Thanks to Spoonful of Wonder for the review code
Title: Copycat
System: Steam (PC)
Price: $14.99
Release Date: 09/16/2024
Prelude/Story
This is a bit of a mix of my usual prelude/story segments, since to focus all on story would basically give the game away, but I do need to highlight how this game is meant to be approached and what made me even want to cover a seemingly random game to begin with. Why would I cover a cat game? Well, besides being a co-owner to a wonderful cat named Sherman who I love very very much, I’ve been aware of a recent rise in “play as cat” games that have been spreading around lately. Heck, my last review was of one, albeit in a platforming sense. It seems to be the hot new thing nowadays, kicked off by Stray.
What put me away from playing Stray or even Little Kitty Big City though, was just how the experience of being a cat to do funny stuff wasn’t all what I wanted from a cat game, though such experiences can be adorable. (and scary!) I was hoping for some sort of cat game that would emphasize the nature of a shelter cat and raising it as one of your own family members, and having it be more of a cute, somber tale without immediately jumping into a depressing story.
Thus when Copycat caught my attention at an IGN stream earlier this year, showcasing a tale of a cat helping an elderly lady mourn the loss of her old, similar looking cat, I had to put it on my radar. Sure enough after spending good time with it and seeing the story through to the end, (despite the game resisting more than I’d expect) I came away with some deeply mixed feelings about the whole experience. For a first time dev, this is an incredibly promising starting point with some wonderful narrative moments and a great concept, and is the sort of story I come to video games to seek out.
On the other hand though, the last message of the game, one of uncertainty, led me as a foster child to feeling quite a bit worried and very soured on the narrative, to the point I will be spoiling the final act some to give in-depth thoughts from my perspective as a foster, after the review score. I give plenty of warning and make it a separate category, so don’t worry, not much besides the bit I just mentioned above is to be spoiled before the score… And I think if you’re willing to get over a tonal shift that may shock you for the wrong reasons, this is still a game I feel was made with enough care and love to be worth a playthrough as despite a short 3 hr length, it was a worthwhile 3 hours I’m happy to have enjoyed.
Presentation
First things first, as I’ve done with Steam games since 2021, I play all of them for review on a Steam Deck due to that being the quickest and best way to review PC games for me, and if that fails I usually move onto my Dell laptop as a backup machine. I note this as Copycat might have the strangest performance of any title I reviewed on Steam Deck considering the presentation, and I had to make quite a lot of tweaks to get it to work.
Firstly, I used Proton 7, and it was compatible with no crashing or anything of the sort, so in the sense the game boots up and is playable, Copycat is ready to go for portable play. However, immediately after getting the hang of how the menus worked and the first bit of the game, I had to use the Steam Deck’s performance toggles to cap the game’s framerate down to 30, and set the in-game texture setting to low, as otherwise the game’s framerate would have wild ups and downs and drain more battery than it already did; see, even with all of these tweaks, this game’s battery drain is very unusual, and shows signs of a weirdly optimized game.
While the framerate remained stable throughout my adventure with the tweaks made to make it locked 30, the battery life would range from 1-2 hrs, with the fan kicking into overdrive if I was outdoors or near any kind of reflections, with seemingly random things kicking the deck into overdrive; nothing that impacted my controls or play experience, but I had to take charging breaks to get through this game on Deck, so keep that in mind if you plan to play Copycat on a Steam Deck like I did. I don’t know why this game’s presentation makes the deck chug and drain the battery so rapidly, but it does, and I’d not be surprised if it would make my Dell laptop drain quickly too.
Thankfully, while I still don’t think the presentation here is worthy of draining a portable device that quickly at all, I will say Copycat is pretty darn cute looking. Even with my lowered settings to get it running on my Deck, the cat looks absolutely adorable and expressive, and the limited scenery present in the game, while simple looking, still gets the job done of showing off a realistic enough world due to clever use of shading and lighting. Some of the assets looked a little plain, but they work fine with the setting, and the game has dream sequences that aren’t afraid to get a little silly with the visuals, shifting to a lower-poly look.
Even the humanoid characters, while a little awkward looking, don’t come off as uncanny in the slightest save for this really strange looking kid that has a face so similar to the adults in the game that I grew a little alarmed by how out of place he looked. The animations of these characters are stiff, yes, but they emote pretty darn well during the dialogue scenes and are believable enough to aid the narrative. (save for again, that kid’s strange looking face) Most of that is due to the outstanding voice acting, which honest to god might just be the most impressive aspect of this entire game.
