If the worst thing you can say about a rougelite is that it kills you, then Noita can’t be that bad. I’m a big fan of this game and can’t wait to play some more.

Ultimately, Noita is probably not going to change anyone’s mind on roguelikes, but it sure is well-crafted. The game is filled with so many little quirks and gameplay nuances that I never ran out of things to experience. At almost every run, I would run into something new, be it a spell, an enemy, or even secret areas. One thing certainly worth noting is that the game is what you make it. Noita is undoubtedly a title worth playing for those willing to just dive into the gameplay and master the systems at play rather than worry too much about trying to win.

Original, challenging and incredibly deep, Noita is a roguelike capable of surprising every time you launch a new game. If you like tough challenges and love this genre of games, Noita is really for you. It doesn't cost much and guarantees plenty of hours of exploration, disruption, killing and fun. But beware: it’s tough. Really tough!

A reinvention of a childhood favorite of mine, The Powder Toy, Noita amazes with its pixel-perfect simulation of physics, chemistry, and magic.

In its best moments, Noita is a visual treat of interesting physics mechanics, status effects, and weapons that encourage experimentation, explosions, and just a damn good time. It offers hours of amusement and surprises wrapped inside a fairly traditional roguelite offering. What it lacks in actual progression systems, it makes up for with a bewildering amount of exploration and a high skill ceiling for those willing to master it. That difficulty is also its biggest shortcoming, as the ease with which players can die — often unfairly — means a lot of repeating familiar areas and weapons, and the user interface and RNG often get in the way of the better parts of the experience. Noita isn’t a game to sink 50 hours into, but it’s a blast to drop in and experience for its systems, and it 100% lives up the promise that “every pixel is simulated” — often to deadly and hilarious effect.

Creatively manipulating Noita's reactive world with an inventive spellcasting system acts as the game's initial appeal, but it's also the game's biggest stumbling block early on. Trying to gain footing in Noita's dangerous, unstable world is an abrasive task that distracts from its wonderful secrets and challenging puzzles, but its main hook of experimentation with spells and their effects on the world around you is strong enough to pull you through its uneven start. Noita is tough and unforgiving of even the smallest mistakes, but it's also just a gleeful sandbox of destruction that brings as much joy as it does death.

I don’t envy any roguelike unfortunate enough to release immediately after Hades — that game made every run feel distinct and provided a persistent narrative justification for the repetition inherent to the genre. I obviously can’t expect smaller developers to match that effort, but what Hades does well underlines the fact that so many roguelikes let stellar ideas go to waste, lost amid endless monotony. Noita is a spectacular technical showcase in desperate need of a more fully-formed game.