specific missions.
In FF7R you can play every bit of combat as a frog in NG+. So, we COULD get Cat Cloud in the future if they implemented a cat transformation.
In FF3 on DS you could play the entire game as a frog once you get that spell
Mostly, I see _Stray_ as a way of gauging how likely your housemate, significant other or roomie would be to be alright with adopting a cat without actually having to _ask_ them as such -- just fire up the game and invite them to check it out, and if they're melting into gibbering puddles every five minutes when the ginger tabby does a cute thing, it's probably safe to call up the local shelter and ask about their kittens.
I melted into gibbering puddles at the cuteness...still don't want a real live cat in my house lol
@@Brandyalla Allergies, or just too busy to add a cat to your life?
@@Nitrinoxus I have two big dogs and I feel adding a cat would be too much for all of us. If a cat fell into my life I wouldn't turn it away, but I won't go seek one out.
@@Brandyalla That's fair. And yeah, it's sometimes a hassle bringing a new animal into the herd -- I've had to introduce cats to a new dog and vice versa, and there's _definitely_ an adjustment period.
Never thought he would use so much baby talk on a game about being a cat.
If you give the musician the music, he gives you a button, like a lot of other buttons you can get that actually appear on the backpack so
Sounds like they captured what playing as a cat would be like pretty well to me? Everyone's unreasonably obsessed with you, you go along for fun, and in the end just wander on wondering what the heck that was all about.
It makes a strange amount of sense that a cat would become the symbol of the resistance; the cat's ability to do whatever it feel likes with no concern for what others expect is inspiring to them! As for the protagonist fulfilling the tasks requested of them, well, that's just necessary to progress the story.
Cat ear Yahtzee is something I never realized I needed, but now can't imagine my life without
Watch his Nino Kuni 2 review
I like when he reviews short games, because the length to depth ratio is higher.
I can't stop giggling at the terminator png in that pose, looking like it wants to square up but is absolutely scared to do so
3:29 They're seeing the robot drone thingy, not the cat. Remember later on when you lose the drone you also lose the ability to understand the robots. So in the core game you are both the drone and the cat in a way(?)
But the robots are definitely talking to the drone.
Well, that begs the question as to why the cat even matters in the narrative. Like he said, it just then feels like the player character could have been anything.
Gato Roboto was a metroidvania starring a cat. He was in like a little power armor suit, but you could get in and out of it.
2:20 Interesting that Yahtzee chose the Snarks from Half-Life when every other review made comparisons to the headcrabs.
I wouldn't say it's unrealistic for cats to react accordingly to things happening or even being spoken to. Hell, I've seen a video with a cat being taught how to loosely communicate with its owner using a series of buttons that speak different words. That and a bit of suspension of disbelief made this game a new personal favorite of mine. I had fun with it.
If you tell a cat to return a stick, they'll go "Why throw it away, if you want it so badly?"
I figured any semblance of reality was broken when the cat started inserting whole-ass car batteries into sockets and inputting four number codes into keypads.
Either this cat is bumbling his way through these puzzles like a feline Mr Magoo or it's about as smart as those genius 140 iq babies from Brazil.
Or it's nearly 7 million years in the future and cats have gotten a little smarter. :P
The drone was doing all that I think
@@naranciagaming To activate the drone, the cat has to find and slot in 4 batteries after being locked in a room. It is a smart cat.
@@TheColdZephyr ah I see, I'm not good at remembering the starts of games lol
I prefer to think the cat was Magoo-ing through the entire plot. But the emotional bit at the end was real.
So basically, the game gave you exactly what you expected; you play as a cat, end of story. Whether or not being a cat is fun is all up to you because, again, you're a cat. It's kinda hard to tell.
Near 40 years ago Ko Neko Monogatari Adventures of Chatran was released for the Famicom.
Adventures of Chatran was a movie known in the west as "Milo and Otis". Aside from having a basic internal monologue Chatran/Milo is a completely non-anthropomorphic cat.
So... I guess that's one.
SPOILERS - It's the visual storytelling, and I don't mean this in an offensive way, they showed in the very beginning that 99% of the people there have no idea what a cat is. We know, as the player, what a cat is but for them in game all the robots see is a vaguely Zurk sized biological organism with a robot floating around it. You also get the visual storytelling from the end of the game after the game breaks your heart that you can no longer talk to or interact with the robots, because it was B12 that was actually facilitating the talking. So the context of the robots asking for payment for goods has no bearing on us being a cat.
