izigame.me

150 hours in and not worth the time and energy tbh. Don't get me wrong, it's easy to sink a bunch of time into the game and think you're having fun, but it's addictive for the same reason plain gambling is addictive and not addictive because it's fun. Its strengths are overshadowed by its weaknesses, and all of its weaknesses are some varying degree of frustrating or downright unfair mechanics. Here are some of the pros:
- Creative wand building
- Great world and world gen - lots to explore and discover
- Pixel by pixel simulation is an interesting and unique concept
- Mods (which can fix some of the most frustrating parts of the game, but a game really shouldn't have to rely on mods for that)
And here are the cons:
- Wands can feel samey unless you happen to find the right spells/pieces to make a unique wand. In a similar vein, making a strong enough wand to get by sometimes relies a bit too much on finding certain staple spells (e.g. chainsaw, black hole/luminous drill, etc.). It feels bad to be barely scraping by on a run, trying to find a missing piece that would elevate the run, but simply not finding it and dying as you struggle to put the pieces of a good run together in a crappy seed. I've had runs where I'm missing any sort of spell I can use for a good digging wand, and being able to dig is pretty important to this game if you're going for a long run. Digging wands are also just incredibly convenient and helpful.
- Exploration takes a long time. It's not a fast paced game. At the start of a run you have to be pretty careful, yet runs can end almost instantaneously and very anticlimactically at any time. This combined with no form of metaprogression beyond unlocking new spells can really suck.
- Pixel by pixel simulation is interesting until you realize how much jank comes with it. Game crashes, dying because you get stuck for a second on a single pixel you didn't see or get stuck in a wall, liquids like acid or lava splashing up unpredictably, touching a single pixel of fire and lighting on fire, the list goes on.
- Enemies are kinda weirdly balanced. One pet peeve is that many enemies will see you from much further away than you can see them (love getting shot from off screen). On some runs you'll run into a ghost carrying a wand from one of your previous runs. If it's the beginning of your current run and that ghost is carrying a previous endgame wand, well, good luck with that. Overall, I always feel completely over or underpowered compared to the enemies, which doesn't make for exciting gameplay.
- There is not a lot of guidance in the game. It's simplest to use the wiki. Things like locations of interest or boss weaknesses/resistances are purposefully cryptic. This issue kinda comes down to personal preference, but it's my opinion that in a game where experimenting and exploring new things is important, you shouldn't be so severely punished for doing so (punished as in going into a boss fight and dying in an hours-long run because this boss is nearly impossible to fight with the current wand you're running). Also another hugely annoying feature is that you cannot modify wands outside of certain zones (unless you have a particular perk that is nowhere near guaranteed to show up). Given that wand building is such a core mechanic and one of the most fun mechanics in the game, this needlessly strict limitation is just annoying. Sometimes it feels like vanilla Noita is a weird challenge mode of what could be a really awesome game because of limiting mechanics like this.
- The game is just all around unforgiving. For instance, there aren't many ways to replenish health, which gets frustrating in a game where there are about a billion little and hard to avoid ways to lose health. Like the aforementioned getting caught on fire by a single pixel. Even if you put the fire out quickly, things like this slowly whittle your health away.
- Some perks you can get are downright bad for you. I'm not sure why they're even in the game unless you're doing some kind of meme or challenge run.
It's truly a one of a kind game with a lot of potential, but it's really not for everyone because of its flaws. Enjoyers of this game often point out that any run can be won or any death can be avoided if you have enough experience, knowledge, and skill---which yeah, that's how all games work. But you will bang your head against the wall dying in about a million bullshit ways before you get that experience, knowledge, and skill, and even then, the bullshit will sometimes be unavoidable. There are so many unwritten rules in this game to remember, and I personally just don't have the time it takes for all the trial and error to figure those out or find it fun to follow those rules. At the end of the day, you wouldn't really be wasting money buying this game and I can't say I regret getting it and the 150 hours I spent in it, but it feels weird recommending it because it's one of those games you'll probably have a toxic relationship with unless you're a particular kind of player.