At the moment of writing there’s very little discourse about Laika online, mostly contained within Steam. And with Steam reviews being Steam reviews, people are defining this game through easily identifiable correlative qualifiers. It’s set in a motorized wasteland, kinda like Mad Max! You ride a bike, so it’s Trials with a gun! The combat involves air pirouettes, literally My Friend Pedro! It’s a cartoony castleroidvania, so basically Hollow Knight! It’s easy to dismiss Laika as a hodgepodge pastiche of all things indie, especially in the season motley of overmarketed 90 metacritic releases. The best thing the developers could do in this environment was to release the demo version. It takes 15 minutes hands-on to realize you’re dealing with something special here.
When broken down to bare essentials, the ingredients are pretty familiar. It’s a 2D-sidescroller and you’re on a bike. You balance the bike with the left stick and aim the gun with the right stick. Checkpoints are plentiful but it's always a one-hit kill for you or the enemies. Except, the bike is a large hitbox that shields you from bullets, and you have very little ammo in the clip before you have to reload the gun by doing an air backflip. These two are the brilliant integrals which allow Laika gain its own, completely unique moment-to-moment language. A bump on the road that sends you flying isn’t just an obstacle – it’s an opportunity: either a defensive one to shield yourself from fire or a chance to regain ammo with an iffy flip. It leads to encounters of positional enemy prioritization, risky acrobatics, resource management and split-second decisions. It allows for boss fights that serve as ultimate tests of these particular player skills in more patterned, elaborate bouts. It’s an unusual arrangement of mechanics you definitely need to try for yourself to see if it works for you. If it does though you’ll find such a sick, satisfying system that presses many familiar buttons but plays a totally different tune.
Another structural aspect that impressed me highly is the fundamental purity of Laika’s search action pace. I tend to go on the demo hunts every Steam Next Fest season, and it appears that the current trend in metroidvania design is maximalism – more skill trees, more abilities, more gameplay modifiers, more quote on quote things to mess with. There’s nothing wrong with this approach (in fact just recently I really enjoyed Astlibra, and I’m quite excited for Tevi too), but it makes me appreciate a game like Laika, where every upgrade feels like a radical option expanding power spike. In fact there are exactly two items that give you new traversal abilities – and they are such an exciting change of paradigm that make you rethink the way you approach every gameplay moment. It’s that game from the universe where System Shock 1 was the touchstone game design classic while more numbers driven System Shock 2 was relegated to a curious footnote in history.
The voice of Laika too is diametrically different from what you expect in the medium. Through the advent of prestige sad dad games we've been completely missing stories focused on motherhood and associated female growth – and Laika is that exact tale. The explosive growth of Soulslikes prescribed exposition, The Lore, as the main worldbuilding tool – Laika defines its world without a single written description of an event. The game goes against the established flow if it can benefit from it, but where it matters – Laika preaches to the choir. As in, the anti-imperialist narrative about war, the atrocities it brings and how it warps the combatants, is, to say the least, appreciated in our current world. So are the serene moments of tranquility in-between skirmishes, accentuated by a wonderful vocal soundtrack.
As you can see, I’m very passionately dazzled by Laika. It’s one of the best game I played and artistically it came at exactly the right time. Give it a chance, don’t let it slip through the constant whirlpool of game releases. It deserves to be recognized as a classic.
When broken down to bare essentials, the ingredients are pretty familiar. It’s a 2D-sidescroller and you’re on a bike. You balance the bike with the left stick and aim the gun with the right stick. Checkpoints are plentiful but it's always a one-hit kill for you or the enemies. Except, the bike is a large hitbox that shields you from bullets, and you have very little ammo in the clip before you have to reload the gun by doing an air backflip. These two are the brilliant integrals which allow Laika gain its own, completely unique moment-to-moment language. A bump on the road that sends you flying isn’t just an obstacle – it’s an opportunity: either a defensive one to shield yourself from fire or a chance to regain ammo with an iffy flip. It leads to encounters of positional enemy prioritization, risky acrobatics, resource management and split-second decisions. It allows for boss fights that serve as ultimate tests of these particular player skills in more patterned, elaborate bouts. It’s an unusual arrangement of mechanics you definitely need to try for yourself to see if it works for you. If it does though you’ll find such a sick, satisfying system that presses many familiar buttons but plays a totally different tune.
Another structural aspect that impressed me highly is the fundamental purity of Laika’s search action pace. I tend to go on the demo hunts every Steam Next Fest season, and it appears that the current trend in metroidvania design is maximalism – more skill trees, more abilities, more gameplay modifiers, more quote on quote things to mess with. There’s nothing wrong with this approach (in fact just recently I really enjoyed Astlibra, and I’m quite excited for Tevi too), but it makes me appreciate a game like Laika, where every upgrade feels like a radical option expanding power spike. In fact there are exactly two items that give you new traversal abilities – and they are such an exciting change of paradigm that make you rethink the way you approach every gameplay moment. It’s that game from the universe where System Shock 1 was the touchstone game design classic while more numbers driven System Shock 2 was relegated to a curious footnote in history.
The voice of Laika too is diametrically different from what you expect in the medium. Through the advent of prestige sad dad games we've been completely missing stories focused on motherhood and associated female growth – and Laika is that exact tale. The explosive growth of Soulslikes prescribed exposition, The Lore, as the main worldbuilding tool – Laika defines its world without a single written description of an event. The game goes against the established flow if it can benefit from it, but where it matters – Laika preaches to the choir. As in, the anti-imperialist narrative about war, the atrocities it brings and how it warps the combatants, is, to say the least, appreciated in our current world. So are the serene moments of tranquility in-between skirmishes, accentuated by a wonderful vocal soundtrack.
As you can see, I’m very passionately dazzled by Laika. It’s one of the best game I played and artistically it came at exactly the right time. Give it a chance, don’t let it slip through the constant whirlpool of game releases. It deserves to be recognized as a classic.
Fuck
Laika: Aged Through Blood left quite the impression on me in the first few hours. The biking mechanic put into the Metroidvania genre seemed to work so well, and was a joy to mess around with. The controls are pretty tight and responsive, and I am generally a fan of the difficulty of the game. I was also very impressed by the map, which conveys the paths you should follow quite clearly, unlike many other games I have played in the past. The art of the game is top-notch as well, and fits the atmosphere the game tries to portray neatly.
Sadly, Laika also has some unfortunate design choices that make the game feel much less like a Metroidvania than I initially thought. Normally, a well-designed Metroidvania allows you to roam freely through a world packed with secrets and lore, while occasionally blocking your way with an obstacle that you are not yet able to overcome. Once you have stumbled upon the right abilities or tools to traverse said obstacle, you can revisit the place at your own leasure. Every area you visit and everything you do should feel rewarding, which makes the Metroidvania so exciting to play. You're exploring a vast world, filled to the brim with interesting bits and pieces to put its history together.
However, Laika does not do this. The main story quest revolves around gathering items and talking to NPC's to advance, which makes the entire game feel like one giant fetchquest. Sidequests reward you with mostly useless crafting materials (not even currency), and the only thing you have to do in between gameplay segments is teleport from one place to the other to continue said quests. There are no secrets to uncover, only collectables to gather, which makes the entire game feel bland outside of biking around and doing flips to reload your ammo. And apart from the occasional inventory description or background art, I could barely discern any significant lore about the world from regular filler content.
Now, this would not be a big problem if the main NPC-driven quest was unique and interesting to follow, but I found this to be quite the opposite as well. For a game about heavy topics, which are actually warned about in the opening screen, the story is quite devoid of build-up and emotion in my opinion. Connecting to characters is difficult because of cringy one-liners (characters saying "Hilarious!", "Fuck.", and "Wanker" after every single line of dialogue), and the conversations you have rarely deviate from the main topic of "killing the birds" and the curse your family has been saddled with. You spend no quality time or meaningful moments with NPC's at all, not even your daughter Puppy, leaving out the possibility of connecting to a character like you would to a friend or family member.