Edit - this is also why, visual storytelling, all the basic actions you do in game are all focused around a cats curiosity. Running across a keyboard, pawing at flashing lights or biting the cables, grabbing plugs and running off with them, scratching curtains so that they accidentally open, etc
This game is brilliant. I really hope we get a stray 2
I absolutely loved this game, but not gonna lie, I wish there was more of it. Plus, the oppressive regime section felt like it progressed too fast for my liking, I would have liked another side quest or so. Plus, the section in the sewers and all the little monsters was intense and I would have enjoyed exploring that more.
Ultimately I saw it as more of a proof of concept game. I'd love to see what else they do with the idea.
Also, the bit where the robot puts the harness on you killed me. So funny 😆
Holy shit, a review that isn't foaming at the mouth with praise for this Walking SImulator.
0:48 Alley Cat them ol' 8bit computer systems.
Kinda hits it home for me, the game feels like it was made on the premise of "you run around as a cat" and it just beggs the question "and....?" It feels like half a game, like what we are actually supposed to do in game to have fun was never put in.
0:50 Alley Cat was a thing on old IBM PCs
my only complaint about this review was that it was too short X'D
It sounds like a game that somebody did as a student project where you were just a cat wandering around doing cat things.
And wanting to make some money to pay off student debt, the devs realized at the 11th hour, “Oh shit, we might be accused of being a walking simulator with a gimmick! Quick! Add gameplay!”
And the end result is this.
There was a previous game with a very small part where you play a cat. CAT Interstellar has you play as a robot oddly called Dog for most of it, but has one stage where you play a kitten at the very end.
Honestly I just enjoyed the game, it was written well enough, had quite a bit of polish, and plenty of enjoyable moments. The devs made some good choices and generally avoided open manholes that they could have fallen into like making the platforming tedious, or playing up the animal pain. After playing it though, not too shocked it isn't Yahtzee's game of the year. Not complaining of course, it was a bit light on the 'gameplay' part of being a game for my taste.
I did want to add that as a cat lover they absolutely nailed it on every level. They clearly have, know, and love cats. Tons of moments like falling over when the jacket gets put on is dead on. Spoilers are in the next paragraph, so stop now if you care.
The ending, when the cat looks to the camera that he referenced, I actually loved because it was very specifically what is known as a 'Slow Blink'. It is something a cat does toward humans to display trust and satisfaction. Contextually I read it as a direct 'Thank you' to the player. Maybe "I'm good now.". Obviously this is a tad interpretive. Just wanted to clarify for anyone who wasn't aware what that look was, since most cat-lovers are likely familiar with the action.
I feel the same! I've been taking my time playing it and really enjoying it. The bit with the harness/jacket had me laughing so much. In my case, I have 2 orange boys and one looks a lot like the cat in the game, so I've got some bias and feels there. I think I got the trophy for meowing however many times before I made it to the slums section after the fall (or maybe just barely after I'd arrived there).
I think that is the problem, cats don't express themselves like dogs, cats are very expressionless, the way they show emotions are very hard to read unless you own a cat for a while. they could have forced the emotions of the cats or animated them in a more cartoonish way to be more emotive, but they went for realistic cat, and I commend them for that, because its a VERY realistic cat, though probably way smarter than a cat you would see today.
@@danilooliveira6580 Very true. I've owned or been around cats my whole life (mid-30s now), and currently have 6 (yes, it's a lot and yes, it's insane) so I'm pretty good at reading them and figuring out what they want/need. With 2 being diabetic, I'm especially good at spotting if their blood glucose drops too low.
I know people have being using mods on the PC version to make the cat be a dog or other animal, but I feel the story gets a bit lost. I don't think it would work as well if they'd picked a different animal. Yes, dogs can be very smart (just as cats can be smart or stupid as well), but they more lack the sort of independence and curiosity that we tend to associate more with cats. A big cat wouldn't have worked because it's harder to identify with them even they do have similar behaviors as our domesticated cats have.
The devs mentioned in interviews that most of them have cats, so they definitely drew from experience. I love that they used an actual cat for the vocalizations. I need to play without headphones to see how my cats react to the meows and other noises he makes.
@@danilooliveira6580 This is always an interesting topic for me, as I have had cats in my life since I was very young and always loved them very much. To me, dogs seem simplistic and very pointedly motivated. Cats are extremely emotive and I can almost always read the mood and what they want. There are fun studies about how cat-owners can read cats, especially their own cats, and vise-versa. I certainly wouldn't say the feline-human relationship is *better* than dog-humans, just extraordinarily different types of companionships.
As for Stray being a very smart (and good) kitty, obviously I'd agree. It certainly helps that a robot can speak feline somehow. Realistically speaking, even assuming it survived to the robot city, most cats would immediately try to find safety and then just live there forever. Honestly, the same goes for most humans.
