I feel pretty mixed about this game, I LOVE the art, the music, the characters, (some of) the gameplay, but man some parts of this game are ROUGH.

I think its a well made game for the most part, its stable, it runs well and has some really fun and unique ideas, but while it has very high highs, it also has some truly low lows. some of the decisions made for the actual gameplay are very questionable and/or frustrating.

Like half of this game is a glorified fetch quest, someone asks you to go get something, you go out of your way to get it, you come back and get a crumb of engaging dialogue with an absolutely pitiful amount of rewards, and then they immediately ask for something else. repeat for almost every single side quest.

The worst part is that when your initially exploring a new area quest items wont even spawn until an NPC asks for them, so you gotta drag your bike all across the dessert over again for every single quest. It can be incredibly monotonous, again for rewards that are almost always near worthless

The other major issue I have with this game is the boss fights, I think the first couple are decent enough, but a lot of them have serious issues. These are fights where you have to wait for the enemies weak point to open up before you can damage them, have multiple phases, and you have only one hit point, with NO CHECKPOINTS.
you have to restart the entire fight every single time you get by something, or even just land your bike wrong.
The actual designs of the bosses are pretty cool, but I started dreading fighting them (The egg and crab can go to hell especially).

I've complained a lot about this game, but I don't regret playing it and want to end this off with what I REALLY liked about this game. I felt like this games overall presentation was overwhelmingly beautiful, from its gorgeous melancholy soundtrack, to its striking art style. The story and characters were also engaging, theres some particular moments that are very shocking and memorable. The gameplay (while still having some major issues) was very inventive and fun for the most part (doing 360s with your bike to reload is VERY cool)

You should probably try out the demo before buying the game, should tell if you'll like this game or not.

I had a lot of issues with this game, but I also don't think I'll forget about it anytime soon.

I wish the best of luck to the devs at brainwash gang, you guys have made some really great and unique stuff!

made me cry several times.

1) i cried cuz i sucked at the game and kept losing all my money by dying too often. There are no difficulty settings that I am aware of. it got better.
2) i cried because of the story. it was not really sad, but it made me feel things and think for myself. Both the main story, the side-quests, those non-explicit in-game story telling through art and gameplay - all of it.
3) i cried because i had to kill beicoli. I fell in love with her voice throughout my play-through and I felt actual pain inside when I pulled a trigger on her for the first time. But I was too enraged that she dared to steal Puppy that I shot her again after she told me where Puppy was without hesitation.
4) i cried just after i became good at the game. I felt proud of my skills for a moment, dodging and deflecting bullets, spinning like crazy and focusing on trick-shooting birds. But then it was revealed that some birds refuse to fire at you because they are pacifists and did not want to fight the war, they were drafted. I couldn't then pull a trigger on a bird with a white-band on their wing anymore. It affected me deeply and it made the gameplay much more engaging instantly as now on top of all the difficult, I had to focus and not shoot any pacifist birds
5) i cried as i was trying to be the best parent i could for the puppy, there is always something more I wanted Laika to say to her, something more to do with the people at the camp, something more to help end the war to make the world Puppy lives in a little better. But in the end of every major mission I felt like it's a vain victory. And it shows because nothing goes better in game: there are always more birds in the world and less hope in people. I went in the final mission ONLY as I felt like I could not do anything else in the camp. After I made sure there is nothing else on the map for me to see and possibly do for Puppy. I knew the game would end and I wouldn't get another chance. So I cried as I went in the final mission about me separating from this world and going up in the sky possibly never to return.
6) i cried because even the ending made me feel so small. nothing really changed about this horrible world through my actions. But I was also proud of what I did for the people in the village and of the sacrifice Laika makes for her daughter and where we live.
7) i cried after i finished the game because i realized i did not have to do 3 as I was scrolling through the achievements in Steam. it made me see the rage that really took me over as she stole Puppy from Laika. I felt like there is nothing I would not do to get her back and moreover I felt that I will kill anyone who actually threatens my family. Seeing that the band could've reunited at the camp at some point made me think that if I listened to her song till the end... I could've brought her back. She was as scared as anyone else and simply wanted to live a better life. But I killed her thinking I had no other choice... but there was
8) i cried because in another achievement i saw that I haven't actually brought all the gifts I could've gathered for Puppy. Knowing I could've done something more for her made me feel disappointed in myself on top of me not accomplishing something significant with the main story-line
9) i cried because i am really alone at this point in life and do not have anyone to share this experience with fully. this is the busiest time of my life since I am a fresh graduate. and i have friends, a girlfriend, a family, coworkers, and yet I am not in any position to feel safe or not judged for trying to enjoy a videogame in my spare time.

