I and the person I love most are nearly perfectly matched in this and it's brought some of the most raw, unfiltered joy I've experienced playing a video game. There's so much room for natural discovery and the actions are so dead-simple that you cut right through to the multilayered rock paper scissors and personal metagaming that make traditional fighting games so satisfying in their best moments. The levels pulsate and warp and sway in the most hypnotic ways and you're locked together running back and forth and back and forth in a dance that seems to never end and you are wholly consumed by the game and the person you're sharing it with and you approach that kind of momentary inner quiet you thought you'd never have again even as you're involuntarily shouting from impaling yourself again by diving in when your opponent was just standing still.

I'm 100% sure if I go out and look for it I'll find strategies, tech, and optimization which take away from that feeling of discovery and replace it with a tighter grasp on the mechanics bringing you and the opponent closer in a different way, but I'm not gonna let the optimization virus get this one unless I work my way there myself. There's something to be said for the maximum-information environment that is the default for any game nowadays, but there's also something beautiful about the high speed improv of a low information closed system of two players who don't have any idea how other people play it.

Ask yourself: in the past 15 or so years, how many times have you had the opportunity to feel like a multiplayer game is something between you and the people close to you, not really knowing or caring how others play it or what the "right" way to do it is?

Nidhogg is one of the most enjoyable and addictive couch co-op experiences I've had. The simple tug-of-war concept brought to life through fencing makes the game super easy to pick up and understand which is perfect for playing with friends. The retro-style graphics and simplistic gameplay mechanics give the game a charm that I think is lost in the second title, which introduces more weapon types and more detailed graphics.

The singleplayer campaign to Nidhogg is alright, it's pretty repetitive except you fight a slightly harder AI each level. The game is definitely designed to be co-op and fighting a computer just doesn't feel the same as fighting your friend because a lot of the fun comes from human error and outplaying your friend which just doesn't translate well against AI.

Nidhogg gets the tension behind a good swordfight and places that into the greater context of navigating large spaces. When played next to another person, the mind games can generate hearty chuckles. The Singleplayer offerings are practically non-existent, however. I'll put Nidhogg into the same camp of games like Duck Game where, on your own, the foundation is still present, but the magic just isn't there. If you have to play it by yourself, the A.I. is pretty solid, so it does edge out the likes of Duck Game in terms of its sustainability. But, yeah, I still don't think it's particularly optimal, and it does take away from my overall opinion of the game.