But not only the story and main quest were disappointing to me in the end. For one, returning to parts of the world I had already completed felt utterly empty and uninteresting due to long flat roads and same-y enemy designs and positioning. Additionally, the crafting system is way overblown and requires you to revisit places multiple times to gather ingredients and currency. In total, you need about 25 to 30 thousand viscera (the "money" of the game) to buy every item and upgrade, half of which are useless compared to your starting revolver, which somehow has better accuracy than the sniper rifle does.
On top of that - and this is my personal opinion - the ost with lyrics are unbearable. I actually rather turned the music off than keep it on. It felt like such a waste, because the ost outside of the lyrical songs fit the game perfectly fine. Please videogame developers, don't put lyrics into your OST unless it means something.
I find it such a shame that an entirely unique concept with fun mechanics are overshadowed by poor decisions on the design of this game. I would have loved if Laika chose to hold close to the Metroidvania genre by making the world feel mysterious and worthwile to explore, but sadly I cannot say that it accomplished this. I had an okay time with this game in the end, mainly through satisfying motorcycle gameplay you would find in a 2000 or so line-rider game.
Sadly, Laika also has some unfortunate design choices that make the game feel much less like a Metroidvania than I initially thought. Normally, a well-designed Metroidvania allows you to roam freely through a world packed with secrets and lore, while occasionally blocking your way with an obstacle that you are not yet able to overcome. Once you have stumbled upon the right abilities or tools to traverse said obstacle, you can revisit the place at your own leasure. Every area you visit and everything you do should feel rewarding, which makes the Metroidvania so exciting to play. You're exploring a vast world, filled to the brim with interesting bits and pieces to put its history together.
However, Laika does not do this. The main story quest revolves around gathering items and talking to NPC's to advance, which makes the entire game feel like one giant fetchquest. Sidequests reward you with mostly useless crafting materials (not even currency), and the only thing you have to do in between gameplay segments is teleport from one place to the other to continue said quests. There are no secrets to uncover, only collectables to gather, which makes the entire game feel bland outside of biking around and doing flips to reload your ammo. And apart from the occasional inventory description or background art, I could barely discern any significant lore about the world from regular filler content.
Now, this would not be a big problem if the main NPC-driven quest was unique and interesting to follow, but I found this to be quite the opposite as well. For a game about heavy topics, which are actually warned about in the opening screen, the story is quite devoid of build-up and emotion in my opinion. Connecting to characters is difficult because of cringy one-liners (characters saying "Hilarious!", "Fuck.", and "Wanker" after every single line of dialogue), and the conversations you have rarely deviate from the main topic of "killing the birds" and the curse your family has been saddled with. You spend no quality time or meaningful moments with NPC's at all, not even your daughter Puppy, leaving out the possibility of connecting to a character like you would to a friend or family member.
But not only the story and main quest were disappointing to me in the end. For one, returning to parts of the world I had already completed felt utterly empty and uninteresting due to long flat roads and same-y enemy designs and positioning. Additionally, the crafting system is way overblown and requires you to revisit places multiple times to gather ingredients and currency. In total, you need about 25 to 30 thousand viscera (the "money" of the game) to buy every item and upgrade, half of which are useless compared to your starting revolver, which somehow has better accuracy than the sniper rifle does.
On top of that - and this is my personal opinion - the ost with lyrics are unbearable. I actually rather turned the music off than keep it on. It felt like such a waste, because the ost outside of the lyrical songs fit the game perfectly fine. Please videogame developers, don't put lyrics into your OST unless it means something.
I find it such a shame that an entirely unique concept with fun mechanics are overshadowed by poor decisions on the design of this game. I would have loved if Laika chose to hold close to the Metroidvania genre by making the world feel mysterious and worthwile to explore, but sadly I cannot say that it accomplished this. I had an okay time with this game in the end, mainly through satisfying motorcycle gameplay you would find in a 2000 or so line-rider game.
Você inicia o jogo em um universo que relembra um madmax e descobre que seu irmão está encrencado, tu chega no lugar, o filho do seu irmão está crucificado com as próprias visceras. Tu entra no lugar, são os pássaros imperialistas, que começaram a dominar os assentamentos da região. O teu sobrinho foi capturado, por isso seu irmão foi atrás, tu chega a encontrar teu irmão ferido, mas descobre que os passaros imperialistas estão construindo uma máquina de guerra e cabe a você destrui-la. Tu pega sua arma que teu irmão roubou e derrota o monstro e deve voltar para onde vc vive, que é a forma que os lugares são nomeados.
Excelente jogo, tudo agrega, trilha sonora, arte e gameplay, tudo se complementa
Excelente jogo, tudo agrega, trilha sonora, arte e gameplay, tudo se complementa
Fuck me if i care
"WARNING: This game contains depictions of extreme acts of violence towards children and suicide, mentions of sexual assault, which some players may find distressing."
Laika: Aged Through Blood begins with this content warning, but it's less of a warning and more of a promise, one that it makes good on within five minutes as you bear witness to a child that has been gutted and hung by those guts as a warning that your enemies are coming for you.
It sets the tone for a game so edgy you could cut yourself just looking at it. A game so wholeheartedly grimdark that the main character's literal catchphrase is "fuck me if I care", where after reliving a brutal memory that defines her existence, she opines that it "hurts just as much now as it did on that fucking goddamn day". Suffice it to say that the dialogue (which, it should be said, was not written by native english speakers) is very bad.
More than that though, the grimdark tone is committed to so completely that Laika ends up feeling nihilistic almost to a fault. Not only is the titular character almost completely done with existence but I wouldn't hold your breath for positive outcomes to the games' many sidequests. Meanwhile, one of the only things that passes for comic relief is a character who quite literally says the word "wanker" in almost every single one of their lines of dialogue.
Having said all of that, there are uplifting moments to be found in Laika as well as moments where the story and dialogue do shine and by the end I did find myself emotionally invested in Laika and her ragtag village of survivors, but ultimately the story and tone of this game manage to be a letdown in what is overall a very compelling game.
The reason I chose to frontload this review with negative points before moving onto the more positive aspects of the game is because I believe the tone and story of this game are likely to be its most controversial aspects and given how pervasive they are throughout the entire game it's worth talking about them before anything else.
So, if none of those things put you off, let me tell you about some of the coolest gameplay I've experienced this year. Laika takes a moment to get used to. Juggling it's traversal and combat initially seems kind of clunky and awkward but once it clicks oh boy does it click.
Laika's gameplay is a simple loop of speeding around on your motorbike and shooting anything that gets in your way, but it's a loop that never really wears out its welcome thanks to tight controls and generous bullet time that, once mastered, leave you feeling like a god of gunpowder and steel as you pirouette through levels like a deadly tornado.
There are a few strokes of design genius at play here. Firstly, in order to reload your guns, you need to perform a backflip, forcing you into many situations where you risk exposing yourself to your enemies (your bike acts as a shield when angled correctly) in order to regain your precious bullets and carry on shooting. Secondly, enemies fly through the air as you shoot them, often acting as meat shields for their companions in their final moments, forcing you to wait for the perfect time to shoot. Enemy variety is not massive, but each enemy forces you to think and act differently and some can be more effectively countered by certain weapons.
Laika is structed as a sort of pseudo-metroidvania. Throughout the game you gain upgrades which allow you access to new areas. The first of these is a shotgun, which is an absolute textbook example of great metroidvania ability design. It serves not only as a weapon but allows you to blast through barricades which previously blocked progress as well as knocking you back when you fire it, a feature which can be used as a sort of double jump when aimed correctly.
The other abilities are, in comparison, underwhelming. Imagine my sadness when I gained a grappling hook only to discover it cannot be used on enemies and can only be used on very specific objects which block progress.
The world is split into different zones, each of which are relatively distinct from each other thanks to strong art design and some pretty fantastic background work. While most of these zones play the same, a few provide interesting environmental challanges.
