Many times in my life I longed to be able to enjoy something for the first time, for an experience to be completely fresh and full of surprises, and I am certain this feeling will intensify as I will age.
It’s been said that the more you grow up, the less you experience the sensation of novelty. This, of course, makes perfect sense. See something enough times and it stops being new, as it turns into the norm. Over time, we grow desensitised to the things that, upon first experience, made us feel something remarkable. Naturally, the way we feel towards these things can evolve over time, even if the initial, raw emotion, dissipates. What once was just an initial reaction can transform into a deeper appreciation, understanding and even weave itself into your very soul. You no longer merely enjoy something, it becomes a part of your thought process, a worm that wriggled its way into your brain. Yet, that raw, explosive synaptic response of surprise will never return.
Gaming, as an experiential medium, is not immune to this semantic satiation. I daresay quite a few people who were huge Dark Souls fans when the game came out are now a bit tired of the game, if not the genre entirely. I’d also wager a hefty sum that these same people have said, at one point or another in their lifetime, that they wish they could play through the game for the first time again. I would also believe that part of the reason that the soulslike genre has attained such a degree of success is the yearning people have for that fresh experience.
Gaming, however, has an advantage very few media forms do. A game can play the same, but provide drastically different experiences every time you pick it up. The roguelike genre is huge, probably the biggest, most popular genre for the indie scene, and it, in my opinion, owes a lot of its success to the desire that humans have to continue to enjoy the things they already do. Sure, a new run in a roguelike it’s not quite the same as playing the game for the first time, but the experience is unique enough, to the point where it feels much fresher than playing a more standard, linear solo experience.
That’s not to say that there aren’t other factors at play. Gambling plays no small role in the success of the genre. Even the most balanced roguelike can still tip the odds in your favor with, as RNGesus grants you the single item that transforms your character into a god. I believe though, that the genre’s greatest leverage is the ability to merge the familiar, comfy and known, with the unpredictable, surprising and fresh.
Even in this huge, expansive genre, however, there can still be experienced feelings of semantic satiation. Binding of Isaac, arguably the most successful roguelike ever, may play differently every run, but it still feels like a twin stick shooter and a bullet hell game. Rooms have similar layouts, and items frequently merely increase or decrease a number rather than changing the run in a significant way.
And so, as time goes on, even these truly unique experiences end up blending together, with a moment to moment experience that feels largely similar.
I talk about these things because I believe, genuinely, that innovation is the single greatest asset that a game can bring to the table. An innovative game will have a remarkable impact where others didn’t because of how it can push through the chaff. And no game from recent memory is quite as innovative and fresh as Noita.
Right off the bat, it’s clear that there’s something different in this game. Take a look at this “box art”. What do you see?
I see in game graphics presenting what looks like glyphs, spelling out some unknown language. I see simple, but evocative pixel art. I see a logo shaded with reds and orange like a burning fire (one of the game’s most potent threats), further accentuated by the flame above the candle shaped I. I see a great cavern that towers above the player character, with lanterns hanging off of stalagmites. All these paint an image of a mystery waiting to be solved, an ancient history waiting to be uncovered and great danger, waiting to be conquered.
The feeling of void of the unknown gapes as you open the game and are shown a wordless, mythical story. From here, you are cast into the world, and the cavern awaits in front of you. It appears to be a fantasy setting. You’re some kind of mage, and in your hand is a magic wand that casts magic missiles of some sort. Then you take a step into the mountain and realise things aren’t quite what they seem. You fight some ghouls, alright, some little monkey things, a flying slime, and then, someone throws dynamite at you, odd. Then a bald man with a shotgun pumps it and blows you straight to your next run.
You will, of course, die from the onslaught and the instant, unforgiving difficulty, but a spark will have ignited within you. What exactly is this world? Magic and Technology intermixed aren’t an unheard of concept in a fantasy setting, but this world feels alien. You play a vaguely human character, who can summon bombs into existence using magic wands, in a world where shotgun wielding hobos tag along with lava blooded fire elementals to try and kill you, and this is just the start!
As you dive deeper, you reach your first Holy Mountain, and are struck by the first strongly melodic theme in the game. Relaxing and contemplative, it sounds like a melody intended for a ritual of some sort. It also doesn’t sound quite like a standard western melody. It’s got off beat percussions, and in the background play strange harmonies, it gives a sense that things are very odd, here as well, if a bit more welcoming.
Deeper still, the juxtapositions continue to pile on. The game throws flying, cyclopean bats at you in the same instant that it does terminator robots that shoot a machine gun at you. It throws more and more wands that have a huge array of magic spells. It throws concoctions in flasks at you, which seem to interact with each other in some manner. You notice that water can remove toxic sludge from the ground. You notice that when water burns, it evaporates to steam. You notice how the many systems in the game interact with each other seamlessly to create a vision of a world where magic and technology coexist in some twisted disharmony.
And so, further down, after many, many deaths, you learn the name of the shotgun wielding hobos. They’re called the Hiisi, and their base is a place of immense danger. The world is fully technological in here, with a multitude of vicious, gun wielding enemies, missile launching tanks, hovering laser firing drones and robots that seemingly teleport other enemies from thin air.
The setting feels almost like a science fiction in these frozen corridors, and interestingly, it also plays very differently from previous levels. As the level is flooded by aggressive, dangerous Hiisi that love to swarm you, the player needs to adopt a tactical play style, in order to avoid getting completely overrun.
This sense of discovery and surprise doesn’t let up, as each new level you encounter during your descent feels drastically different from the last. With this, the feeling of unfamiliarity heightens the game’s appeal. More than any game I have played in recent years, Noita’s world feels fleshed out, full to the brim with internal machinations that make sense to the inhabitants of the world, but not to you, the player. Why is there a tundra beneath a coal mine? And why, beneath that, is there an underground forest teeming with odd fauna? Well, it makes sense to someone. The visuals and the wonderful music help drive home the sense of an alien, hostile, magical world, as they all work together to elevate the experience in a way.
All this happens while you come to grips with the game’s main form of combat, which involves putting together magic spells in your wands. The wand system is arguably the game’s greatest asset, which is remarkable given just how many assets it already has. It requires a hefty degree of innovation (and fun) to create the kind of formidable wands that can ensure your survival through the depths of the mountain. Much like how the game rewards your curious exploration of the world with both discovery and death, so too does the wand system, reward you with the feeling of immense power combined with the knowledge that this power can and frequently does turn against you, as your destructive wands end up destroying you.
As time goes on, and you get a bit better at playing the mage, your curiosity seeks to be satiated once again, and so, you opt to not venture into the mountain, but to look outside of it, and, once again, you are met not with disapproval at your curiosity, but with welcoming arms, as the game is eager to show you more of its harsh, deadly world.
At this point, the scope of the game breaks out of any moulds you had placed it in. This is something different. All these mysterious elements suddenly fit together in a giant jigsaw puzzle, whose complete image is one of complete and utter innovation.
Noita is a game that I’ve sunk dozens of hours into, with no end in sight. Lurking over the horizon of this game’s foggy horizons lie many challenges that I hope to one day beat. Much knowledge waiting to be decoded, many biomes left to explore. It’s a game that continues to provide a fresh with each new attempt, and despite being very familiar with how to play it, it remains elusive, mysterious and fresh.
I firmly believe it’s one of the greatest games of the last decade, if not in all of history. All of its systems, its setting, its world, its visuals, are simultaneously well made, fresh, and supportive of each other. The end result is a rock solid, bewitching experience.
