Noita PC Review

Anyone who was in high school around the early-mid 2000s will remember Powder Game, or similar mess-arounds. They were basically tiny physics simulation flash games (RIP, Dec 2020) that most people spent their time in simply blowing up huge amounts of C4 or setting fire to stuff to see how it reacted. Well, Noita’s main gimmick and pixelated design seem to have been directly inspired by those addictive little time wasters. What we have here is a 2D roguelike all about navigating a terribly perilous dungeon entirely based around a completely simulated (every individual giant pixel, apparently!) world. All of your standard elements of destruction are here: oil, lava, toxic sludge, blood, flummoxium, and chaotic polymorphine; obviously! Mostly, though, it’s not about manipulating the world or cleverly using your surroundings to deal massive damage or open new routes. Instead, it’s actually just about finding wands and tinkering with spell combos to more efficiently shoot magic projectiles at anything that moves, because they all want you dead. The other stuff is more of a burden than anything else, as it’s more likely to harm the player or block passages than help, forcing you to wait until every last neon dot has slowly burnt out for fear of catching on fire or inhaling freezing vapour – both common causes of death.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s very cool to make it rain on fire demons for an instant kill or forcefully blast your way through the whole map as everything is destructible with the right spells. It’s just that, more often than not, that’s not really how it goes. Starting with a random spell that does minor damage, the first floor is all about scouring for gold and wands that are scattered around, hoping to stumble upon or buy a few with good stats and spells that can be mixed and matched between areas. An ideal wand is one with a lot of mana and spell slots, fast recharge and cast times, and one that doesn’t randomly shuffle spells, which renders them totally useless as unreliability essentially means suicide. Then, the right spells and support buffs need to be found (possibly ripped out of other, weaker wands) to be used in one spectacular combo. This is where Noita really shines. Building the ultimate chain of spells and buffs into a great wand makes for some seriously destructive concoctions and it’s awesome to see your creation come to life. However, as mentioned, that doesn’t always happen, which is where the whole thing falls apart.

Like most roguelikes these days – levels, enemies, and items are procedurally/randomly generated to make each run different. This tests players to get good at the core mechanics of a game and overcome any obstacles with practised hands and knowledge gained from previous failures. The main problem with Noita seems to be how sharply each area scales in power all the way to the end boss. It’s frankly absurd and all too often the player simply can’t keep up. Unlike many other roguelikes, such as the new (and utterly incredible) Hades or The Binding of Isaac, where the player gets stronger constantly throughout the run as they pick up more upgrades that continually build on their abilities and stats, Noita demands to be broken in order to win. What I mean is that without some devastatingly potent damage output, which is heavily dependent on the randomness of the layout and available items, Noita cannot be beaten, and that kind of kills it for me. I need to assert that this isn’t about ‘getting gud’, it’s about not really allowing the player to make big decisions, think around problems, or simply be good enough at the game that they can always (or at least mostly always) win.

For example, enemies often aggro from way off screen and many of them instantly start blasting with lightning precision and high damage. Without the right perks (which are passive bonuses that can range from anything between enemy projectiles completely phasing through you and having enemies fight between themselves less), wand/spell setups, or enough health upgrades, there just doesn’t seem to be a way to be consistent. The lack of meaningful progression via upgrading your build really haunts the entire experience. It feels awfully repetitive from run to run and the first couple of floors quickly become a chore to scrape through in search of anything that can help later. This is where the obnoxious fog-of-war mechanic also begins to irritate, as trekking down long pathways that turn out to be dead ends and then being forced to slowly return is simply boring. It has to be done, though. Every. Single. Run. Otherwise the later-game enemies are going to obliterate you as you try to hit them with feeble spells that do nothing more than lightly tickle.

Oddly though, because of the crazy random nature of this title and the ability for it to get totally out of hand, it also happens to be a great one to just boot up for a spell (I’m not sorry) and putter around with; much like the games that inspired it. There is so much to discover and it has a great little community who have been working together to unravel its rabbit hole of secrets throughout Early Access and the V1.0 release. There’s even been a nine-hour run (yes, you read that correctly) completed recently, trying to do ‘everything’ in one fell swoop. So, 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.