Noita

If the worst thing you can say about a rougelite is that it kills you, then Noita can’t be that bad. I’m a big fan of this game and can’t wait to play some more.

Noita is a true standout title in the roguelike genre, featuring endlessly deep gameplay that plays off of its engaging pixel art style.

Noita combines classic roguelike progression with complex RPG-style spellbuilding and sets it in an incredibly dynamic environment.

A reinvention of a childhood favorite of mine, The Powder Toy, Noita amazes with its pixel-perfect simulation of physics, chemistry, and magic.

All in all, Noita‘s package is filled to the brim with content: the descending path down the caves is not the only available one, and multiple secrets are scattered all around the world, granting even more bizarre and wacky effects to experiment with. Even so, much of the fun derived from a playthrough feels more dependent on the luck of the draw rather than the player’s skill and knowledge of the game’s mechanics. A single run can end within minutes, but reaching the credits will likely take multiple tries and over twenty hours, with many more to come if one is set on discovering the multiple hidden mechanics and optional pieces of content. Noita is a challenging roguelite winking at those players who put freedom of exploration and experimentation in high regard, but the heavy reliance on RNG and a steep difficulty curve can hold back anyone from relishing in the chaos more often than not.

If you’re not bothered about kicking a thirty-plus minute run to the curb because you didn’t quite manage to piece together anything strong enough, or about dawdling around a bit in an attempt to grind for whatever may be needed to build a dream weapon, you might really enjoy Noita. It’s not exactly my cup of tea but I think I may have been taking it a little too seriously – sometimes it’s just fun to embrace the madness and see how far you can take it.

I don’t envy any roguelike unfortunate enough to release immediately after Hades — that game made every run feel distinct and provided a persistent narrative justification for the repetition inherent to the genre. I obviously can’t expect smaller developers to match that effort, but what Hades does well underlines the fact that so many roguelikes let stellar ideas go to waste, lost amid endless monotony. Noita is a spectacular technical showcase in desperate need of a more fully-formed game.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Conceptually it's interesting. It's deep and complex. But it isn't fun nor does it have any sort of meta-upgrade system that every roguelike has nowadays. I can't recommend this over Hades or Dead Cells.

Overrated. As a pixel fan who owns almost every type of game I can say Noita has some of the best physics which most pixel games don't have. I think most gamers are just caught up in the environment but not so much the gameplay. Its like a RNG, hide and seek simulator. You dungeon crawl very carefully on a handful of dungeons and RNG some wands and spells along the way. You have to take it super slow so you don't RNG yourself to death. What good is having those physics if you cant go crazy battling monsters and creating havoc on the world around you. Just wasn't my style of gameplay and felt more inhibiting then fun.

Noita exists not to be played, but to be watched in trailer form. It may be thin and repetitive game with shockingly little polish and hundreds of examples of needless, fun-stopping complexity, but it does have some nice trailers. Loads of fun until you try to play it.

Hard pass from me, how does it have so high user score? Makes no sense.............