I do want to argue that it isn't any more ridiculous or hard to believe than the protagonist of lots of other video games. The most obvious point to make is we are innately dealing with a protagonist, ie; an exceptional individual during the most interesting point of their lives. Otherwise, they all frequently pull off insane feats most humans could only dream of. This is definitely a form I have not seen before but I wouldn't place it as more unreal than the normal fare, just more alien.
As a last point I just realized that I found amusing, I would describe Stray as a more alien experience than every game where you can literally play as an alien. I can only imagine it is so much more so for non-cat owners who can't even pick up the common threads.
There was technically a game where one plays as a cat before: Alley Cat. A platformer which was very big when it came out in '83-'84. I believe there was even a remake half a decade ago.
(Yes, a game which came out 4 decades ago is ancient in video game terms. C'est la vie.)
Yahtzee is the sort of person who would level up his "bollocks licking" stat despite it having very limited gameplay benefits. But before you get too comfy laughing at him, just remember: if you could, you probably would, too.
Kentucky Route Zero had a cat level but Yahtzee bailed before he got that far.
As a person who enjoyed the game Stray... I get where Yahtzee is coming from. I mean its a game where you control a cat from point a to point b. hard to portray human emotions when its not a human. also yeah there are prompts for the jumping spots... but you could turn the prompts off. And even though its kind of sticky to walk around the jumping platform parts... I don't mind because the alternative where I jump blindly and hope my cat model doesn't slide off like a buttery egg or glitch into a spot that I cant get out of isn't much better.
I also have the mild problem where the game (in one sitting) can be done in 4 hours. and yes, I would have liked a few more hours of stuff to do because just as I was beginning to get into the game, it ends! and I'm left wanting more to see because it IS beautifully made and rendered and what not. It was a nice break from people typing "ur mom" in online shooters or half made glitchy on release games that take a year and a half to hot fix to somewhat acceptable. something where you buy a game and its complete, start to finish
What I am looking forward to is people supporting this game enough that the developers have enough recourses to make more games like it but more in-depth or even have a sequel to Stray all together.
spoilers:
more upon the ending he said. The mini drone (B/12) that helps you out kind of dies but not really (as it hints after you exit the city) and the robots are more than just "acting as humans" because it hints at humans downloading their consciousness into the robot bodies! which is why on the last level of the city the robots have no personalities!
I loved this game, and everything Yahtzee said about it is true. It doesn’t change my opinion of the game one bit, and the video was freakin’ hilarious. Win-win!
I want to hear him say "adorable toe beans" more often.
We played a cat in "A Day For Soft Food" back in 1999, but that was an indie text adventure, so "we" is a very small slice of the gaming demographic.
Also, is it just me, or is "falling into the sewers of an underground robot city and trying to climb back out" reminiscent of the Apple II cult classic Robot Odyssey?
There's also Gato Roboto, a recent retro-style metroidvania where you're a cat lol
There was also "Alley Cat" from the '80s.
the robots have never seen a cat; they maybe have a vague idea of what it is; so the bit where they welcome you as a person works. I was a bit more skeptical that the cat could solve complex puzzles or have any idea at all of wtf was going on though. but well suspension of disbelief and all that; the game works; and they do incorporate cleverly the cat ethos (aka "fuck everything up") into the gameplay
I wonder how Yahtzee's review would have differed if the game was just a cat walking simulator. I mean except for a few puzzles and stealth sections it basically was.
Some of the side quests reward you with little badges to wear on your cybercoat
It's true that the gameplay is quite simple, there's no platforming since all you do is press the button prompt to jump, the puzzles (where you need to trap zurks or sentinels in one area in order to progress, or move a barrel to jump to a higher platform) are very simple and it isn't hard to escape the zurks or the sentinels as long as you press the run button...
On the other hand, not every game has to be a soulslike, can't we drop the cynicism for a few hours and enjoy playing as a cute little cat? :D
I wanted funny but just ended up witha video full of spite... Then again spite and cynicism are ZeroPunc.s whole thing so I guess I just forgot his thong.
@@ComfyCherry I don't think that it's COMPLETELY cynical. It's a very unique experience, but one that can be difficult to wrap one's head around, and that seems like it might've been better off with an altered premise that would better match what it's trying to be.
ZP's Fifth Blandest Game of 2022, as summed up by Yahtzee:
"As always, The Game Awards showers its indie prizes on whatever passing trend gains sufficient buzz to be deemed worth you hanging with the cool kids, even if it is just a linear hike whose core gameplay lacks any noteworthy feature besides a bumhole-concealing algorithm. It's Stray, a game that you can recreate at home if you happen to own a cat and a laser pointer shaped like a contextual button prompt."