The main story has some particularly great setpieces which feel both mechanically fresh and suitably epic. The sidequests are, however, a bit of a letdown, most of them are very simplistic fetch quests with very little narrative attached to them. The worst of these quests are invariably the ones that attempt to tackle heavy topics while featuring about ten lines of dialogue in total.
Almost all of these quests task you with finding an object in the world (sometimes with very vague descriptions of where you need to go) which only becomes interactable once the quest starts. As soon as I cottoned on to this I found myself frequently spotting what I knew were quest items but finding myself unable to interact with them. Knowing I would have to backtrack to this location once I had the relevant quest. Eventually, I gave up on some of these quests as the rewards were rarely worth the effort anyway.
Perhaps the most standout element of Laika aside from the gameplay is its original soundtrack, an album's worth of bangers by Brainwash Gang's inhouse composer Beícoli (who is also a character in the game). While many of this game's story beats will probably fade from my memory with time, I can easily imagine finding one of these songs randomly stuck in my head years from now, probably Playing in the Sun. It's a soundtrack worth listening to even if the game doesn't really appeal to you.
Ultimately Laika: Aged Through Blood is a a game I could easily see becoming a cult classic in certain circles. A tight core gamplay loop, a fantastic soundtrack and some great art let down only by a needlessly dark tone and some supremely bad dialogue. If you can look past those faults though, I promise you, you'll find a game quite unlike anything else you've played.
Laika: Aged Through Blood begins with this content warning, but it's less of a warning and more of a promise, one that it makes good on within five minutes as you bear witness to a child that has been gutted and hung by those guts as a warning that your enemies are coming for you.
It sets the tone for a game so edgy you could cut yourself just looking at it. A game so wholeheartedly grimdark that the main character's literal catchphrase is "fuck me if I care", where after reliving a brutal memory that defines her existence, she opines that it "hurts just as much now as it did on that fucking goddamn day". Suffice it to say that the dialogue (which, it should be said, was not written by native english speakers) is very bad.
More than that though, the grimdark tone is committed to so completely that Laika ends up feeling nihilistic almost to a fault. Not only is the titular character almost completely done with existence but I wouldn't hold your breath for positive outcomes to the games' many sidequests. Meanwhile, one of the only things that passes for comic relief is a character who quite literally says the word "wanker" in almost every single one of their lines of dialogue.
Having said all of that, there are uplifting moments to be found in Laika as well as moments where the story and dialogue do shine and by the end I did find myself emotionally invested in Laika and her ragtag village of survivors, but ultimately the story and tone of this game manage to be a letdown in what is overall a very compelling game.
The reason I chose to frontload this review with negative points before moving onto the more positive aspects of the game is because I believe the tone and story of this game are likely to be its most controversial aspects and given how pervasive they are throughout the entire game it's worth talking about them before anything else.
So, if none of those things put you off, let me tell you about some of the coolest gameplay I've experienced this year. Laika takes a moment to get used to. Juggling it's traversal and combat initially seems kind of clunky and awkward but once it clicks oh boy does it click.
Laika's gameplay is a simple loop of speeding around on your motorbike and shooting anything that gets in your way, but it's a loop that never really wears out its welcome thanks to tight controls and generous bullet time that, once mastered, leave you feeling like a god of gunpowder and steel as you pirouette through levels like a deadly tornado.
There are a few strokes of design genius at play here. Firstly, in order to reload your guns, you need to perform a backflip, forcing you into many situations where you risk exposing yourself to your enemies (your bike acts as a shield when angled correctly) in order to regain your precious bullets and carry on shooting. Secondly, enemies fly through the air as you shoot them, often acting as meat shields for their companions in their final moments, forcing you to wait for the perfect time to shoot. Enemy variety is not massive, but each enemy forces you to think and act differently and some can be more effectively countered by certain weapons.
Laika is structed as a sort of pseudo-metroidvania. Throughout the game you gain upgrades which allow you access to new areas. The first of these is a shotgun, which is an absolute textbook example of great metroidvania ability design. It serves not only as a weapon but allows you to blast through barricades which previously blocked progress as well as knocking you back when you fire it, a feature which can be used as a sort of double jump when aimed correctly.
The other abilities are, in comparison, underwhelming. Imagine my sadness when I gained a grappling hook only to discover it cannot be used on enemies and can only be used on very specific objects which block progress.
The world is split into different zones, each of which are relatively distinct from each other thanks to strong art design and some pretty fantastic background work. While most of these zones play the same, a few provide interesting environmental challanges.
The main story has some particularly great setpieces which feel both mechanically fresh and suitably epic. The sidequests are, however, a bit of a letdown, most of them are very simplistic fetch quests with very little narrative attached to them. The worst of these quests are invariably the ones that attempt to tackle heavy topics while featuring about ten lines of dialogue in total.
Almost all of these quests task you with finding an object in the world (sometimes with very vague descriptions of where you need to go) which only becomes interactable once the quest starts. As soon as I cottoned on to this I found myself frequently spotting what I knew were quest items but finding myself unable to interact with them. Knowing I would have to backtrack to this location once I had the relevant quest. Eventually, I gave up on some of these quests as the rewards were rarely worth the effort anyway.
Perhaps the most standout element of Laika aside from the gameplay is its original soundtrack, an album's worth of bangers by Brainwash Gang's inhouse composer Beícoli (who is also a character in the game). While many of this game's story beats will probably fade from my memory with time, I can easily imagine finding one of these songs randomly stuck in my head years from now, probably Playing in the Sun. It's a soundtrack worth listening to even if the game doesn't really appeal to you.
Ultimately Laika: Aged Through Blood is a a game I could easily see becoming a cult classic in certain circles. A tight core gamplay loop, a fantastic soundtrack and some great art let down only by a needlessly dark tone and some supremely bad dialogue. If you can look past those faults though, I promise you, you'll find a game quite unlike anything else you've played.
A wonderfully unique take on a metroidvania.
The gameplay is mostly great moment to moment, but has its flaws. Gameplay-wise it's kind of cousins with Yoku's Island Express.
The story is the differentiator here. Tough themes done well. Stuff you don't really see done much in games to this degree of success.
Play the demo first, as you will know if the gameplay is for you from the demo alone.
Recommended.
The gameplay is mostly great moment to moment, but has its flaws. Gameplay-wise it's kind of cousins with Yoku's Island Express.
The story is the differentiator here. Tough themes done well. Stuff you don't really see done much in games to this degree of success.
Play the demo first, as you will know if the gameplay is for you from the demo alone.
Recommended.
please save this game from its control scheme
Fantastic music, easily my favorite soundtrack of the year. I didn't end up liking the game much, but that's okay.
The gameplay is fantastic and fun when you get used to it, the atmosphere created by the music and environment is really fitting and sinks you into the world. The story is very well-written and executed. My only major complaint is that the boss fights too often throw out utilizing the cool gameplay and mechanics in favor of using the new tool you just got which makes them feel incredibly lacking overall.
Are you here investigating if you should play this game? Maybe you got it recommended to you somewhere, somehow? Do it. Play Laika.
This is the best indie game you haven't played this year. Laika Aged Through Blood bills itself as a metroidvania. I think it's better described as some kind of 4 parent love child spawned by Happy Wheels, Hollow Knight, Max Payne, and Hotline Miami. Then that child grew up and became a furry who binged watched every Tarantino movie because they loved the gore.
You play Laika, a motorbike riding cyote who is the recipient of her family's curse that causes her to come back to life. Laika, hates this. She's depressed. She's mad. And she is the only thing that can fight back against the bird army which is oppressing her village and daughter.
The story is dark, serious, and shockingly mature. While I liked it, you can ignore most of it because the core gameplay loop of BULLET TIME HAPPY WHEELS slaps.
The controls are unique and fun with a gamepad. Accelerate with the left trigger. Hold right right trigger to enter bullet time and release to shoot. Doing backflips in the air reloads your gun. Your enemies, and you, die in one hit.
While no single aspect in this game is too unique mechanically, they combine in a way that is more than novel. It is on par with Yoku's Island Express in terms of unique feel and freshness in metroidvanias.
