izigame.me

I just finished Stray and all I can say is 'WOW!' It is an amazing adventure, crafted in incredible detail and worth taking time to explore and savor the scenery, the characters, and the story. I took longer than most to complete the game, as I am compulsive about finding every collectible and exploring every space. At its heart, Stray is a delightful exploratory adventure with some escape/chase scenes that may be a deal-breaker for some.
As a cat, you fall into an underground area. You team up with a small, flying robot who guides you through an abandoned , multi-layered city populated by robots. You learn the history and ultimately are tasked with reaching the 'outside' and re-opening the city. The mechanics are simple (run, jump, interact) and, with default settings, you cannot miss a jump. You can take the wrong path but are not at risk of falling to your death. There are a lot of beautiful cut scenes and the dialog is not overwhelming. You can skip through and speed read if in a hurry. There are no voice overs and the original sound track is delightful. In some areas, your path is fairly linear and in others, you can explore in any direction.
I should note that I play few action games and only in the 'Story' or 'Easy' mode. I get rattled when under pressure and start making mistakes. I do thoughtful stealth well but am not good at running for my life. Stray has a 12 chapters. Several require the need to run and evade swarms of bugs. These took me multiple tries and I died frequently. Fortunately, you just restart the segment without penalty. There are also a couple of chapters that require evading drones but these can be solved through observation (from a safe sport) and planning. The bugs did not deter me from enjoying the game, as the rest of it is so good that I was unwilling to walk away. However, I would not call my encounters with them 'fun.'
There are some find and use inventory puzzles and quite a few levers to pull and buttons to push. Figuring out the path and removing obstacles is also part of the challenge. While some achievements are story related or tied to collectibles, others require specific actions. Some require treks through the bugs and drones and then there is my least-favorite of all... the speed run. My goal was to get the achievements that were accessible to a person at my skill level (which is not 100%).
The game auto-saves to a single slot at key story points. An icon appears when the game is saved. If you exit, the minutes since the last save are displayed and you can choose to continue playing. In one area, I played for over an hour before finally doing something that triggered a save point. Once you complete the game, you can return to specific chapters in order to pick up missed collectibles or achievements.
I really enjoyed this game and most appreciate the attention to details. Take time to watch the robot who trips over the cat (every time), the footprints when the cat walks through wet paint, the expressions on robot 'faces,' and the way they are dressed. The time spent in the city areas is delightful!
Although the majority of this game is explore-at-your-own-pace, there are the survival chapters that may frustrate some to the point of giving up. Thus, I highly recommend this game to those who don't mind running for their life and thinking under pressure. However, those (1) who are not comfortable with quick key/controller work or (2) who abhor stressful sequences might want to check out another title such as The Spirit and The Mouse. For me, the joy of Stray outweighed the tough moments.