This contains spoilers. This isn’t really a review, but maybe just free writing about a game I really enjoyed, recently. Maybe that is a review haha not sure.
This is a story mode action adventure explorer type like Borderlands, walking dead, life is strange, and many others. Where, you Control a protagonist, in this case a cat,, 🐈, interacting with other characters in the game, as well as exploring your world to solve mostly 3 -space geometry puzzles, of , how to navigate a cat , with jumps and crawl spaces. The storyline feels original, reminiscent of one of the early post apocalyptic episodes of the Netflix original Love death and robots , but more intense.
Even on Xbox One S, the experience was really high quality, saying that only because I read this game was designed for the Xbox after this one. Maybe every once in a while, the game quit and you had to redo some action from a previous checkpoint, but it was pretty rare.
The scenery and artwork is beautiful. I wonder how many hundreds of hours were put into designing the detail of the spaces and also the characters you interact with.
I wonder if this game was inspired by Norco , from the unique choice characters voices that are not human English but sounds with cadence and variability, unique to different characters, but gibberish. Also unique to Stray, robot voices are kind of like static , and it makes sense because the story is about an underground robot civilization that has survived humans after an indeterminate length of time of possibly hundreds of years, and they happen to still communicate physically in their robot society, but much differently than their human forebears.
Their language, is also written, and we can see the written form resembles Japanese katakana somewhat, but it is different and unique , perhaps more modern looking.
The only reason why, as a cat you can communicate with the robots, is you have a translator called B12 who hovers around, charging presumably from your body heat, in a cat backpack. This still doesn’t explain how a robot knows how to translate from robot to cat, but we learn this is no ordinary robot but the mind of a human scientist, in flying drone form, who learns as the game progresses, also learning on the fly, the language of a locked away robot society, that you together discover on your travels.
We learn the robot society is aware of their human creators of long ago and have many similarities perhaps since they were built with similar characteristics as their creators, being artistic, playful, musical, dancing, and wise . But they don’t require biological sustenance, relying on machine oil instead. They survive on the eons of human detritus, stacked deep, apparently by a company called Neco, sounding much like “Not ecological”.
Much about humans has been forgotten and the robots live underground, with a permanent dome sky, with concentric lights and some of the robots lay on their backs, gazing up at the peaceful lights. But the robots have photos of a long forgotten “Outside “, of lush greenery, trees, pristine beaches, all over their robot world. Most don’t do much with this information but they actually care for plants which uniquely don’t require real sunlight. Some handful of robots you learn, have formed a group attempting to go to this “Outside”. You meet one of their group members, Momo, the only one to stay behind, and he tells you about the others, who left, but it’s not clear what happened to them. You find clues, the notebooks of his troupe, and in one of them he finds a missing clue to fix a radio repeater he has , to communicate with them. He has You help him find the designs in a secret lab, for a radio transmitter repeater📻, called the Transceiver and he repairs it. And you go on an adventure to hook it up to a high antenna , and this enables him to make contact with one of his former group members, Clementine ( or Zbaltazar ) . Now there is new hope. Also the lab, help to learn about a ultraviolet light weapon, called the Defluxor, that can be used against creatures that the society has locked itself away from, the so called, Zurks, who feast on robots and cats given the chance!.
Domo helps you on your way to find his scientist friend, Doc.
Skipping ahead a bit, we find the cat, having successfully escaped out of the sewers into the more upper city area, the Antivillage and eventually the Midtown.
Along the way, as you and B-12 navigate, you will encounter items or rooms that trigger memories , for B-12. B-12, recalls, explaining, that the reason for the Zurks that you fight is that the company Neco , in its irresponsibility, created a kind of bacterial life form, to control the trash, but it ended up mutating into a life that threatens everything around it, including the Companions that survived the humans.
Later , B-12 also encounters a critical memory, while in the Antivillage, helping him remember that he is actually the mind of a human scientist. This was very impacting for him and he was unavailable for interaction as you explored the Antivillage. The thought of being possibly the last human mind , surviving, was very heavy. Ultimately this gave B-12 the spirit to help you , giving him meaning , I think. Meaning and hope. In this Antivillage you also meet Zbaltazar, who gives you a photo of himself with Clementine, who has gone higher to the next level. Himself, Zbaltazar, is content where he is, appearing to be meditating , and actually without functioning body, but mainly stuck in his spot. You helped Momo communicate with him earlier. Perhaps this has now given him meaning.
You reach the area above the Antivillage, called Midtown, where you try to find Clementine. Her address is written on the photo you got from Zbaltazar, so it’s not super difficult. But it’s clear from wanted posters that Clementine is in hiding from the authorities.
This is another theme we encounter, of how the robots have taken up similar aspects to their creators, they have chosen to subjugate those of their own who try to seek out the Outside. I find this part of the plot not super clear. Maybe it is as with all human societies, power corrupts and robots created in our image, cannot help but to learn this for themselves. Power is an end unto itself.
Skipping ahead quite a bit, because I want to cover some bits at the end, you and Clementine, end up in prison, attempting to escape. As you escape, Clementine anoints you as one of the group, The Outsiders, where the mission of the group is to go outside at all costs, and in a moment of sacrifice, Clementine decides to hold off the sentinels that are chasing you two, to give you the chance to escape and go higher.
This was quite selfless of Clementine. You have in hand, a battery, that Clementine has asked you earlier, to recover from the Neco factory. It seems that they have been holding a special battery that is used by the only train that can go up to the last area of the game , the control deck.
Now on the control deck, B-12 remarks, how selfish the humans here in control were. They separated themselves from the lower levels, but ironically they did not survive either. We don’t really know what happened.
In any case, now in the control room, we are so close. B-12 figures out how to use the main computer to open the roof. However, it turns out a lot of bypassing is required. You and B-12 split roles, as the cat you physically break apart protective systems and then B-12 is able to hack them, reducing the security layers built up around access to open the roof. However, you notice that the hacks are causing B-12 to get shocked. And after the second shock, be falls to the ground. He says to keep going. He will recharge after we are done.
But after the final shock, he confesses that he had made an irreversible decision . He will not make it. He will only be able to commit the final operation to open the roof but then he will not be able to join you. He says goodbye and thanks for helping him all this way. He thought he was meant to hold humanity’s memories but he is okay passing them along to you. Goodbye.
You make the final choice to continue and B-12 collapses , simply shut off now forever. This makes your cat characters react very emotingly, meowing, and cuddling up by the side of the fallen B-12. You can stay like this as long as you like . At this time you see the roof is opening, to the outside that B-12 will not see. And then you can get up , and simply go outside.
This was a difficult final scene.
The thought is, that, can the cat now help hold on to these memories of humanity’s past? Also B-12 was the translator from cat to robot, so it will be difficult to explain anything to the robots that are still around .
I think the point, in a somber way is that humanity may go away , and the robots they created may hold on to some of the past that is useful, and the rest of it may exist in the minds of a cat, who might somehow share it with other cats.
also aware of other reviews too..
https://www.polygon.com/reviews/23268326/stray-review-cat-game-ps4-ps5-windows-pc-cyberpunk