On top of all of that, the boss battles are sublime. AND it's an easy candidate for best music of 2023. Laika feels so fragrantly under apricated that I made my very first TikTok review about it?!
If you've made it this far, put the game on your Wishlist. Buy it now. Because...
This is the best indie game you haven't played this year. Laika Aged Through Blood bills itself as a metroidvania. I think it's better described as some kind of 4 parent love child spawned by Happy Wheels, Hollow Knight, Max Payne, and Hotline Miami. Then that child grew up and became a furry who binged watched every Tarantino movie because they loved the gore.
You play Laika, a motorbike riding cyote who is the recipient of her family's curse that causes her to come back to life. Laika, hates this. She's depressed. She's mad. And she is the only thing that can fight back against the bird army which is oppressing her village and daughter.
The story is dark, serious, and shockingly mature. While I liked it, you can ignore most of it because the core gameplay loop of BULLET TIME HAPPY WHEELS slaps.
The controls are unique and fun with a gamepad. Accelerate with the left trigger. Hold right right trigger to enter bullet time and release to shoot. Doing backflips in the air reloads your gun. Your enemies, and you, die in one hit.
While no single aspect in this game is too unique mechanically, they combine in a way that is more than novel. It is on par with Yoku's Island Express in terms of unique feel and freshness in metroidvanias.
On top of all of that, the boss battles are sublime. AND it's an easy candidate for best music of 2023. Laika feels so fragrantly under apricated that I made my very first TikTok review about it?!
If you've made it this far, put the game on your Wishlist. Buy it now. Because...
Me hubiera encantado poder hablar sólo de las cosas que tiene el juego: una música extraordinaria y una historia y unos personajes que quieres seguir conociendo, pero lamentablemente he tenido muchísimos problemas con el juego: tanto bajadas de framerates que me han dado dolor de cabeza, como bugs que me han obligado a reiniciar el juego varias veces durante la partida. Además, sigo sin entender la necesidad de hacer el juego tan difícil y que te obligue tantas veces a repetir las mismas zonas. Ya sólo llegar a algún punto del mapa desde los puntos de teletransporte se hace muy pesado y espero que mejore estos factores de cara el futuro, porque viendo los logros de Steam, sólo 1 de cada 4 personas está llegando al final del juego y creo que es una lástima.
I was on board for the first couple of hours, but something quickly shifted and I had to stop playing. Perhaps it was the very clearly rigged blackjack minigame that I lost all my money on twice. I’ve read the developer saying it works the same as any casino blackjack, but basically any time I got 20 the house got 20 or 21.
This isn’t a blackjack game though, so I should also mention the looping soundtrack of not very good songs, the unintuitive traversal and aiming (I can imagine the latter being better on PC, but on a PS5 controller it’s rough, even with a generous aim assist) and badly written dialogue. I can’t really comment on the story but let’s just say it didn’t grab me.
I might come back to this another time, but for now it’s backloggd™️
This isn’t a blackjack game though, so I should also mention the looping soundtrack of not very good songs, the unintuitive traversal and aiming (I can imagine the latter being better on PC, but on a PS5 controller it’s rough, even with a generous aim assist) and badly written dialogue. I can’t really comment on the story but let’s just say it didn’t grab me.
I might come back to this another time, but for now it’s backloggd™️
First few hours with the controls feel amazing, but sadly it gets old, the game could have benefitted from a level based design instead of a metroidvania one, the combat and control system gets stale eventually. Big kudos for having cool controls.
Definitely, this game was a surprise for me. I had only seen the trailer and bought the game on a steam sale.
Besides the game's art being absurdly beautiful, the OST is one of the best things I've ever heard while playing something.
The mechanic of doing everything on a motorcycle at first seemed very difficult to me, but with time and with the assists the game gives you, like allowing you to bump your head on some things, everything becomes very fluid and natural.
The story is quite interesting; the world reveals itself to be more than just a "mad max" with animals, and it captivated me a lot, both the characters and the plot as a whole.
As a metroidvania, I liked it a lot. I think there could be more places to teleport to in such a horizontal world, but overall, it does everything that a satisfying metroidvania does.
The weapons have a good variety, with noticeable differences, and I noticed that I wasn't penalized for not using the ones I didn't like. It was clear that some would help me more in certain moments, but the fact that I could use any of them as a primary weapon left me satisfied. Another point I liked is that unlike other games, in this one, the initial weapon isn't left aside because the new ones are much better. I used the first weapon the whole game, just having to upgrade it, and it was very good. Another cool point is that the shotgun changes the gameplay, allowing you to reach previously inaccessible places.
The boss fights and enemy encounters are well balanced; the enemies have a small variety, but as you progress, they spread throughout the map, changing the environment.
Overall, I liked it a lot. A very natural and fun resource system, cooking gives significant improvements but not using them doesn't harm you, the gameplay is great, it has memorable areas, captivating characters, a good story, a wonderful OST—I highly recommend it!
Besides the game's art being absurdly beautiful, the OST is one of the best things I've ever heard while playing something.
The mechanic of doing everything on a motorcycle at first seemed very difficult to me, but with time and with the assists the game gives you, like allowing you to bump your head on some things, everything becomes very fluid and natural.
The story is quite interesting; the world reveals itself to be more than just a "mad max" with animals, and it captivated me a lot, both the characters and the plot as a whole.
As a metroidvania, I liked it a lot. I think there could be more places to teleport to in such a horizontal world, but overall, it does everything that a satisfying metroidvania does.
The weapons have a good variety, with noticeable differences, and I noticed that I wasn't penalized for not using the ones I didn't like. It was clear that some would help me more in certain moments, but the fact that I could use any of them as a primary weapon left me satisfied. Another point I liked is that unlike other games, in this one, the initial weapon isn't left aside because the new ones are much better. I used the first weapon the whole game, just having to upgrade it, and it was very good. Another cool point is that the shotgun changes the gameplay, allowing you to reach previously inaccessible places.
The boss fights and enemy encounters are well balanced; the enemies have a small variety, but as you progress, they spread throughout the map, changing the environment.
Overall, I liked it a lot. A very natural and fun resource system, cooking gives significant improvements but not using them doesn't harm you, the gameplay is great, it has memorable areas, captivating characters, a good story, a wonderful OST—I highly recommend it!
CW: Depictions of extreme acts of violence towards children, suicide, mentions of sexual assault, gore.
Estimated read time: 10~ minutes.
We (Laika) hear from our daughter (Puppy) over the radio that cousin Poochie, her best friend, has been crucified with his own guts by The Birds. No more than a minute later or so, we see cousin Poochie, as described.
Fuck.
...Now our friend Jakob is going after The Birds for revenge, what a fucking idiot. A total suicide mission. Fuck. Gotta catch up to him.
Fuck.
That's the very start, the intro. Yes, the content warning precedes this too in-game (I merely added the gore warning, though that should be obvious if you saw the trailer); I thought about expanding it even more, honestly, but I feel that would be spoilery. Anything more than explicitly labeled in the CW is never on-screen anyways, but at a few key moments it made me choke up.
Laika: Aged Through Blood really doesn't hold any punches, save maybe one, but it's the difference between dealing with extremely heavy themes and piling on so many that nobody's going to touch your game. I still think for many the game is too much to deal with, when the barometer for "heavy" content to most consumers of media is "saying goodbye to a friend" or "maybe we question why we shoot people sometimes".
Mechanically it similarly doesn't really hold many punches, sort of, it's a rather demanding game while also being extremely unique to actually play. It's ultimately a fusion of sidescrolling driving with twin-stick shooting, emphasis on momentum and careful angling; weirdly precise aiming, though with a somewhat generous aim assist, which feels weird at first but after a bit I stopped thinking about how it works. I'd say after my second real boss the game's general movement also truly clicked with me, and in that regard it's one of the most satisfying games I've ever played to perform well at, it just looks so sick when you pull off weapon swapping to deal with a whole group of enemies in the span of one jump, calculating your target priority and executing on it... It's the balance game designers toil with endlessly and it's something I feel Laika: ATB more or less nails immediately, with only occasional hiccups in some awkward encounter design. The bosses themselves are frankly kind of whatever, but thematically they all kinda nail it. It has what I could only compare to "bloodstains" in the form of "viscera sacks", whereupon dying to an enemy or falling off your bike (falling into a death pit or similar doesn't drop one.
