Game Review: Mists of Noyah

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, XBox, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PC

Genres are an interesting thing, and the game we're going to look at today brings together several gameplay elements that seem like they wouldn't do well together. Mists of Noyah is a game developed by Pyxeralia, and published by QUByte Interactive. It's out now on all major platforms, and we're going to be taking a look at the Nintendo Switch version today. I'll get to what I mean about that genre thing in due course, but we're going to have a lot to cover before we get there. Seeing as further intros will only slow us down, let's dive right in!

It's not often where I play a game and haven't the slightest idea as to what it is that I'm supposed to do, but that's exactly how Mists of Noyah starts. From the title screen, you pick a character to play as, and a world to play in, and you're thrown into it with no story or tutorial at all. The characters do have some slight differences we'll discuss later, and the world choice is seed based. This means that there are some randomly generated elements to the game, but two players can technically experience the same general world if they so desire. What exactly is that experience though? I know the game is going for something akin to what other resource management/crafting games like Minecraft and Terraria do, but those games are far more intuitive than anything Mists of Noyah has to offer. It doesn't even seem like that's the game you get at first, as you'll probably think you're in the middle of an Action RPG for the first few minutes like I did. You spawn in the middle of a hostile area, and it takes a while until you find the main hub village where the resources you've gathered even come into play. It doesn't actually get good from that point on, but you do at least finally have goals you can work towards. It's also here that you can peruse what passes for a story in Mists of Noyah, in the form of scrolls you can purchase from a random shop. I honestly feel that the story was tacked on after the fact, as it feels like you're reading random fantasy fiction that has no actual ties to the game itself. None of it really matters, and you can miss it all if you decide random scrolls aren't worth your hard earned money. After visiting the village, you can then go out and venture into the world again. But do you really want to do that?

While I'm still not totally sure what the overall goals in Mists of Noyah are, much of the gameplay revolves around gathering materials and crafting new items, weapons, armor, and even buildings and defenses for the hub village. You have a pickaxe, axe, and knife that only pop out when it's time to gather resources, and you can attack using your main weapon. It's worth noting that your main weapon never changes, no matter what it is you have equipped. That meant that my chosen character always fought with a sword, even if he actually had an axe equipped. Using resources to craft new weapons and armor will be your first move, but there will be lots of other recipes you'll need. Some recipes will require you to be at a certain level, in a certain location, or require some other esoteric component in order to be completed, but this is barely ever explained to you. None of this really matters in the long run though, as most items can be found out in the wild anyway. I never bothered with crafting new weapons and armor since enemy drops and chests often yielded better results. The same can be said for potions and the like, with many of them being pointless anyway. I only ever really bothered with crafting to clear certain quest objectives, and that makes the entire crafting system feel extremely pointless. It's almost as if the developers set out to create both a Metroidvania game and a Terraria-like game separately, and then smashed them together without bothering to balance them or fully integrate their different gameplay quirks.

One of the most important crafting systems, and I think the one that the game expects you to focus much of your time on, is crafting new houses and defenses for the hub village. While enemies can be found out in the wild, the hub village is mostly a safe zone. Outside enemies spawn constantly, and you can't even pause the game to take a breath. Hit detection is all over the place, and a slime can easily kill you if you're not careful. Building new areas in the village opens it up to night attacks from undead and other strong monsters every seven days, and this is what I think the game is working towards you doing. The thing is that the village doesn't seem to get attacked until you build that first extra structure. It didn't take me long to realize that if I simply ignored that step entirely, one giant headache from the game was suddenly removed. I'm not sure if this was an oversight from the developers, but it just shows how broken much of the game's systems really are. The only reason you'd have to build defenses is to stop the invading hordes during the night, but the hordes don't seem to show up until you start building the defenses that you need to stop them. A truly chicken or egg problem if there ever was one, and a very odd gameplay decision to make in general.

Besides the crafting and village defense mechanics, there's also exploration. Said exploration is done in a Metroidvania-like way, with you fighting enemies that vary depending on the game's day/night cycle. You have a very useless map at your disposal that shows the area that you're currently in, and it's shocking how small the game world is once you've become powerful enough to explore all of it. Speaking of which, your character levels up from experience gained from defeating enemies and completing quests, and this grants them bonus points and stats increases. Most of the stat increases happen automatically, but one set of points can add to them, while another set of points is used to unlock and power up skills and spells. While the stats are very important to gameplay, I rarely bothered with the skills/spells all that much. Not only do they all use mana, but they also have a cooldown timer before you can use them again. This keeps them from ever really being useful, and they'll just as often miss anyway. Also, weapons and armor can often raise and lower stats so drastically that it made me wonder why the leveling system was put in place at all. Stranger still, even if you're at a very high level, most monsters can still hit you for huge chunks of your life. I'm not sure if this is due to most attacks taking a percentage of life or some other hidden mechanic, but it was something that bothered me during my entire time with the game. And just because I promised I'd talk about them earlier, the only real difference between the characters is their appearance. Well, for me at least since I never bothered using the actual skills that are also unique amongst them. There are base stats, but enough can be done in-game to manipulate those that it doesn't seem worth mentioning.

