Laika: Aged Through Blood

Laika is not an easy game to enjoy. It’s a story, at its core, about how dehumanization of an enemy is a necessary step preceding genocide — about how people will become monsters if left with no other options. Most importantly, though, it’s about how cycles of violence can only end if people make the decision to not pull a trigger, no matter how difficult that might be. It’s a brutal, uncompromising journey, and it should have been one of the best titles of 2023, even if reality hadn’t decided to make it painfully relevant.

Laika: Aged Through Blood is a experience that every gamer should try. The hand drawn visuals and classical guitar bring the wasteland to life, while the unique controls and progressive difficulty keep the pace of the game from stalling out. The motorbike combat and exploration is fun and approachable, but takes time to master as you explore what's left of the world. While there are a few minor annoyances with the bosses and systems, Laika: Aged Through Blood is a stand-out title and I highly recommend it.

Laika: Aged Through Blood is an unrelenting motorcycle ride through a bloody wasteland with one of the most unique and compelling spins on the metroidvania genre. It expertly blends ruthless death-defying combat with a beautiful hand-painted side scrolling world with a riveting story of revenge, desperation, and survival. Though uncompromising in its insistence that you quickly become adept at handling your bike in addition to taking on multiple threats, a heaping helping of checkpoints guarantees revenge is always within striking distance. If you’ve ever considered yourself a fan of exploring and platforming across 2D landscapes, you’ll find these open roads well worth your time.

Laika: Aged Through Blood is a haunting metroidvania unlike any other. The blend of breakneck motorcycle combat and a harrowing story of revenge smash together to create an artistic experience few games this year can rival.

It's extremely difficult to present something completely fresh in a metroidvania game but Laika: Aged Through Blood achieves that hard-earned goal. Thanks to the well-made motorbike handling and clever ideas in regards to shooting, alongside a touching and dramatic story this "motorvania" is a must addition to the fans of the genre.

At first, Aged Through Blood’s blend of Trails-style bike tricks, slow-motion gunplay, and exploration seems shrewd. But the mixture of mechanics eventually grows laborious across Laika’s 10- to 12-hour trek. If developer Brainwash Gang could get the action to match the quality of the exposition, I’d gladly ride again with this mama coyote.

When it works, Laika: Aged Through Blood is top-notch entertainment in prime time, and proof that suddenly there is pure innovation on the indie scene worthy of mainstream attention.

I've registered only to rate this game with a 10. It's one of those indie games that feels closer, deeper, harder and... better than any 60$-80$ AAA game. I'm deeply pleased of having played this beautiful game

A great opening and a great ending, with 10 hours of boredom in the middle.

This could have been a solid 9 for me, story and characters are great, music too but some gameplay mechanics spoiled everything for me and I abandoned the game midway. The game is challenging, which I like, I only play hard games. But I like to experiment when i play, to die on purpose sometimes, but in this game everytime you die you lose resources which you need to upgrade you characters, hence you're not encouraged to experiment anything, you always try to play safe which is something I do not enjoy at all. You also start with just one bullet and one parry, making the game not very funny until you've unlocked more. But to unlock more, you need to play safe and collect resources, which again I do not enjoy doing. It's a vicious cycle. This could have been an instant classic If it was more linear and without the losing/grinding of resources.

The power went out and when I launched the game my saves stopped working. 20 hours wasted. I hate games which force only one save and don't implement proper save backup system

A particularly poor attempt at a game, clearly shaped by developers more focused on personal agendas than game design. Even a quick glance at the creative director’s Twitter reveals enough. The entire project serves as a reminder: when dealing with indie developers, it’s worth researching their background. If it’s yet another overly political, identity-driven manifesto — better skip it, or you’ll end up with something like this: a preachy, ideologically-loaded **** game fails on every level: • Story: Virtually non-existent. Instead, we get a strange narrative filled with anthropomorphic nonsense, heavy-handed allegories to the real world, social media metaphors, and what feels like unresolved personal trauma from the creators. • Metroidvania Elements: There’s nothing of substance here besides excessive backtracking and poorly placed teleporters. • Controls: Absolutely dreadful. On a gamepad, the experience borders on unplayable, turning every enemy encounter into a frustrating ordeal. • Physics: Inappropriate for the gameplay. The protagonist moves like a bag of bones on wheels — clumsy and prone to accidental deaths from minor obstacles. • Game Design: Fundamentally flawed. Poor camera work, overwhelming backtracking, no quest markers, confusing objectives, and unrewarding quests make progression a chore. • Soundtrack: The ambient dream-pop style might work in a different genre (like Life is Strange), but here it only adds to the irritation. In summary, this feels like a reskinned Dustborn pretending to be a Metroidvania with hints of Hotline Miami and Dark Souls. A complete misfire.