Yes, really! This entire game is fully voiced, and everyone gives it their all with pretty good performances. Really strong voice acting with the right amount of emotion, and a cheerful narrator that even manages to provide the right amount of humor in the saddest of moments in the game. The game even has easy to read captions for every piece of dialogue in the game, which works wonders for accessibility and making the voiceovers very easy to understand. Considering there are parts of the game where someone talks on an answering machine far away from the cat, these captions really come in handy for those kind of moments.
The music is also pretty good, albeit consisting mostly of piano and instrumental tracks. It fits the vibe of the story and while nothing is exceptionally memorable here, all of the tracks I heard during my playthrough fit the mood of its respective scene just fine.
Gameplay
This game might feel a bit strange if you’re going into this thinking you have full control and the ability to directly influence the outcome of the story. Yes, there are moments where you can choose between one action or another, but nothing leads to major shifts in the narrative or alternate endings. There are moments you control the cat and have a bit of fun, (and plenty where the game makes you cause mischief, even if you aren’t up for it!) but the story is the main focus here, with the game taking place through a day-by-day structure as you as the new adopted cat have to live with elderly woman Olive and try to figure out her situation, finding your place in yet another home.
Does that make Copycat a “walking sim” like some people would dub it? Maybe, but I still found the playable sections here to complement the game just fine, and fun to do. That being said this cat really loves the idea of being a Panther to the point you’ll often be dreaming as if you were one, and I found these dream segments to be a bit odd, even if they do fill in some of the cat’s backstory and internalized thoughts, as they can get rather annoying having to run around as a big cat before you get back to the real plot.
Speaking of the internalized thoughts, I really did enjoy seeing what the cat had to think, and the way the game projects those thoughts is very easy on the eyes and well done, with plenty of funny moments. I also found it pretty enjoyable to goof off on the days you’re allowed to do so, as sometimes you can even find extra nuggets of info about the cat or Olive’s family, which is a very nice way to reward the player for some light exploration.
Still, experiencing the story is what you get here, and that is done mostly well. Some days you’ll be pretty railroaded through scripted events you can’t do much about at all. Some days you can goof off and make your own fun and advance to the next event at your own leisure. Every now and again you’ll even get a QTE where you have to time button presses or input a certain sequence of button commands, but I found nothing really happened if you messed these up, even on purpose. Eventually you’ll just get it right and the plot will progress as normal, and part of me wishes you could change the impact of the story ever so slightly.
Really the most interactivity you’ll get here are days where you can freely roam around the outdoor areas, where you could easily lose track of the objective that’ll actually advance the story; nevertheless I had quite a lot of fun goofing off and meowing at the neighbors or breaking a milk jug, and it made me wish there was some optional sandbox mode where you could just do this forever if you felt like being a goofball cat. That or at least a chapter select, since you only have one save file here with no way to go back without restarting the entire game, and I’d love to be able to go back and see different outcomes or just re-experience the more happier moments.
You’re still mostly in this for a story, and it manages to be a compelling and somber tale only hampered by the final act of it, which I won’t get into until after my score to warn you from spoilers. Still, this is a game best played blind and the controls nicely nail the feeling of being a cat well, so if you don’t mind a final act that might upset you, feel free to quit reading my review here.
Conclusion
In the end, Copycat was a game that had a great narrative hook and did a lot of interesting ideas with the storytelling. As a game it shouldn’t be one to expect in-depth action from, but the interactivity you do have provides a great backdrop for a charming tale. It may seem asinine for a game this short to be worth the $15 price, but stories like this with shelter animals are seldom expressed in gaming, and for an honest to god effort and a lot of fun moments I really enjoyed a good chunk of Copycat and it had me go “aw!” many times, leading to this coming off as a great debut project for the developers.
Then the final ending act happened, and what could have been a super highly regarded game for me, cratered quite a bit. Still, I do think the effort here with full voice acting and a story focusing on strong subjects and handling some of those OK is enough to commend, and while I don’t think they should “fix” the ending (it was still done in a satisfying enough way, it just has a lingering hook that makes me incredibly nervous), there is one aspect to it that makes me hope they aren’t gonna try and use it as a sequel hook, since doing a sequel to this game would just defeat the purpose of what the message was trying to be, even if the final act doesn’t exactly land on all four paws, and has me a little bit worried as a foster kid myself.
Onto the score, and then a spoiler section. Stop reading here if you want to avoid it.
I give Copycat a 6 out of 10.
…Still here and aware of the spoiler warning so I can go into a little more depth on how this game’s message missed the mark? Alrighty.
Beware one last time of spoilers.