The only other aspect of the game to discuss would have to be the dungeons. Dungeons act as high level areas where you can get equally high level loot and rewards. I think these are only in place as the main world caps off rather quickly. Since you're technically able to explore any part of it right from the get-go, it makes sense that the difficulty spikes found in the overworld aren't too ridiculous. Once the challenge dies off, it's time to move onto dungeons. Dungeons start with a suggested level of 20, and go way up from there. I can't imagine anyone playing this game until they reach level 80, but I guess there's content in the dungeons for the few players that do. These dungeons are not only very difficult, but dying means you have to restart them completely. As far as I can tell, these areas aren't at all randomized. Perhaps they're created with the world seed as well, but I think it's a missed opportunity that each time going in didn't change things up. They're mainly interesting for the unique enemies you face there, but they're just another pointless aspect of the game in the grand scheme of things. 

While I actually am a fan of the visuals and music of Mists of Noyah, I have a big issue with them that I have to explain now. Not that long ago, I reviewed a game called Scarlet Tower. Scarlet Tower is a roguelike game that features a fantasy world, and it was a game that I much appreciated. (You can find that review HERE.) I praised most everything about it, including the game's graphics and sound. Imagine my surprise when I booted up Mists of Noyah and see that just about every single sprite, character, music track, and even menus, were shared between the two games. I've definitely seen developers reuse assets in the past, but never to this degree. These are two games build using all of the same assets. This may sound like nothing, but it made me wonder if there wasn't a third game that came before this one that these assets came from, or if they were even created by the developers at all. It speaks of a level of laziness I didn't even know could exist in the world of modern video games, and it makes it very hard for me to judge those same aspects in this game. That whole thing about two different games created being mashed together might actually be true after all. I wonder if the next game will be a platformer featuring the very same assets. It really wouldn't surprise me one bit.

Even though Mists of Noyah is technically a game that you can play for hours and hours on end, I don't think that it offers a gameplay loop that you'll want to bother with for more than an afternoon of trying to make sense of how it's meant to be played. Sure there are different world configurations to try out, and other characters to play as, but the core game is just so lackluster that I find the idea of getting to know its inner secrets far from appealing. Then there's the missing multiplayer. Mists of Noyah's title screen on consoles strangely says "Single Player", and that got me wondering if a multiplayer mode would eventually unlock after a tutorial or something. When that didn't happen during the course of my playthrough, I decided to look it up and learned that the game indeed had a multiplayer component that was cut out of the console versions. This not only takes out a giant chunk of gameplay, but it also explains the crazy balance in difficulty. While the game isn't truly difficult, it did always feel like it was missing something. That something was apparently other players, as most of the positive reviews I've seen of the PC version mention the multiplayer. Just when I think Mists of Noyah can't shock me more than it already has, it pulls out something else from its hat.

I honestly can't give Mists of Noyah a recommendation. It's not a horrible game by any means, but there's just nothing here worth playing. If it was priced at $4.99 like Scarlet Tower was, I'd at least suggest picking it up as a curiosity. At $9.99 though, you'd be better off saving up a bit more money and picking up Terraria or Minecraft instead. (I do have to point out that its console price is half of the Steam price, a truly rare occurrence.) There's just no real fun to be had here. This feels like a proof of concept that has a bunch of barely realized elements slapped onto it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see if Pyxeralia have used these same assets elsewhere. See you in the next one.

Check Out Mists of Noyah on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/mists-of-noyah-switch/

---

Story: C
Gameplay: C
Graphics: B
Music/Sound: B
Value: B

Overall: C

Pros:
+ Mixes together several genres in a way that sometimes works.
+ The exploration segments of the game are enjoyable, and make me wish they were the core element of gameplay.
+ There's a lot of content here to keep players invested for weeks.
+ Even though every asset in this game is reused in others, it does technically feature impressive graphics and sound.
+ The sheer amount of items and craftables mean that you'll probably be stumbling across something new on each run.

Cons:
- Has no tutorial at all, and the game's story feels completely tacked on.
- Many of the game's systems feel broken or easily exploitable.
- The difficulty can be all over the place at times.
- The lack of multiplayer means that the console versions are not the version you'll want to play if you choose to play the game at all.
- Every single asset from this game is reused in Pyxeralia's other game Scarlet Tower. That's a level of laziness that just speaks volumes on their game design decisions.
- Just isn't very fun in general. Much of it feels like a chore to get through.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

---

I'm on top of the world!

#Mists