It's worth mentioning that I think a certain boss in particular is easily the worst part of the game, about halfway through, lol; got stuck there for an hour+ but when I beat it I felt like I could take on the rest of the game without any real troubles.
And that soundtrack... God, the soundtrack... I know for many they'll find the lyrics insufferable; a lot of people don't even like having em for credits sequences, and normally I'd say "SAME!"; but you know what? I love the OST. It makes it feel so much more grounded, the mixing is wonderful too, can hear the actual slaps on drums, or the breathing; just very organic ya know? The way you acquire tapes as you progress through the game also seems fitting relative to the location they're found in for the most part, not all of them hit but most are bangers.
Major spoilers from this point on, until closing thoughts.
"Fuck me if I care."
Getting to this point in the game struck my heart with a twinge of pain, if you know you know. I gush about the game mechanically but for me it's the symbolism and pure vent energy behind everything. Laika's angry, I'm angry. Laika's sad, I'm sad. Some friends you know you'll be seeing for the last time. Other things are more systemic. Sometimes you're given a choice, one that likely would do nothing for the long run, yet immediately after I felt genuinely awful for acting in anger during Closure; I felt as though I'd failed my own moral compass, because I was immersed in Laika's suffering, her anger, her tug of war between apathy and empathy. I let apathy win once and felt like shit. I need to clarify the game never forced me to. More on this later.
There is a revelatory moment late into the game that explains a very specific enemy behavior that confused me and other people: The birds who don't attack, that's not a bug. It's deliberate. They are effectively committing suicide in protest of the war, feigning their positions as much as possible and willingly being mowed down to fulfill their own moral and philosophical code, even after we desecrate their religious and cultural center in revenge of Poochie; because they leave their long history behind as it's been repurposed as the heart of a new eugenics advocacy and research program. Sounds familiar...
Also, at the religious center, the person who's the only reason we're able to get in isn't a bird, but someone who willingly became a slave to them so she could get closer to their most treasured history; as an archeologist and historian, to her it was worth it. After helping us demolish all of it, we find her having hung herself in guilt of destroying her passion. She did it for what in her eyes was a righteous mission, but the weight of destroying culture was too much to bear.
At one point, Puppy asks her mother if she'll be like her one day, Laika responds by recounting her experience inheriting the curse. She explains that it is hereditary, that her body felt like death, eating itself from the inside out and like being on fire, until she bled out; her memories played back instantaneously as she revived, taking the curse away from her mother and into her. Puppy doesn't seem too phased by all of this, but also says little.
Later it is revealed Laika has lost two daughters who bled to the curse but failed to actually survive the process, thus permanently dying; all this Laika omitted telling Puppy, whom she didn't try to become too attached to for fear of experiencing the same pain all over again. In a subquest, we follow Laika go through PTSD of one of these deaths. It is revealed later the curse is not exclusive to Laika's family; the foreigner at the bar, upon finally figuring out what she's saying, talks of her own home, how there existed a woman with the same curse of immortality. She bled too, but rather than become a pawn for her village, she threw herself off a cliff, and the body was never found.
The big thing here is that the curse, reviled by the carrier, is sought after by those looking to turn them into permanent soldiers. The birds who are adamant about eugenics want to abduct one with the curse to study it, in hopes of becoming immortal themselves. This culminates in Herman taking Puppy out to hand her off to someone, to get rid of what he considers a target to the village. We confront him at the bar, detailing excruciating torture that will be inflicted if he does not reveal where our daughter is. After he tells us he handed her off to someone at the bird city, we dome him, then head off after Puppy.
We track them down to a bar, where the "someone" is a singer who we confront with a shot to the liver; we explain they'll be dead in minutes if they don't explain where Puppy is. They explain they gave Puppy to a bird named Trook, who was going to use her as his Ticket to Heaven. We shoot the singer as well, before heading off to find Trook and Puppy. We find Trook in a dumpy little hideout with Puppy who's tied up on a bed, and we try to barter with him, explaining that Puppy does not actually have the curse, and that we will literally kill ourselves to give him some blood if he lets her go. He considers it for a moment, hesitating, then says he doesn't trust us, and begins pulling his gun out on Puppy; but we intercept this and dome him immediately, rescuing Puppy and taking her home.
(CW for paragraph: rape)
While out in the world I noticed some new NPCs about halfway or two-thirds through the game, one of which was this older man asking for us to return his young daughter home. By this point I was pretty set on doing all of the sidequests, so we tracked her down to Where the Waves Die. There we find her corpse, and her diary. The birds killed her on-sight, and the diary, quite unusually from most other items in the game, is not read back to us directly by Laika; she simply remarks. "Fuck... I wish I could un-read that."
When we return to the man to tell him the news, and confront him about what's in the diary, he plays dumb; we press him further, and he cracks, simply saying that "she was the only love in my life." It's heavily implied that the man was molesting and raping his own daughter. The sidequest is completed, and, much to my surprise, you can execute the man on the spot with no punishment. Fuck him.
"More on this later": Poochie's killer turned out to be a child soldier not much older than Poochie, who did so in rage after ceaseless mockery and abuse from his fellow soldiers; given the title "Kidgutter". In Closure, we find him wallowing in an abandoned warehouse, slowly starving himself to death in guilt and all but asking us to kill him. I hesitated, but only briefly, before pulling the trigger. I sat there for a while thinking about what I'd done, the quest was completed already before that; I never had to pull the trigger. Would Laika have pulled the trigger? I thought so in that moment, but when I became unsure, I felt genuine guilt and not the kind that's easier to answer past an "I don't know". I think the action were automated, Laika "could" have, but given the option not to, I have a feeling she'd find it in her somewhere to spare him. To have him starve to death instead? Maybe, or maybe she'd set him down a path of redemption as an ally to help bring an end to it all. I don't know. I'm sorry.
...
In the finale of the game, we learn that the Ticket to Heaven was to go to the new bird city that flies in the sky nearly perpetually, and work with an inside agent who opposes the bird regime. We board the flying city, and with their help, continue to shut down critical components that let the city thrive, and we confront their leader, a pure totalitarian dictator literally referred to as the Two-Beak God. After a straightforward battle, we defeat him, but the birds in a last ditch effort to commemorate their leader follow through with dropping "The Egg", the second nuke. We immediately dive after it, while getting calls from Puppy who is sick; her body about to be bled, the curse is taking its toll on her, all while we skydive chasing after this bomb in an attempt to save the world. More and more birds fall after us, diving to their own deaths for the sake of fulfilling their leader's vision in an attempt to stop us, but we keep going. Puppy radios back, informing Laika that she has bled, and lived, and has the curse now.
That's.. great, Puppy...
And with tears welling up, we take one last shot into the bomb, destroying it mid-air and being engulfed in flames, along with the destruction of the city-regime.
Fuck.
Closing thoughts.
Laika: Aged Through Blood, while I think rough structurally (gameplay-wise), is an unbelievably poignant allegory for womanhood, specifically the systemic mistreatment of it; the entire "curse" is the game's namesake, to be aged through blood, as that marks the end of being a girl and the beginning of being a woman, sought after to produce an ideal offspring, or more pawns for war, or simply glorified servitude in the house; completely disregarding the person of the woman and dehumanizing her as much as possible into her utilitarian and traditional role extremes. The entire game feels like a vent piece, soundtrack and all, and my lord it feels utterly cathartic to me; it rides a line that I appreciate a lot more compared to most "Art Games" that love beating you over the head very literally and directly with what their message is, though those have a place in my favorites as well. I cried.
