Inspired by Paper Mario and it shows. It leaves me wanting a hell of a lot more and there's a lot that needed more development but what's here is good. Combat and levelling is incredibly satisfying and the writing/characters are pretty great across the board. The actual compositions are decent but they get repetitive when used for an entire world.
If there is one thing about this game that is perfect it is its ending, which is probably why I am left with a very good impression despite several flaws. Its a short game so I'd recommend it because you haven't got much to lose.

This was my favourite roguelike before Noita, and with good reason.
Every character is fun in their own individual way. It is an absolute spectacle to watch, I still cannot always keep track of everything going on on-screen. It has a great method of difficulty scaling and the overall movement and combat feels fantastic.
There's not really much I dislike about it other than I feel I have done everything I would want to do in it now and it has been slightly overshadowed by Noita as a roguelike and Ultrakill as a shooter. An exceptional game, but one that to me personally is already showing its age.

If you are here after seeing my Dead Cells review or have not played this, do it immediately before reading anything else. There's not too many spoilers in this, but you should play this knowing very little and learning a hell of a lot.

Noita is hard. Really hard. Nothing will make sense for the first few runs. But the first time you climb over the mountain or go left instead of entering the mines, you may realise just how much you are in for. The game switches genres entirely. It is in fact, a metroidvania with permadeath and one with a palpable sense of intriguement for its world and locations that draws you back in time and time again.
Wands also make no sense at first, which is exactly why you are given an aptly named holy mountain to experiment to your hearts content before plunging back into the unknown abyss. Your spells function more as letters in algebra than they do simple power ups. The number of combinations, wand stat potentials and variety of incredible or harmful combinations that can be created is essentially infinite. There is a good chance you could craft a wand entirely unique to that playthrough and your own ingenuity, never to be seen again. Due to this, I believe Noita has the greatest combat (I struggle to even call it that with how much else you can do with it) of any videogame, let alone any roguelike/metroidvania.
More than anything though, the atmosphere evoked by its arstyle, sound design and general crafting of its world is unlike anything that I know exists. There is no story per-say, but it doesn't need one.
If I have any criticism, and frankly this does not even effect me anymore, the difficulty will put you off, especially at first, possibly for a while. It is a pixel physics based game so you can die (and this will happen a lot) very quickly to a few tiny pixel of lava, acid or frozen vapour. Sometimes you can get stuck in spaces it does not seem you should be stuck in due to a tiny pixel. You can call this bullshit. But you CAN learn from this and treat everything in the game as formidable. Play patiently, there is no time limit, and you will succeed. you may even find things far weirder than the typical final boss you were expecting if you take the time to break the game in half to explore, which is exactly what the devs want you to do to survive.

Noita is diabolically evil. But it is never impossible...

Also idk if you've seen the playtime but I STILL do not have every achievement and I have only finished the game THREE TIMES.

I have never played anything else that hits the nail on the head of just how much potential games have for storytelling than this one.
Although it has been talked to death, if I could offer one unique takeaway from it, then it would be this...
The Legion playthrough could have a few more unique quests, but I still believe it is the best way to play the game as you are met with the most consequences for your actions, both internal to the game's progression and externally as your own morals are persistently questioned. To me, it is akin to the genocide route in Undertale, you may be able to beat it as a videogame, but there is never a sense of victory for anyone in the Mojave, not even Caesar. The Legion offer a unique observation on the history of slavery and oppression, similar to Django Unchained, but fairly detached in what they represent. They ARE powerful, as is the cruel and unjust nature of man that has always and will always be a revoltingly pervasive side effect of our existence on this earth.

Loses some points for not letting me shoot children like Deus Ex though :(

I am incredibly late to the Skyrim party, I know, since I only picked it up a few months ago. This game is really great! But while playing it I realised something far less great, something not about the game but about myself...
I don't have time for this anymore.
It used to be that I could play games like BOTW, New Vegas, Minecraft or Terraria for days on end, becoming fully immersed in the world and my character, roleplaying as someone else entirely. After a few days of ceaseless enjoyment and wonder in this one though, I realised the time in my life where I could afford to play games like this is well and truly over. It is not that I do not enjoy video games anymore, far from it, rather I enjoy short and sweet experiences that leave me thinking about them long after they are over. Now when I play massive games with thousands of hours necessary, all I can regrettably feel is anxiety that I am wasting my life away.

I deeply resent not playing this sooner in my life. If only I had known this day would come...

This reminds me immensely of Paper Mario in that it is a minimal RPG that gets everything it does right. Combat is as simple as it is thought-provoking, and the setting, art and music are incredibly charming.
Still, it leaves me wanting more; more weapons, enemies and locations mainly, as lack of variety in a roguelike is always a death sentence (see my review of fucking dead cells for example).
I can't help but feel if this were not a roguelike, but rather a more expansive RPG with a story, I would absolutely adore this. It already has an incredibly strong base, I hope one day a sequel builds on that.