There’s something odd about games that are inherently difficult. While how people react will vary from person to person, in general your choices are to be defeated and simply give up, or to buckle down and stick with it, trying to get better. For whatever reason, for me once Laika: Aged Through Blood got its hooks into me I just had to keep playing, despite the periodic frustrations. While it absolutely won’t be for everyone, and you’ll likely be doing a lot of dying along the way, there are some fresh ideas here that work that are worth checking out.

Calling itself a “Motorvania” is more than simply clever wordplay for marketing. Given that you’ll be exploring the surprisingly large and intricate world on a motorcycle, it’s also quite accurate, and the very different overall feel this gives the game is indeed central to its hook. More often than not you’ll be riding through hostile territory, and that’s where the challenge level absolutely begins to rise. While your bike can be very useful, able to block shots hitting its bottom, or with some skill able to deflect shots back at your enemies, it can also be challenging to get the hang of things, even multiple hours in. You will get better at using your skills more effectively, most crucially a slowdown tied to you firing your gun, but it can be a challenge to try to keep your wheels under you to land, aim at and shoot enemies, and make sure none of their bullets are going to knock you out. Where things get tricky is that your ammo and skills are always needing a refresh, making it necessary to do a forward or back flip to refill, depending on what you need. Particularly in areas crowded with enemies, this can give the game an almost puzzle-like feel as you try to work out how to pick them each off to allow you to get through without dying first.

While I kept coming back for more of the game’s pretty meaty challenge, it isn’t hard to see where it may be overwhelming for less determined folks, and it’s a shame that there aren’t options to make it more approachable for them. One smart feature that has been implemented in some of Laika’s contemporaries, which could go a long way to opening it up for more people to enjoy, would be expanding the accessibility options that are available. There are a few options, but they don’t address a very wide set of the challenges people may have, and being able to scale the challenge with a little nuance would also be appreciated. Given that cooking and the perks that can afford you can be quite valuable, I also wish they would have covered it more clearly in-game early on to help people get through what can be a pretty rough start. A concern that’s a bit more Switch specific, but still can be a challenge when playing docked, is that in boss battles when the camera is more zoomed out, it can be difficult to track how your bike is oriented, leading to deaths that sometimes feel unnecessary. While most of the game works well enough in handheld mode, some boss battles may just be too hard on the eyes to work well because of this.

One of the game’s saving graces is that in general save points are plentiful, helping to minimize the pain of dying in any number of ways along your journey. For people who like to explore and find secrets, there are plenty of spots to discover if you’re willing to follow every path you find, but there are times where you’ll regret it. More than a few times I found that dying in the wrong spot would pull me back to a save point close by, but there would only be one way out and it would be through a tough pack of enemies. At times these situations could be a bit unfair, as you’d be stuck until you could work out a way to survive, but it’s also a part of what makes the game unique for sure. It may have some elements that could have used more work, but there’s no denying that Laika is an adventure like no other, and that’s worth celebrating.