In a word: Mother.
Favorite tracks:
Mother
The Last Tear
My Destiny
Lonely Mountain
Trust Them
(main menu)
(whole album's on Spotify btw)
Estimated read time: 10~ minutes.
We (Laika) hear from our daughter (Puppy) over the radio that cousin Poochie, her best friend, has been crucified with his own guts by The Birds. No more than a minute later or so, we see cousin Poochie, as described.
Fuck.
...Now our friend Jakob is going after The Birds for revenge, what a fucking idiot. A total suicide mission. Fuck. Gotta catch up to him.
Fuck.
That's the very start, the intro. Yes, the content warning precedes this too in-game (I merely added the gore warning, though that should be obvious if you saw the trailer); I thought about expanding it even more, honestly, but I feel that would be spoilery. Anything more than explicitly labeled in the CW is never on-screen anyways, but at a few key moments it made me choke up.
Laika: Aged Through Blood really doesn't hold any punches, save maybe one, but it's the difference between dealing with extremely heavy themes and piling on so many that nobody's going to touch your game. I still think for many the game is too much to deal with, when the barometer for "heavy" content to most consumers of media is "saying goodbye to a friend" or "maybe we question why we shoot people sometimes".
Mechanically it similarly doesn't really hold many punches, sort of, it's a rather demanding game while also being extremely unique to actually play. It's ultimately a fusion of sidescrolling driving with twin-stick shooting, emphasis on momentum and careful angling; weirdly precise aiming, though with a somewhat generous aim assist, which feels weird at first but after a bit I stopped thinking about how it works. I'd say after my second real boss the game's general movement also truly clicked with me, and in that regard it's one of the most satisfying games I've ever played to perform well at, it just looks so sick when you pull off weapon swapping to deal with a whole group of enemies in the span of one jump, calculating your target priority and executing on it... It's the balance game designers toil with endlessly and it's something I feel Laika: ATB more or less nails immediately, with only occasional hiccups in some awkward encounter design. The bosses themselves are frankly kind of whatever, but thematically they all kinda nail it. It has what I could only compare to "bloodstains" in the form of "viscera sacks", whereupon dying to an enemy or falling off your bike (falling into a death pit or similar doesn't drop one.
It's worth mentioning that I think a certain boss in particular is easily the worst part of the game, about halfway through, lol; got stuck there for an hour+ but when I beat it I felt like I could take on the rest of the game without any real troubles.
And that soundtrack... God, the soundtrack... I know for many they'll find the lyrics insufferable; a lot of people don't even like having em for credits sequences, and normally I'd say "SAME!"; but you know what? I love the OST. It makes it feel so much more grounded, the mixing is wonderful too, can hear the actual slaps on drums, or the breathing; just very organic ya know? The way you acquire tapes as you progress through the game also seems fitting relative to the location they're found in for the most part, not all of them hit but most are bangers.
Major spoilers from this point on, until closing thoughts.
"Fuck me if I care."
Getting to this point in the game struck my heart with a twinge of pain, if you know you know. I gush about the game mechanically but for me it's the symbolism and pure vent energy behind everything. Laika's angry, I'm angry. Laika's sad, I'm sad. Some friends you know you'll be seeing for the last time. Other things are more systemic. Sometimes you're given a choice, one that likely would do nothing for the long run, yet immediately after I felt genuinely awful for acting in anger during Closure; I felt as though I'd failed my own moral compass, because I was immersed in Laika's suffering, her anger, her tug of war between apathy and empathy. I let apathy win once and felt like shit. I need to clarify the game never forced me to. More on this later.
There is a revelatory moment late into the game that explains a very specific enemy behavior that confused me and other people: The birds who don't attack, that's not a bug. It's deliberate. They are effectively committing suicide in protest of the war, feigning their positions as much as possible and willingly being mowed down to fulfill their own moral and philosophical code, even after we desecrate their religious and cultural center in revenge of Poochie; because they leave their long history behind as it's been repurposed as the heart of a new eugenics advocacy and research program. Sounds familiar...
Also, at the religious center, the person who's the only reason we're able to get in isn't a bird, but someone who willingly became a slave to them so she could get closer to their most treasured history; as an archeologist and historian, to her it was worth it. After helping us demolish all of it, we find her having hung herself in guilt of destroying her passion. She did it for what in her eyes was a righteous mission, but the weight of destroying culture was too much to bear.
At one point, Puppy asks her mother if she'll be like her one day, Laika responds by recounting her experience inheriting the curse. She explains that it is hereditary, that her body felt like death, eating itself from the inside out and like being on fire, until she bled out; her memories played back instantaneously as she revived, taking the curse away from her mother and into her. Puppy doesn't seem too phased by all of this, but also says little.
Later it is revealed Laika has lost two daughters who bled to the curse but failed to actually survive the process, thus permanently dying; all this Laika omitted telling Puppy, whom she didn't try to become too attached to for fear of experiencing the same pain all over again. In a subquest, we follow Laika go through PTSD of one of these deaths. It is revealed later the curse is not exclusive to Laika's family; the foreigner at the bar, upon finally figuring out what she's saying, talks of her own home, how there existed a woman with the same curse of immortality. She bled too, but rather than become a pawn for her village, she threw herself off a cliff, and the body was never found.
The big thing here is that the curse, reviled by the carrier, is sought after by those looking to turn them into permanent soldiers. The birds who are adamant about eugenics want to abduct one with the curse to study it, in hopes of becoming immortal themselves. This culminates in Herman taking Puppy out to hand her off to someone, to get rid of what he considers a target to the village. We confront him at the bar, detailing excruciating torture that will be inflicted if he does not reveal where our daughter is. After he tells us he handed her off to someone at the bird city, we dome him, then head off after Puppy.
We track them down to a bar, where the "someone" is a singer who we confront with a shot to the liver; we explain they'll be dead in minutes if they don't explain where Puppy is. They explain they gave Puppy to a bird named Trook, who was going to use her as his Ticket to Heaven. We shoot the singer as well, before heading off to find Trook and Puppy. We find Trook in a dumpy little hideout with Puppy who's tied up on a bed, and we try to barter with him, explaining that Puppy does not actually have the curse, and that we will literally kill ourselves to give him some blood if he lets her go. He considers it for a moment, hesitating, then says he doesn't trust us, and begins pulling his gun out on Puppy; but we intercept this and dome him immediately, rescuing Puppy and taking her home.
(CW for paragraph: rape)
While out in the world I noticed some new NPCs about halfway or two-thirds through the game, one of which was this older man asking for us to return his young daughter home. By this point I was pretty set on doing all of the sidequests, so we tracked her down to Where the Waves Die. There we find her corpse, and her diary. The birds killed her on-sight, and the diary, quite unusually from most other items in the game, is not read back to us directly by Laika; she simply remarks. "Fuck... I wish I could un-read that."
When we return to the man to tell him the news, and confront him about what's in the diary, he plays dumb; we press him further, and he cracks, simply saying that "she was the only love in my life." It's heavily implied that the man was molesting and raping his own daughter. The sidequest is completed, and, much to my surprise, you can execute the man on the spot with no punishment. Fuck him.
"More on this later": Poochie's killer turned out to be a child soldier not much older than Poochie, who did so in rage after ceaseless mockery and abuse from his fellow soldiers; given the title "Kidgutter". In Closure, we find him wallowing in an abandoned warehouse, slowly starving himself to death in guilt and all but asking us to kill him. I hesitated, but only briefly, before pulling the trigger. I sat there for a while thinking about what I'd done, the quest was completed already before that; I never had to pull the trigger. Would Laika have pulled the trigger? I thought so in that moment, but when I became unsure, I felt genuine guilt and not the kind that's easier to answer past an "I don't know". I think the action were automated, Laika "could" have, but given the option not to, I have a feeling she'd find it in her somewhere to spare him. To have him starve to death instead? Maybe, or maybe she'd set him down a path of redemption as an ally to help bring an end to it all. I don't know. I'm sorry.
