Noita

And yes, there’s an engaging gameplay loop beyond all of the terrain and wand modification. There’s an eclectic variety of enemies in the myriad regions that players can explore, running the gamut from familiar antagonists such as rats, robots, and gunmen, to more wild creatures like sentient blobs of acid and all manner of tentacled eldritch horrors. The environments are similarly diverse and player exploration is constantly rewarded in the form of new spells, potions, and secret locations, among other things.

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.

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.