YMMV / Stray (2022)

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Just how sapient is the cat? Is it highly intelligent and fully understands what it is doing and what is happening around it, or is it an ordinary cat that the Companions treat as sapient since they largely have no idea what a cat really is and don't know any better? The game mostly leans on the former, as the cat will inevitably end up doing very precise things in its quest to get Outside, including bringing specific objects to Companions who ask for them, following verbal and written instructions, operating machinery, solving puzzles relying on momentum and weight, and more. These things indicate it is capable of complex problem-solving and abstract reasoning, understands speech and writing, and has an understanding of the laws of physics. On the other hand, nothing the cat does is strictly not typical feline behavior, so it's not outside the bounds of reason that the cat's feats are pure accident and coincidence.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: B-12's story and memories very heavily imply they're an uploaded human long before the reveal. The big surprise at the reveal is actually that they were the scientist in their memories, not their helper.
• Catharsis Factor: After spending the first couple of hours having to flee from zurk swarms, you get the Defluxor, a UV flashlight that causes them to swell and explode. It is extremely satisfying to finally turn the tables on them and watch them run towards you to their unwitting doom.
• Dancing Bear: The game's notability comes almost totally from the novel premise of playing as a realistic cat. Most pre-release news and articles about the game had this factor highlighted front and center and it ended up becoming pretty much its main selling point, despite being also well-received due to its level design, atmosphere, story and characters.
• Demonic Spiders: Sentinels don't show up until the final few chapters of the game and aren't seen as often as Zurks, but they have three very nasty traits that make them deadly and difficult to bypass. First, their alert system changes extremely fast, going from passive green, to alert yellow, searching orange, and hostile red in only a second if you dare to cross paths with them; better pray there's a box around you can hide in or else they will not stop chasing you. At one point in the penultimate chapter, you're forced to get them to chase you in order to get them locked up, and at the end of that same chapter the few that appear all start out in red hostile mode. Second, unlike the Zurk who can be shaken off, a single electro-blast from a Sentinel is all it takes to One-Hit Kill you, and they fire fast shots in rapid bursts. Third, unlike the Defluxor and Zurks, you don't get any methods to destroy Sentinels and your only options are hiding, dodging, or outsmarting.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: The game works fairly well as an allegory for The Divine Comedy, with the cat traversing through Hell (the Slums), Purgatory (Midtown), and Heaven (the Control Room) in its quest to escape the city and get back to the Outside. Subverted if you consider Antvillage a level of its own.
• Fan Nickname:
  • Because the playable character is a cat, the online gaming community simply calls Stray as "The Cat Game" ever since it was revealed.
  • It's very common for fans to refer to the Zurks as headcrabs after their obvious inspirations instead of calling them by their actual names.
• Friendly Fandoms: The game caught the eye of a lot of NieR: Automata fans due to the very similar setting of an overgrown post-apocalyptic setting populated by androids who seek to understand their human creators.
• Goddamned Bats: The Zurks appear in hordes and attempt to latch onto the cat by jumping on it, slowing the cat down while turning the screen red and killing the cat if not shaken off, with more Zurks on the cat meaning that you move slower and die faster. They're fortunately easy to shake off and outrun, but the huge swarms they appear in means that another one can easily jump back on, and your "health" (indicated by the red screen fading back to normal) doesn't regenerate to full instantly once the Zurks are shaken off. In several cases, the swarms appear in front of you which means you're very likely to get jumped on or walk right into one.
• Good Bad Bugs: For the PC version, there is a mod that makes the cat look like Garfield. For some reason, this also prevents the Zurks from attacking, making it easy to get the "Can't Cat-ch Me" achievement as well as Pacifist. This appears to be completely unintentional; as of August 13, 2022, it is unclear if the mod's author is yet aware of this side effect.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: Despite the game's highly positive reception, some detractors have criticized the game's relative brevity. A first time playthrough could take five hours, while the achievement for completing it in under two hours is easily doable.
• Just Here for Godzilla: A vast majority of those drawn to this game seem to be more interested in the opportunity to play as a cat than anything having to do with the futuristic setting or plot.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • PSPSPS ^ExplanationThe first trailer got the attention of many people who show great interest in playing as a cat, modifying the PlayStation 5 logo to look like a cat call.
  • Real life cats react to Stray. ^ExplanationA outgrowth of the "X reacts to Y' phenomenon, where people create videos showing how their cats react to the gameplay where the main character is a realistic looking cat.
  • Press Circle/B to Meow. ^ExplanationThe meowing command, which is the first one taught to you in the prologue, has quickly caught on as proof of how awesome the game is. Jokingly considered one of the greatest button prompts ever and often grouped with other memetic commands like "Press F to Pay Respects".
  • "My cat" mods^ExplanationA massive number of the mods available for the game change literally nothing except the cat's colors... almost always so it looks like the cat owned by the mod's creator.
• Porting Disaster: While the PlayStation releases are praised for their mostly solid performance, the PC release was a wee less so due to shader compilation stutters, a recurring problem which has plagued many Unreal Engine 4 games.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Multiple reviews have cited the sequence in "Dead End" where you fight the Zurks with the Defluxor as the least inspired part of the game, since it turns a game about exploring and puzzle-solving into a rather predictable shooter.
• Surprise Difficulty: People who heard the hype about "the cat game" may have been surprised by the threat level of the Zurks, and the reflex speed needed to dodge them. This may be a reason for its low completion rate: six months after release, just over one quarter of PlayStation players had the Trophy for completing this short game.
• That One Achievement: "Can't Cat-ch Me" is by far one of the most difficult trophies to obtain, requiring you to complete the first Zurk chase without any Zurks latching onto you, meaning that if you see the "shake off" prompt you need to restart the checkpoint. This is far less easy than it sounds for several reasons. First, Zurks can leap a considerable distance to latch onto you, often from offscreen making it difficult to dodge. Second, the chase is essentially a single narrow corridor with several chokepoints, forcing you to run past Zurks within leaping range. Third, the Zurks are mostly spawning ahead of you and frequently emerge from cover just as you reach them, leaving almost no time to dodge.
• Ugly Cute: Yes, they're a nuisance, but there's also something weirdly cute about the Zurks. It's even acknowledged In-Universe by some of the robots, though never without a reminder of how dangerous the Zurks are regardless of their appearance.

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