Laika: Aged Through Blood is proof that it's always possible to take a seemingly unchanging genre and revolutionize it to create an incredible experience. This game is a metroidvania in which you explore and fight on the back of a motorcycle, where you have to do some turns in the air to recharge energy and where the atmosphere of Mad Max is combined with a Hollow Knight-style structure.
La story of revenge and redemption Created by Brainwash Gang developers with Western and shamanic overtones, it will put you in the shoes of Laika, a mother coyote who can speak with the spirits of the dead and come back to life when she is killed. She is the only hope of her people, the last bastion of resistance to the military dictatorship of the birds who, to assert their supremacy, are willing to destroy what little remains of nature.
Exploring an environment that is beautiful to look at and full of enemies on a motorcycle is a combination that works very well and in this Laika's opinion: Aged through blood We tell you why, in our opinion, this title is one of the best independent video games released this year.
in the saddle
The central element of the entire Laika: Aged Through Blood experience is the motorcycle that you will have to learn to balance, wheelie and use to perform an infinite number of tasks. Essential stunts to survive in combat.. The physics of this means of transportation requires a few minutes to understand and is very solid: the accumulated speed with acceleration is proportional to the distance of the race and dictates the height and range of the jumps, essential parameters for exploring and managing the Many shootings of this game. Laika's motorcycle, in fact, is not only a means of transportation, but also a shield to block and return adversaries' bullets to the sender and the necessary tool to reload weapons and abilities.
The adventure begins with a 2-shot revolver and the only way to reload it is to perform a backflip during a two-wheel jump. The arenas, both during the exploration phase and during the boss fights, are full of opportunities for these stunts but the stimuli are so many (between obstacles to avoid, projectiles to deflect and enemies to kill) that it is always a challenge to put the ammo you need in the magazine. Managing the behavior of the motorcycle in the best possible way will not only make you succeed in combat, but will also allow you to reach the most remote niches where the resources needed to unlock new weapons and upgrades are hidden through an intuitive crafting system that almost never requires searching for new materials.
An ode to the glass cannon
From the first minutes of the match it is clear that En Laika: Aged Through Blood mueres mucho. Its structure, at a conceptual level, is identical to that of the Ghostrunner saga: with a single hit you can kill all enemies (except bosses) and each enemy can kill you with a single hit and send you back to the starting point. control which, however, is never more than 20 seconds apart. Your greatest ally is "bullet time" or the ability to slow down time while aiming so you can hit enemies and activate mechanisms even in the middle of a trick. You will die jumping and at the hands of enemies because the more the story progresses, the more you are expected to master the bike and combat.
If saves weren't so frequent and forgiving, this setup would be torture; However, the developers have perfectly guessed the Balance between challenge, failures and satisfaction of victory.. There are some sections full of enemies that we try up to 20 times in a row in order to achieve the perfect sequence of jumps, shots, reloads and dodges necessary to eliminate them, all without resulting in burning frustration. The main campaign, making mistakes and trying again if necessary, can be completed in a dozen hours but given the numerous side missions available we couldn't help but spend another four or five in the company of Laika.
A story full of emotions
The story of Laika: Aged Through Blood, in which the protagonist embarks on a journey to protect her town threatened by the invasion of evil birds, an imperialist society that is careless with the environment. It all begins with the violent death of a dear friend of Laika and his son, dismembered and crucified on a poster. To defend the town and to protect your daughter, destined one day to inherit her immortality, Laika decides to go find allies on the desolate border, to weaken her enemies as much as possible.
It will not be just the protagonist who will attack, since each of the villagers has a history and a well-defined personality: there are those who are more melancholic and those who tend to madness and many of them will assign you missions. There is a lot of pain in Laika's world so don't expect a happy ending to all these assignments. Some will seem completely useless to you but, as she herself says, "they serve to recover those little things that make the difference between living and surviving." Another key point of the narrative is Laika's relationship with her mother, who once had her powers and was in charge of protecting the town. If you want, you can rebuild her dysfunctional relationship to bring a new ray of light into the life of Laika's little daughter.
The arsenal and upgrades.
To fight more efficiently and explore some blocked areas of the map, the new weapons that can be unlocked from the village blacksmith are essential. Without giving too many spoilers we can tell you that with the right materials it is possible to increase the magazine of the weapons to reload less frequently, as well as reduce the reloading time. We advise you to invest the resources you have at your disposal to get the shotgun as soon as possible because this weapon, thanks to its recoil, will greatly expand your possibilities of movement and exploration. Before venturing into the bird-controlled wasteland it is always advisable to take a look at the materials the blacksmith needs to craft the next instrument of death so as not to risk returning to a checkpoint to reach a resource you don't need.
The viscera collected by defeating enemies are the currency of this universe. However, every time Laika dies he loses a good part of his winnings and only by returning to the point where you were defeated and recovering a bag that you dropped earlier will you get the lost coin. Exactly like in Hollow Knight, then, there is a character you can go find in each section of the world. Who will sell you the map? from that place helping you find paths, niches and shortcuts to where you need to get. These maps cost more and more as the game progresses, so we recommend that you always carry at least 150 viscera so that you can acquire them as soon as you meet the cartographer and not have to go back and forth.
A symphony of colors
Where Laika: Aged Through Blood really leaves you speechless is in its artistic sector. Beautiful settings are mixed with careful settings full of details, all with a poetic and melancholic soundtrack. Beícoli, Brainwash Gang's studio musician, did a masterful job translating the atmospheres of Laika's world into music. Spanish guitars mix with Western ones and electronic rhythms accompany ethereal choruses in one. combination of tones and melodies which completely immerses the player in the setting and atmosphere of this narrative universe. The only flaw is that to unlock new songs on the soundtrack you need to find collectibles, so for the first three hours the playlist is limited to just four (beautiful) tracks, which can be tiring.
The color palette used, then, is surprisingly varied and ranges from the browns of the desert to the greens of toxic wastewater, through the blue-grays of the ancestors' cemetery and the rusty reds of an abandoned shipyard. The tones are full, the contrasts strong and the blood flows in rivers: the contrast between the sweetness of the lines and the brutality of the events shown is an integral part of the identity of the work and has completely conquered us. Laika: Aged Through Blood is a feast for the eyes and ears, as well as a monument to innovation in game design. Putting a metroidvania on wheels (the developers call it a motorvania) with slow-motion combat and such immersive storytelling was a big step in ensuring both familiarity and innovation.
Conclusions
Tested version PC with Windows digital delivery Steam, playstation store, Xbox Store, Nintendo eShop Price 17,99 € Holygamerz.com 9.0 Readers (15) 8.0 your voteLaika: Aged Through Blood is a simply unmissable game. It has a familiar but innovative structure, it has a high-risk combat system, but with frequent rescues, and it tells a moving and strong story. The idea of exploring a metroidvania on a motorcycle is fresh and compelling, and all the acrobatic weapon-reloading gameplay is an accessible challenge that increases in intensity regularly. The artistic sector is inspired, the characters are well characterized and the soundtrack is excellent. The only flaw is that the musical tracks by the talented Beícoli are linked to a collectible item to collect and are therefore not immediately available.
PRO
- Moving and well-developed story.
- Unique and fun combat
- Excellent artistic sector.
- Soundtrack 10
AGAINST
- The soundtrack tracks are collectible.