It comes off as strange to me how both games I had to spoil in more detail this year were cat-themed, but at least this story was one I still found way more satisfying to play to the end ofm and even with my gripes I list below, I had a fun time with the game and would still recommend it to cat/foster lovers as long as they’re aware of the game’s themes going in.
While I enjoyed the narrative for the bulk of the game and the POV of it coming from the pet’s perspective showing a great peek into the life of a shelter cat and how they comfort humans in even the darkest of times, the endgame had me feeling incredibly mixed. I already see others finding it to be the biggest flaw to the game, and something that arguably feels like a thing done for shock value rather than anything with intended build up.
See, further on as Olive’s condition worsens, you learn more about the fate of the other cat that went missing, and well, it comes back to the home, leading to the conflict that gives Copycat its title. The situation stemmed from another character, who I won’t reveal, checking in on her in a way that really doesn’t seem all that good or safe for either pet, and even taking in the aspect of what she’s going through in relation to Olive, (trust me, as one who stayed with a terminal Grandpa and worried sick about the impending end, I actually slightly relate to this character’s seemingly cruel contemplations toward the grandma on some level as a thing that can be felt or considered during frustration and panic over terminal illness, especially if the person suffering is stubborn about dealing with it) the revelations here really do come off as rather harsh, and the game does provide a content warning ahead of time for good reason.
Understandable from a story perspective, meant to make you annoyed while also realizing how much stress this family has gone through, and the fact your main cat wasn’t in the house before said events took place, nor for some of the aftermath when the real Dawn returns home, but then what really confused me a bit was how the instigator of the final act that made the message fall apart was not this aforementioned character who would definitely be in character to do such a thing, but Olive, doing a Fox & the Hound like move of taking you out to the middle of nowhere and leaving you abandoned in a heartbreaking manner. Why not the shelter again? Why not another family or family friend? Why not both cats living in harmony?
The game only really explains that she did it because she feels guilty about adopting two cats when she could barely take care of one, and that the second cat would be safer in a quiet part of the wild, but considering how the rest of the game plays out this whole action feels like a big, heartbreaking tonal shift, especially after a pretty scary sequence the day before these events take place. One that is still used as backing for the cat’s internalized thoughts, but still one that I argue may make some people go “well why the hell did I stick around that owner if they just dumped me in a panic”, and it gets all the more sadder as you get a glimpse into the past situations the poor cat has gone through with prior owners via a flashback scene. It truly does feel like the cat is cursed to having a bad life and these flashbacks and desire to be a wild animal out of fear of rejection are emphasizing that, and it really hurts in a way I can’t say is a great one.
Yet the game still carries on, and ends in a way I do consider pretty darn sweet that makes everything feel a lot better (especially if you sit after the credits, which makes the sting of the final act hurt a lot less), which I do think was generally a sweet place to end, but there are still more questions in the back of my mind; what about the other character who was mean to both cats? If she were to come back after the inevitable happens to Olive and thus end up owning the cats, would the cats be OK?
Would both of them end up being abandoned yet again, doomed to live another life of being shelter pets? Or was all the stress against the cats only because of this person being more worried about Olive due to her situation? We don’t know. It leaves a bit of unease in my heart, which is the last thing I want to feel after a seemingly happy ending, and makes me worry this was a sequel hook of sorts.
And most importantly, isn’t it a little concerning that the endgame message is in a sense, to return to who you were abandoned by, to help them no matter what? All those thoughts bounced in my head after the ending, and while I will not spoil the specifics further, the way the whole final scene turned out really did make me go “oh yay, sweet ending” only to realize a direct sequel is very possible and would be just as heartbreaking due to some of the loose ends left behind, which makes me really hope this wasn’t a stealth sequel hook; as an adopted person myself it already left a sour taste in my mouth from how out of left field it felt and the unanswered questions, and whether or not the message they were aiming for ended up being done in a way that makes you hate the characters rather than sympathize with them.
Here’s hoping at the very least regardless of what the intended message was, this game’s ending can stay as the standalone somber, yet happy-ish ending it ended up being, and isn’t just a plan to sequel hook into a more depressing story. This game likes to do a lot of “show don’t tell” and tends to do it very well, so I’m hoping this is just another instance of that and i’m overthinking the whole final act, but I do feel maybe one or two more scenes could have been put in to soften the blow or at least assure the player the cats will be safe after the events of the game.
And with that, I bid farewell to this charming game. Copycat was still a charming game I enjoyed, even if I really wish the final act didn’t sour my thoughts on the game as a whole. I’m still pleased to see a game about shelter animals handle the subject mostly well, but I really wish that last act was a bit more clarified without being done seemingly to shock the player and little else.