Traversing a post apocalyptic world can be challenging especially if it’s within the game Laika: Aged Through Blood a 2D Metroidvania side scrolling adventure that centers around traversing a post apocalyptic environment on a motorcycle. Developed by Brainwash Gang and published by Headup Games, this side-scrolling Metroidvania is reminiscent of old school Flash games that require quick thinking and quick perception skills in order to get from point A to point B alive. The game was released back in 2023, but was recently ported to the Nintendo Switch this year. However does this port hold up in a way that makes the game enjoyable to play? While the concept of Laika: Aged Through Blood is interesting it fumbles in a few areas either due to hardware issues or poor accessibility features which will be delved into deeper later on in this review. 

The story of Laika: Aged Through Blood centers around a road warrior named Laika who is cursed with the ability to come back to life after dying along her mystical motorcycle. Laika found out that a child named Poochie had been taken from their village and murdered by the Birds. They are a group of militarized birds who viewed themselves as biologically superior and swept through the world with their forces plundering as many resources as possible which resulted in the world becoming a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Because of Poochie’s death his father Jakob flies into a blind rage and goes on a vengeful quest against them taking Laika’s revolver with him. Laika eventually catches up to Jakob but is unfortunately too late as he had been horribly wounded by The Birds. However, before she can attend to his wounds Jakob warns her about a war machine that The Birds developed that is planned to be used to destroy their village which she destroys using her revolver and motorcycle. After destroying the war machine Lakia returns to Jakob only to find that he had succumbed to his wounds. She then proceeds to bring him back to their village where he is cremated so that he can be buried in their ancestral homeland. It is then at that moment that the Elder of the village declares war against The Birds. At the same time Laika’s mother believes that her daughter Puppy should be prepared for combat and motorbiking before she inherits the same curse they did when they became of age, however Laika believes that Puppy should experience the joys of youth a little longer. With this in mind Laika must now do everything she can possibly do in order to stop the war before it both ravages their villages and forces Puppy into the conflict. 

The gameplay of Laika: Aged Through Blood primarily focuses around driving across the wastelands in a cursed Motorcycle while using a variety of upgradable firearms to take the fight against The Birds. This Metroidvania takes the genre into a unique perspective with it mostly being Motorbike focused. The bike can be accelerated, stopped, reversed, and flipped from front to back. Flipping backwards will reload all of Laika’s weapons while flipping forwards refills her bike’s ability to parry non explosive ranged attacks. Her motorcycle also has the ability to block non explosive ranged attacks as long as the bottom is facing towards the oncoming fire. However, Laika is not as bulletproof as she and her enemies can all be one shot and when she respawns so do all of the enemies similar to a soulslike. She will also perish if her head lands first instead of the wheels of her bike. Checkpoints within the game are composed of totems that will only activate if the player toggles a button prompt before driving past them. If the player fails to activate whatever totem they pass, then they will only respawn back at whatever previous one they currently have activated.

While the game is a lot of fun once the player unlocks and upgrades their weapons, it is a bit of a frustrating experience especially because of the fact that Laika can be killed in one hit by way of either getting shot or landing head first onto the pavement before successfully flipping the bike right side up. There is also the issue of the camera not really showcasing what’s in front of you until the player reaches the edge only for them to be killed by an enemy because they couldn’t be seen until the camera pans to the next area. While the game does have the ability to slow down time as the player holds down the aim trigger it unfortunately has an issue where the bullet wouldn’t accurately go where it was supposed to due to a lack of clarity maybe instead of using a curser to track the characters aiming it should have been a trajectory line that way it would be a lot clearer about whether or not Laika is actually about to hit a target with her weapon. 

The game also lacks traditional difficulty and accessibility options, because while there are accessibility controls there are only three and they don’t really do much outside of one preventing Laika from dying when she falls on her head and another one adjusting how much time slows down while she aims her weapon. There also aren’t options to adjust the difficulty settings from easy, normal, hard etc so if players struggle with fast reactions and stick drift issues they can’t adjust anything to fit their preferred playstyles. While this may not be a big deal to some, having the ability to adjust settings for vastly different experiences does wonders especially when player wants a relaxing experience, while also challenging in ways that can be altered like; adjustable difficulty in enemy ai, optional unlimited ammo toggles or limits to resources, optional invincibility or permadeath depending on preferred playstyles etc. However despite these settings not being in the game that doesn’t make the game impossible to play just more challenging so that will be more of a matter of preference. 

Overall Laika: Aged Through Blood offers a very fun experience and it’s unique take on the Metroidvania style using a motorcycle for traversal and combat brings new life to the genre. 

Score: 7 out of 10

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch