Laika: Aged Through Blood (2023)

So I went into this game knowing a little bit already. I saw IronPineapple's review on it and thought it looked interesting enough to try. I'm proud to say this had me bawling in the first half hour, and it only got more enjoyable from there. I loved damn near every bit of this game, so I'm going to highlight the things I found frustrating or not quite up to par. Just assume literally everything else about this game was perfect for me.

-There is a learning curve, and even when you've finally got it down, there are still some things that will kill you that are out of your control. The bike will randomly backfire while you're obstructed by some piece of the foreground (dead). A piece of the ground is sticking up and you clipped it while you were front-flipping (dead). Your bike is perfectly positioned to shield a bullet, but somehow they aimed it in front of you and your forward momentum carries your squishy head into the bullet (dead).

-I understand that it's a game about driving, and driving is the core mechanic of it all. HOWEVER there are not nearly enough fast travel points. All I'm looking for is something at major points of interest like travelling merchant stops, gas stations, the motel. Or one just after the S bend cave that you encounter in the first chapter. Fall down, continue well into the bird compound and fast travel. Find flute centipede, continue well into bird compound. Give flute girl a cleaning brush, continue well into the bird compound. It just got to be a little frustrating.

-Two weapons in the game are locked behind an ability you get 80% into the story. That's just a little too far in for me, I would've liked it maybe after you get the shotgun ability or even the hook.

-Speaking of, this game is a metroidvania and it does NOT do a good job of telling you what's required and what isn't. There are a ton of sidequests, but 2 that I can think of right off the bat give you items that are 100% required for story progression. The hook in specific was an absolute bitch and a half, I had to look up exactly what I needed to do to progress the story.

Besides that, I thought this was one of the best games I'd ever played. I recommend watching a couple gameplay videos first, only about 22% of players beat it on steam. It's HARD, but rewards experimentation and persistence. Play at your own risk, but get ready for an emotional ride if you're in for it.

I feel that the devs had a good idea with integrating bike tricks with the combat but main issue with the gameplay is related to that last point. Having to do backflips to reload is great. It forces you to look super cool during encounters. But it being the only way to reload means that if you need to shoot at a door or at a resource to collect it and you're out of ammo, you then need to go around looking for some small ledge to backflip into just to then go back. There needs to be some kind of other reload mechanism. Either make it slow so it's useless outside of combat, or make you vulnerable during so you're still doing flips during combat, but you don't get this annoying backtracking for tricks.

It's a shame, because when it works, it feels great. Shooting birds in slow-mo in the air while ricochetting bullets, then flip to reload and kill the others. You feel like a badass. I thing this mechanic might lend itself more to a tight, linear game in which each encounter is almost like a puzzle; thinking ahead, deciding which enemies get a bullet first, when to reload, etc.

This game drove me nuts. I'm a pretty calm guy and I only say the bad words when I'm driving, usually. I dropped so many f bombs on this game I may have traumatized my neighbors. More than once, I was pretty sure I had reached the point where I was ready to quit but, in the end, I made it past the millions of cleverly designed traps that the devs so thoughtfully put together to beat the Two Beak God.

I'm no metroidvania connoisseur. In fact, I rarely play them because I usually suck at them. But this seems like a good addition to the genre. Riding around on your motorcycle is a lot of fun. It is also the source of many of the f bombs. Like when you can't stop yourself midair and fly off of a cliff.

In the end, I played it enough to git gud. Or maybe I played it enough to die 10000 times but keep trying at each challenge until I got lucky. Howlongtobeat says this game takes ~19 hours to complete. It took me 44 hours. Still, at least 35 of those hours were fun so I guess it's all to the good.

grim story elements have a place. They can be used to great effect, if you are telling a larger story that requires them. But the grimness and the shocking material, the gore, the trauma, it should serve a purpose. Even if that purpose is satire, or comedy. They shouldn't just be there to be there. If your game opens on a disemboweled child, with no emotional impact beyond "that's shocking" because you didn't know this child, and then just sprinkles gore and suffering and sexual assault around, what is it doing? giving your character motive? that's lazy. trying to be edgy? it has no point. it's not being directed anywhere.

If your game requires such precise timing and control that even navigating it's world is a chore and it has to have checkpoints every few feet because you need such flawless execution of actions that it's all or nothing, that's fine if that's what the game is doing or if it serves the feel the story is going for. But don't do it just to do it, and then give no accessibility options if you are telling a story that you want to be experienced.

Not that it's a great story. it's not the worst, but it's nothing new or surprising for narratives about warfare. it's exactly what you expect. the dialogue is nothing memorable. but it does the job.

In most ways this is an ok game. you can tell it was made with love and passion and it isn't a manufactured cash grab. someone cared about this game when they labored on it. that makes me feel guilty for tearing into it like this. I will say, the art style is consistently excellent and everything is designed perfectly. the music is perfectly fit to the mood of the levels and scenes it's used for. the game plays well and handles well. I have no complaint there. It just thinks more of itself than what it is. it disappears up inside itself with the story it's telling and manages to stumble and drop all it's parts. It's not a "bad" experience. but it doesn't meet the expectations it's clearly setting for itself.