I will never emotionally recover from this.

Never did I think marrying Excitebike, metroidvanias, twin stick shooters, stories about generational trauma and fighting colonization, and furries would make me want to spend dozens of hours like this. But here I am

This game is horrible. Not in the gameplay, the gameplay is fantastic. The music is outstanding, the art: gorgeous. The story is awful terrible terrible horrible. Not in quality, but in content. Nothing is good, nothing is happy and nothing will ever get better. 10/10

Be sure to give the demo a go to see if the gameplay clicks with you before buying.

As others have already said, the game is like Trials+Guns+Mad Max esque story. I don't necessarily think the game is bad, I mean I bought it cause it looked fun and there are moments where I was having fun shooting birds and doing flips. It just kind of surprised me with a lot of other things I wasn't expecting and personally found too annoying to continue and finish.

First, the world is like a big metroid style map and has quests. Kinda threw me off a bit cause I thought the game would lend itself well to a level based format. I really wasn't expecting to have to do so much back and forth between place to place and it gets tiring very quickly. In other metroidvanias this isn't a huge deal, but in Laika you're doing this on a Trials bike and starts to get annoying very quickly when you bump your head and die when all you're trying to do is drive back to a place you just were.

The game offers fast travel but is very quickly undercut by the fact that it's use is tied to a resource. You have to collect wax and craft candles to be able to fast travel and I have no clue why. While playing I saved up some money and wanted to fast travel home to purchase an upgrade only to learn I had 0 candles. I had 30 pieces of wax but because I didn't realize the only place you can make more candles is at home base I was outta luck. I was annoyed and mainly just wondering why a basic game mechanic has to be tied to a resource to begin with. The wax isn't exactly rare, so it just feels like adding an unnecessary step to basic game mechanic.

Then there's money and resources. The game uses a similar mechanic to that of Hollow Knight where when you die you lose a portion of your saved up money. If you can get back to the spot where you died you can pick it up again and there will be no loss. Otherwise if you die too much you'll just lose it for good. A mechanic that I think works fine for other games, but that's because there's a margin for error. If I died in Hollow Knight I can try and get back to that spot and have health as a buffer to help me get there through enemies and obstacles. As long as I don't make too many mistakes I can get back. Laika doesn't have health. Bullets, explosions, head hits the ground, those all result in instant death. There's no buffer, you make one mistake and that's it, so if you die in an awkward spot around enemies or difficult terrain you kinda just have to accept you're gonna lose your money.

Again, I don't really think the game is bad, it just has some really odd design choices here and there. And at least for me, the annoyances of those choices simply reached a point where I felt the frustration outweighed the fun.

My indie GOTY

P.s: please sell the OST in here, it's so good eveyone involved deserves the extra money

P.P.s: OST is in bandcamp

Mad Max: furry road!

A game that tackles some extremely serious subjects with an incredible amount of grace and respect, a metroidvania about motherhood, a woman's coming of age, and a hell of an apocalyptic story on top of it all with a beautiful aesthetic combined with an absolutely top notch soundtrack. In a year of amazing games, Laika stands out even among them as one of the best I've ever played. A must-play.

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