Yatz, there is a cat based metroidvania without an antropomorphic cat, you crash the humans ship by pressing a button in the begging
Gato Roboto. Its a 2 bit Metroidvania where you play a cat that explores an alient planet and eventually gets a mech suit.
Ok silent protagonists can be silent but when it's a silent cat it's hard to assume what they are thinking.
At least link expresses himself with smiling and
Occasionally putting what ever he stole from a chest about his head like it's his god
Signifying that he might actually enjoy theft.
I dunno why I never thought about this before but now I can't stop laughing lol
You must not have cats. They don’t really have facial expressions other than their eyes and ears, and even those are easy to misinterpret. To get a good idea a cat’s mood, you need to look at its tail.
@@erakfishfishfish
Was that in the game
@@kharijordan6426 Honestly, not so much with the tail. In the game, the cat’s emotions are apparent through pre-scripted meowing (as opposed to the meow button), rubbing up against robots, purring, defensive postures (folding back ears, hissing, and arching its back), and a slow blink (which is a cat’s way of showing trust and contentment).
@@erakfishfishfish
Neat. I wonder if it slow blinked when it looks back at it's dying robot buddy.
UHM, AKSHUALLY, when you deliver all the music pages to the hobobot you don't just "get to hear snippets of chiptunes", you also get a very pointless but very cute pin on your harness.
lol, the going to sleep bit. It reminds me of WoW, where every so often the cursor would turn into a cog, and I'd think "oh look, an interactive thing ... never mind, it's just a chair".
To be fair, Yahtzee, none of the robots really know what a cat is. The only creature in the entire game to have that information, other than the cat, is B-12, the drone. As far as the robots are concerned, you must be _something_ , but they have no idea what you are, so they'll treat you like another robot and see how it goes.
And, well, you're not a standard cat. While it's never directly addressed in-game, your cat appears to be somewhat uplifted, with an actual language that B-12 translates the robots' dialogue into. After all, the game doesn't end when B-12 isn't around, so your character does have some form of agency.
There's some text on the wall of Elliot's shop that implies millions of years have passed. Take /that/ with a grain of salt because that'd be amazing if human construction lasted that long. But even if it's only been thousands of years, maybe the cats got smart. 🤔
The clocks are also 16 hour clocks, but that suggests they're even further in the future, unless the droids changed the length of their day arbitrarily.
@@rivenrime I would imagine the robots build more robots, it's mentioned that some robots are young and with the time required for actual evolution of true AI it must mean they actually make children and die of old age part failure.
I figured the robots are talking more to B-12 than the cat
It is at this point that we remember that yahtzee owns a dog. And I say that with all the disdain I can muster.
Stray is actually just about a cat wanting to go outside.
some time ago i learned that those things i hate in some videogames and make me quit instantly are called quick time events. today i learned that those other things that make me quit and uninstall instantly are called contextual prompts.
Same tbh. Never felt like the being a cat thing really meshed with the rest of the game besides the traversal aspects.
If you look closely at the bowls of soup the robots are eating, they have memory chips in them. RAM. The robots are eating RAMen...
I want to know if that was a spur of the moment joke, or was someone sitting on that for years.
I feel like this is a really interesting first draft. I'm curious to see the sequel. Mostly, I'm just so glad to have something even a little different.
Honestly, I consider the robots addressing you and the cat somehow understanding them to be the least bothersome part of the game. To me, it's no less realistic than when you're a silent FPS protagonist and while everyone else tells you what to do and addresses you, your character never speaks or responds in any way. And honestly? THAT'S usually MORE unrealistic to me than a cat coincidentally doing the right thing. The cat has an excuse. Silent human protagonists are only silent because the devs made them so, and so it comes off ridiculous when your character does what it's told, but NEVER has anything to say to the other characters or how it feels about them.
I guess this is always where developers expect us to "suspend our disbelief". I'd like to think in Stray's case, the cat supposedly only understands the drone, and B-12 translates what the robots say, and the cat does it simply because it would help it get out of the city, and not because it particular cares for their personal problems or circumstances. The robots also don't know you're a cat, so they probably treat you as a sapient self-aware quadruped robot that happens to understand them. Only B-12 knows you're a cat. And gets you to help it by helping you achieve its goals.
‘Contextual button prompt’ is exactly what I was afraid this game would fall into. At this point, _Warframe_ does a better job carrying the ‘crouch, then pounce toward crosshair’ and ‘scratch your way up the wall’ cat movement mechanics set up by Catlateral Damage.
A Cyberpunk-RPG with a cat could have been fun. Especially with the twist that most stats are useless for a cat and the lack of thumbs.