Noita

I'm just now realising I have never left a review for what is one of my favourite games of all time. Noita is hard, often unfair, brutally punishing and painfully esoteric. Health is scarce, death is quick and frequent, if the enemies don't kill you the environment will, if that doesn't do the trick oftentimes you'll wind up inadvertently killing yourself. The tutorial is non existent, comprising of just basic directions, how to kick, how to throw, now off you trot and figure it out. It took me over 50 hours and around 200 deaths just to beat the first boss and get my first "win". I thought I had seen everything...I had barely seen 10%. The level of depth and complexity in Noita is frightening, it's a roguelike where the only thing you retain between runs is knowledge, you carry your learning with you and *that* is how you grow your strength for future runs. The gameplay is essentially a deckbuilder, spells being cards and wands being your hands, the limit is legitimately your imagination and understanding of the spells, mechanics and interactions. No matter how powerful you get, how many immunities, how much health, something can nearly ALWAYS kill you. But the feeling you get when a run goes from a struggle to an abundance is addictive as hell and that is the thing that keeps me coming back. If you get easily frustrated and don't want a challenge, look elsewhere. If complex systems put you off and a single mistake you didn't see coming until the millisecond before it killed you and ended a 6 hour run would make you blind with rage, play something else. But, if you can laugh that off and if you enjoy something that pays off your hard work and rewards exploration, digging, thinking and planning, you will find a lot of joy in Noita. 270 hours at time of writing and I still feel like a novice.