Röki is such a delightful and charming game to play. I absolutely loved it and I believe you will too.
In all honesty, I never even heard of the game prior to receiving a press release about the game coming out on the new consoles on October 28th. Apparently, this has been out for a year on PC and well, everyone pretty much agrees that it’s a great game.
And after playing it myself, I concur, it’s a really amazing game. It’s probably one of the best point-and-click games I’ve ever played. The premise of the story is quite intriguing, the world and characters are really interesting and the quality of the puzzles is *chef’s kiss. All these things, which usually make or break a point-and-click adventure game, Röki delivers in full and then some.
Tove, the young girl you play as, travels to another world in another time as she tries to save her little brother Lars which was taken by a giant shadowy monster. This is all set in a beautiful snowy Scandinavian wilderness where you encounter and interact with stuff from the old Norse legends.
It’s a beautiful world at first, but as you move through the story, the land slowly gets corrupted by the actions of the main villain and, of course, it’s up to you to save the day. At the same time, as the outer world gets corrupted, Tove’s inner world also starts to be affected. She starts to remember things that have happened how they happened, painful memories she has unintentionally or not repressed. She has to deal with all of that, accept what happened and she has done and move on cause well, life goes on and her little brother needs saving.
As you roam around exploring this beautiful world, you meet and interact with some interesting characters. Massive Jötuns, big scary monsters, rock trolls, talking frogs, mushrooms, trees with eyes… you know, stuff from the Norse mythology. Some are friends, some are enemies, some will help you and some will try to eat you.
But Tove is smart and pretty gutsy too. She needs to be as her journey is filled with obstacles and puzzles she has to figure out in order to be just one step closer at finding and saving her brother. The puzzle design is great. Most of the solutions make sense, even the tougher ones, just by thinking about the world, what you've seen and what items you've collected so far. Of course, there are some bullshit out-there solutions cause well, they always are. But a quick jog to the talking tree which gives you hints at what to do next or a quick look at Tove’s notebook where she writes about everything and anything she sees and does, will help you find a solution. And when that fails, hey, the game has been out for a year now, there are tons of walkthroughs out there.
I was stuck, like really stuck and it was somewhat early in the game, I would say. There was this giant monster in a lake guarding something I needed to progress and I couldn’t figure out what I needed to do. Tried everything, nothing worked. So walkthrough it was. Apparently, I had to use a parish register book on a tombstone so that I could learn the name of a small girl which drowned in the lake with the monster so that I could tell that name to that monster which frees him making it possible for me to get the item. See what I am talking about?
Anyway, overall puzzles are quite good. Some might require you to combine a couple of items on your inventory to create a new item which can be used to solve one puzzle which gets you a new item for the next puzzle and so on. The world is interlinked and what might be out of reach at the start, it becomes available to you in a cool natural way. Later in the game, there are some areas that contain unique puzzles with unique mechanics and solutions just for that one area and I really liked those ones.
Not only because they had variety and helped with the pacing, but also because each how cool these locations looked. The whole game is gorgeous to look at with a beautiful cell-shaded art style, simple yet quite detailed with gorgeous lighting and vibrant colors that made each location and character pop. The music is also really good and helps with the whole “alone in a strange world” atmosphere. It’s a feast for your eyes and ears.
I absolutely loved Röki, one of the best games I’ve played this year. It’s so easy to recommend this game not only to point-and-click adventure fans, but to everyone. Great touching story, beautiful interlinked strange world with even stranger characters and overall great puzzle design. Yes, Röki is a fantastic game, get it! Thanks for reading.
The game was reviewed on a PS5 using a review code provided by the publisher. Röki is now available for PS5, Xbox Seriesa, PC and Switch.
