Laika: Aged Through Blood Nintendo Switch Review
When is a game too difficult? For my sanity, it’s when playing it becomes such a chore that you’d rather do household chores instead. For me, Laika: Aged Through Blood is one such game; obviously brilliant but stupidly hard.
Released on PC and other consoles back in 2023, Laika: Aged Through Blood has now been ported over to Nintendo Switch. It tells the dark tale of Laika, an anthropomorphic coyote. Half mum, half warrior, half butt-kicking bad ass, Laika is up against the Bird faction, a tyrannical bunch of megalomaniacs, intent on taking over the land and wiping out her village.
Despite its gorgeous hand-drawn artwork, sumptuous animation, and cute animal characters, Laika: Aged Through Blood is unrelentingly bleak. The game opens with the depiction of a child cayote who has been strangled to death and strung up by their own innards. Grim. Frankly, the levels of gore, despair, and cruel unrelenting violence were rather too much for me. But hey, to each their own, and regardless of my sensitive constitution, Laika: Aged Through Blood tells an engaging and emotional story. Maybe just don’t eat before playing?
The game is an intriguing hybrid that’s Metroidvania and part motorbike sim. That’s right, you get the exploration, power-up gathering, puzzle solving and resource gathering of a Metroidvania, alongside the motorbike controls and physics of an entry from Ubisoft’s Trials series. It’s an eclectic mix to be sure, but it works, forging the two disparate elements into a cohesive experience, one dubbed ‘Motorvania’ by the developers.
Laika speeds around the environment with a squeeze of the trigger, leaving you responsible for spinning her bike into front flips or back flips. Doing so will recharge both your parry ability – only, you know, parrying with a motorbike – and your ammunition. Shooting from the bike activates slow motion bullet time, which is absolutely essential to stand a chance at hitting one of the many bird henchavians, blasting away with their rifles
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