...
In the finale of the game, we learn that the Ticket to Heaven was to go to the new bird city that flies in the sky nearly perpetually, and work with an inside agent who opposes the bird regime. We board the flying city, and with their help, continue to shut down critical components that let the city thrive, and we confront their leader, a pure totalitarian dictator literally referred to as the Two-Beak God. After a straightforward battle, we defeat him, but the birds in a last ditch effort to commemorate their leader follow through with dropping "The Egg", the second nuke. We immediately dive after it, while getting calls from Puppy who is sick; her body about to be bled, the curse is taking its toll on her, all while we skydive chasing after this bomb in an attempt to save the world. More and more birds fall after us, diving to their own deaths for the sake of fulfilling their leader's vision in an attempt to stop us, but we keep going. Puppy radios back, informing Laika that she has bled, and lived, and has the curse now.
That's.. great, Puppy...
And with tears welling up, we take one last shot into the bomb, destroying it mid-air and being engulfed in flames, along with the destruction of the city-regime.
Fuck.
Closing thoughts.
Laika: Aged Through Blood, while I think rough structurally (gameplay-wise), is an unbelievably poignant allegory for womanhood, specifically the systemic mistreatment of it; the entire "curse" is the game's namesake, to be aged through blood, as that marks the end of being a girl and the beginning of being a woman, sought after to produce an ideal offspring, or more pawns for war, or simply glorified servitude in the house; completely disregarding the person of the woman and dehumanizing her as much as possible into her utilitarian and traditional role extremes. The entire game feels like a vent piece, soundtrack and all, and my lord it feels utterly cathartic to me; it rides a line that I appreciate a lot more compared to most "Art Games" that love beating you over the head very literally and directly with what their message is, though those have a place in my favorites as well. I cried.
In a word: Mother.
Favorite tracks:
Mother
The Last Tear
My Destiny
Lonely Mountain
Trust Them
(main menu)
(whole album's on Spotify btw)
Demo Impressions:
Wow, what a cool concept for a game. Combining gunplay and typical video game motorcycle gameplay is a very creative and very fun basis for a game. I loved maneuvering around the different levels and using my bike to block/parry bullets while I let loose gunfire of my own. The core gameplay loop is wide open to different level design, different weapons in both the enemy's hands and your hands (though the latter didn't appear in the demo), and shockingly fun boss fights made the demo never boring for even a moment. Even the down-time was great just getting to wander around the wastelands and listening to the vocal soundtrack portrayed with cassette tapes. I will say I wish there was more clarity what each gun is "for" per se since the crossbow being a spread shot was not something I expected; I'd recommend a visual demonstration of the weapon bought in the menu personally. I also would like to see proper variation in enemy design since "seven guys with pistols" can wear thin quickly in a full game.
Speaking of the world, goooosssh it's so pretty. The art design in this game is beautiful and transports me to the barren plains and deserts I've personally driven through. The in-game art is all wonderful with the characters all being very unique and distinct while the fully animated cutscenes bring the world to life even harder. I will say a weird quirk with the cutscenes is the pacing being way too fast for all of them. All of them are five seconds long at most and the pacing of the scenes would be better if they simply drew out the scenes. An example that was the most jarring was the FMV with Puppy howling at the funeral pyre...then abruptly cutting to the same scene in-game with Puppy moving around nonchalantly as if she wasn't just grieving. Even a fade into black and fade back into the in-game scene after would do wonders for the pacing of these scenes to make them less jarring.
The writing does a solid job of portraying a world at its wit's end trying to cope with even living in it. My personal favorite parts were Laika's interactions with her brother and daughter. Another highlight was the aftermath of a sidequest where she lies about a tree being well and the sidequest giver catches her in a lie...and thanks her anyway. That felt a very real response to me and I can't quite pinpoint why. I think the game withholds a little too much information from the player initially though, mostly with the birds and their status as the big bads. It makes the character's actions feel a bit strange since we, the player, know literally nothing about them (although torturing, crucifying, and disemboweling a child for trespassing is a pretty good reason to be PO'd at somebody).
Overall, I'm pretty hopeful of this game and hope to see it improve from the snippet shown in the demo. At worst I can see this game being meh and that's only if they don't have the ambition to follow up on the core gameplay which I don't see them doing. There's at least one fan eagerly awaiting Coyote Mom Bike Game, and I hope to see more out there.
Wow, what a cool concept for a game. Combining gunplay and typical video game motorcycle gameplay is a very creative and very fun basis for a game. I loved maneuvering around the different levels and using my bike to block/parry bullets while I let loose gunfire of my own. The core gameplay loop is wide open to different level design, different weapons in both the enemy's hands and your hands (though the latter didn't appear in the demo), and shockingly fun boss fights made the demo never boring for even a moment. Even the down-time was great just getting to wander around the wastelands and listening to the vocal soundtrack portrayed with cassette tapes. I will say I wish there was more clarity what each gun is "for" per se since the crossbow being a spread shot was not something I expected; I'd recommend a visual demonstration of the weapon bought in the menu personally. I also would like to see proper variation in enemy design since "seven guys with pistols" can wear thin quickly in a full game.
Speaking of the world, goooosssh it's so pretty. The art design in this game is beautiful and transports me to the barren plains and deserts I've personally driven through. The in-game art is all wonderful with the characters all being very unique and distinct while the fully animated cutscenes bring the world to life even harder. I will say a weird quirk with the cutscenes is the pacing being way too fast for all of them. All of them are five seconds long at most and the pacing of the scenes would be better if they simply drew out the scenes. An example that was the most jarring was the FMV with Puppy howling at the funeral pyre...then abruptly cutting to the same scene in-game with Puppy moving around nonchalantly as if she wasn't just grieving. Even a fade into black and fade back into the in-game scene after would do wonders for the pacing of these scenes to make them less jarring.
The writing does a solid job of portraying a world at its wit's end trying to cope with even living in it. My personal favorite parts were Laika's interactions with her brother and daughter. Another highlight was the aftermath of a sidequest where she lies about a tree being well and the sidequest giver catches her in a lie...and thanks her anyway. That felt a very real response to me and I can't quite pinpoint why. I think the game withholds a little too much information from the player initially though, mostly with the birds and their status as the big bads. It makes the character's actions feel a bit strange since we, the player, know literally nothing about them (although torturing, crucifying, and disemboweling a child for trespassing is a pretty good reason to be PO'd at somebody).
Overall, I'm pretty hopeful of this game and hope to see it improve from the snippet shown in the demo. At worst I can see this game being meh and that's only if they don't have the ambition to follow up on the core gameplay which I don't see them doing. There's at least one fan eagerly awaiting Coyote Mom Bike Game, and I hope to see more out there.
Laika: Aged Through Blood is an incredible game. For starters, you can see via trailers why you may enjoy its gameplay. The systems all fit together in a way that makes you pull off absurd shoot-spin-backflip-gunswitch combos while mid-air thanks to all of the moves available to you. The controls do take some time to get used to, and during that period of adjustment, you will die a lot. But from each attempt, you'll learn. Soon enough I had a really good grip on everything and felt like a badass sweeping through difficult rooms on my first try. Most of the difficult rooms in the game are boss fights, and I was surprised with how much I enjoyed them. Nothing ever felt impossible, you just need to figure out the right strategy and pull it off by using every aspect of the combat system. If you do die enough times without getting close to your previous dead bodies, you will start losing large chunks of viscera (LATB's very grim form of money). The first time this happened to me was actually pretty devastating, but you build up your viscera very quickly by traversing the wasteland and killing more birds. If anything, it convinced me to spend more money on upgrades instead of hoarding it all. To help with this, as you get further in, more and more enemies will spawn in the game world and more enemies to kill means more money. This has the added benefit of changing areas that you've already visited several times, and sometimes you'll have to rethink how you traverse the map as more elements get added. Everything in this game just fits snugly together, and it's a great demonstration of game design.
