OIL AND WATER

NOITA offers destructive sorcery action in a fun, albeit messy roguelike package.

During one Noita run, I purchased a spell modifier I didn’t fully understand. One of the core ideas in this roguelike is that you can alter your magic wands, becoming a true arcane master with clever min-maxing. But there’s no safety net if your experimentation goes awry, or if you’re not paying attention. When I next pointed my wand at a wall and clicked, a giant razorblade shot out, cranked a U-turn and ploughed into my wizard. Dead.

After doing my research, I believe the modifier I attached to that wand was called ‘boomerang’, and according to the greater Noita community, it’s pretty much useless unless paired with various healing spells. That’s the thing with Noita: even the power-ups are conspiring to kill you.

There was a time, in the ice caves, where I found a wand that had an ability called ‘unstable crystal’ on it. I pulled the trigger, and immediately exploded, provoking another game over. I’ve accidentally polymorphed myself too many times to count. I’ve selfimmolated, I’ve detonated explosive barrels that I didn’t see until it was too late, and I’ve drowned in a vat full of whiskey. But despite all of those mishaps, I think Noita is one of the best roguelikes of the year (a year with Spelunky 2 and Hades, no less). It isn’t an easy game, nor is it fair, or balanced, or well-polished. But it can be absurd, brilliant fun – as long as you have the stomach for some turbid deaths along the way.

Every new Noita seed begins with your character – a robed, Dementor

like wizard – perched at the precipice of a yawning cavern system just below your feet. Like most roguelikes, the structure of the world is consistent every time out. If you decide to traverse downwards (which isn’t the only direction you’re limited to), the wizard will first encounter the mines, then the coal pits, the frozen depths, a steel alien stronghold, a toxic jungle, and so on.

There is no meta progression. You will not be increasing your health or attack power at the start of each run; there is no talent tree here to bail you out. Instead, every game of Noita is a self-contained universe up until the moment the warlock on screen meets their demise. Freedom, here, can only be achieved by getting good.

FLASK MANAGER

If you know anything about Noita, it’s probably that every pixel in the game is fully simulated. That became a huge talking point while the game was in Early Access, and what that means in practice is that nothing in the environment is static, and objects and enemies tend to cascade like teetering dominoes stacked in front of one another. Shoot a lantern with your wand, and watch the flames lazily snake through the moss and wood below. Toss a bomb at the bottom of an underground lake and the bedrock is obliterated, creating a new waterfall that tumbles through the shattered earth.

One of Noita’s most ingenious uses of this 2D physics simulation is how it equips your wizard with flasks that can capture any of the fluidic reagents in the game. Sometimes, they can be used as magic potions – downing a glass of ambrosia will render yourself briefly immortal. Other times though, you can use them to solve problems with your brain. That seemingly impassable lava pit on the eastern end of the mines? Consider spraying your water bottle at it. The whole system gives Noita a simmy granularity that a lot of other games in the genre lack.

Most newcomers will scarcely scratch the surface of Noita’s underworld. This is a punishing game, and you will die in some deeply stupid ways. I sometimes don’t know how I’m meant to succeed, which is frustrating.

That said, there are very few games that can create the sheer maelstrom of activity that Noita does. You’re in a firefight with a shock trooper, your spell zings over his head and strikes the pile of gunpowder lurking in the shadows. Suddenly, both of you are trapped in a burning chasm, as the wooden vat containing a metric ton of oil begins to deteriorate in the flames, leading to more chaos. Noita desperately wants to show you what its little box of horrors is capable of. You just need to be patient enough to enjoy it.

Freedom, here, can only be achieved by getting good.

Roguelike adventure and spell-building in a fully simulated, dynamic world that wants to see you dead.

VERDICT 81