I really enjoyed the writing in LATB. Laika herself is a very compelling character. You'll see a lot of her past and what drives her to go to the lengths she goes, and how her dysfunctional relationships with both her mother and daughter shape her perspective. These relationships are very well written and I think most people will probably adore Puppy. Laika also has a past with the other residents of Where We Live (almost all of the locations in the world are named like this and I LOVE it) and you'll see of that all on display in their everyday conversations. The world itself is a dark, horrible place as Laika and other denizens of the wasteland try to avoid the genocidal birds. Some really effed up stuff happens across the course of the game, the fact that the character designs are all anthropomorphic deadens some of the blow but it didn't stop me from being saddened by events that occur. The ones I found most interesting were some of Laika's actions. Moral grey areas are a difficult thing to pull off in media: a lot of the time you'll see writers struggle and write characters inconsistently in an effort to avoid simple black and white morality in their stories. This wasn't the case here, and the LATB writers should be proud of that.
The game is also presented really nicely. Bugs were few and far between (some I noticed have already been patched) and, I mean, just look at it. The artstyle is consistently great throughout and there aren't many instances of it interfering with the gameplay. I will say though, I played this on a computer monitor, so people using smaller screens may struggle to correctly identify everything they need to look for in the hectic combat. Lastly, the music is really important for setting the tone of the game. Certain areas have set music, but for most of the wasteland you'll be playing casettes you collect and Laika plays on her casette player, performed by Spanish musician Beícoli, who herself is a character in the game as the person who performed the songs. Despite all the screwed up and badass things happening on screen, the music is very relaxed and chilled out, and it does wonders for the vibe of the game. Towards the end, I think I started to feel the short playlist of these songs even though I had collected all of them, but that's only a minor annoyance and they are still great songs (I just need a little time away from the music before I can listen to the soundtrack by itself).
With combat systems that work together beautifully, a fleshed out game world, enthralling character writing, a gorgeous art style and a killer soundtrack, Laika: Aged Through Blood exceeded all expectations I had for it (and I was pretty pumped for this). Some criticism will be (and has been) levelled at its difficulty but I found the quick restart combined with the amount of tools you have at your disposal meant that it was easy to try new things and eventually succeed. I had a blast and it's quickly become one of my favourite games. If you've ever enjoyed a challenge in video games and a good handle on game controls, I'd recommend at least trying out the demo and seeing how much you like it, because this is a banger.
I really enjoyed the writing in LATB. Laika herself is a very compelling character. You'll see a lot of her past and what drives her to go to the lengths she goes, and how her dysfunctional relationships with both her mother and daughter shape her perspective. These relationships are very well written and I think most people will probably adore Puppy. Laika also has a past with the other residents of Where We Live (almost all of the locations in the world are named like this and I LOVE it) and you'll see of that all on display in their everyday conversations. The world itself is a dark, horrible place as Laika and other denizens of the wasteland try to avoid the genocidal birds. Some really effed up stuff happens across the course of the game, the fact that the character designs are all anthropomorphic deadens some of the blow but it didn't stop me from being saddened by events that occur. The ones I found most interesting were some of Laika's actions. Moral grey areas are a difficult thing to pull off in media: a lot of the time you'll see writers struggle and write characters inconsistently in an effort to avoid simple black and white morality in their stories. This wasn't the case here, and the LATB writers should be proud of that.
The game is also presented really nicely. Bugs were few and far between (some I noticed have already been patched) and, I mean, just look at it. The artstyle is consistently great throughout and there aren't many instances of it interfering with the gameplay. I will say though, I played this on a computer monitor, so people using smaller screens may struggle to correctly identify everything they need to look for in the hectic combat. Lastly, the music is really important for setting the tone of the game. Certain areas have set music, but for most of the wasteland you'll be playing casettes you collect and Laika plays on her casette player, performed by Spanish musician Beícoli, who herself is a character in the game as the person who performed the songs. Despite all the screwed up and badass things happening on screen, the music is very relaxed and chilled out, and it does wonders for the vibe of the game. Towards the end, I think I started to feel the short playlist of these songs even though I had collected all of them, but that's only a minor annoyance and they are still great songs (I just need a little time away from the music before I can listen to the soundtrack by itself).
With combat systems that work together beautifully, a fleshed out game world, enthralling character writing, a gorgeous art style and a killer soundtrack, Laika: Aged Through Blood exceeded all expectations I had for it (and I was pretty pumped for this). Some criticism will be (and has been) levelled at its difficulty but I found the quick restart combined with the amount of tools you have at your disposal meant that it was easy to try new things and eventually succeed. I had a blast and it's quickly become one of my favourite games. If you've ever enjoyed a challenge in video games and a good handle on game controls, I'd recommend at least trying out the demo and seeing how much you like it, because this is a banger.
Incredibly raw piece about womanhood. It is marred by some rough game design decisions despite a really original idea, and it tends to give you too many extra steps for most objectives. But it's too powerful in its better parts for that to matter.
A furry metroidvania with Trials bike gameplay added on top, I was kinda surprised at the lack of on-foot traversal, combat, or just... Walking, in general, but a pretty fun and unique game nonetheless, with a beautiful artstyle
An incredibly challenging game from the perspectives of its gameplay and narrative content. One of the only games that portrays the trials and tribulations of a single mother that also has to be a gun-totting, motorbike-flipping badass. This is one for the ages.
she really was Laika dragon there in the end ahahaha
THIS BOAT RIDE IS SO FUCKING LONG
I really loved looking at this game, its style is amazing and the setting is done extremely well. Your bike feels pretty good to ride throughout the wasteland, but I felt so frustrated during combat and gameplay loop cause it just wasnt what I expected. That being said the bosses are the main highlights combat wise. I also didnt enjoy all the back tracking and blind exploration I had to do.
raw.
there is absolutely no reason for that crab boss to be as hard as it was
This game is inspired. An absolute must for those who enjoy metroidvanias. Heart pounding action with massive moments of fulfillment when getting through areas either stylishly or by the skin of your teeth. Along with just good mechanics, which again, absolutely inspired, the game has a fantastic soundtrack. At first I wasn't fully feeling it because when I think of a shooter with time slow mechanics and unique movement I think Katana Zero, and that game has an infamous soundtrack for what it was going for. I think this game does as well, I truly feel with the emotion it presents the soundtrack is perfect. As is the means of unlocking the soundtrack.
As for the story, it's very good. I found myself doing every side quest, as well. Each character is unique and interesting, and while all the side quests are just fetch quests, they're not hard or unenjoyable as the main thing about this game is the movement and the way you get around continues to change as you acquire new weapons and abilities. The main story is very touching, it's a great mother daughter tale, and coming of age story in a very unique way. 10/10, a must play.
As for the story, it's very good. I found myself doing every side quest, as well. Each character is unique and interesting, and while all the side quests are just fetch quests, they're not hard or unenjoyable as the main thing about this game is the movement and the way you get around continues to change as you acquire new weapons and abilities. The main story is very touching, it's a great mother daughter tale, and coming of age story in a very unique way. 10/10, a must play.
God DAMN this game is good. Metroidvania that controls like those old driving flash games, and works shockingly well. Music perfectly matches the themes and atmosphere, and the hand-drawn art-style is so full of personality. Lots of the regions on the map are pretty well designed, and weapons/ abilities you gain naturally let you reach new locations as you go, and they encourage experimenting with movement and tech. There's 2 points in the game that are total slogs but otherwise it keeps pace for the runtime. Particle effects and smoke can limit visibility which is annoying, though this is highly dependent on your screen resolution. Play this game cause it is GOOD
This has such a visually pleasing art style and vibe to it but its just on the cusp of being something epic winner. If the quests and general progression was just a bit tighter, and the cutscenes were maybe just a smidgem longer than 2 seconds idk it could really be something
Es muy original, pero yo creo que el propio diseño del movimiento hace que el mapa sea algo aburrido. Hay un momento en el que dejan de aparecer cosas nuevas, y al final apenas se exploran las nuevas mecánicas. Algo decepcionante