Koira

I'm usually a fan of these artsy "walking simulator with some puzzles" but something about Koira just did not click with me at all. I can't quite pinpoint one specific issue, as it's more so the combination of many small issues making up to a bad whole. While the artstyle is gorgeous, and the music fits well, the game itself is just a boring slog. It's just walking point A to B, with a puzzle someone with half a brain could solve thrown in every now and then, plus a terrible forced stealth section in the middle and a silly final boss fight thrown in at the end for good measure. This all topped off by a terrible checkpoint system (it is not indicated to the player at all where/when the game chooses a save point, so if you decided to quit and come back later, congrats, you're making up a few minutes of progress because you quit in the wrong moment), and an incredibly boring story that boils down to "with dog happy, without dog sad". It's like the most beautiful looking cake you've ever seen, but once you carve into it, you realize it's hollow and flavourless. I'm sure this is gonna hit for some people, but it just didn't for me.

Just wrapped up playing the game and 100% it in just under 4 hours while taking a pretty leisurely pace with it. I'm sort of just sitting here with my feelings and processing that ending. It's short, and it's simple. No dialogue, only 2 controls really besides movement. The puzzles aren't too hard. Very forgiving with messing up. It's alright for children or for people who are there purely for the artistic properties and the story or may have accessibility issues. The game is gorgeous even with how simple the style is. The music is soothing and lovely and also has a sort or barebones vibe to it. Not the most deep or stories, but it manages to make you connect with our main character and dog and throws some real emotional gutpunches at you. I was tearing up at the end. KEEP PLAYING until you get the actual ending achievement. I could have sworn the game was over twice and had some BIG feelings about it before realizing it was a little bit of a fakeout and slow transition. Overall, I'd recommend it. $17 feels steep for the length and lack of replayability, though.

The artwork is cute and the environments look nice, although the repeated forest imagery does get a little monotonous after a while. However, the story and gameplay are insanely boring. I'm nearly halfway through and it seems to be nothing more than "depressed guy meets a dog and they wander through a forest while hunters chase them". The gameplay is just walking through an empty forest, solving some mediocre puzzles along the way and avoiding the hunters. The sound design was initially charming, but it wore off as the same sound effects kept being used all the time, particularly the singing/speaking of the human and the dog, which sounds more like honking. Due to how tedious it felt, I tried playing it in short bursts, but the checkpoint system made that a real annoyance. There are specific points where the game autosaves and there's no way to tell how far ago your last save was, unless you quit to the main menu and check, at which point there's nothing you can do if it turns out that you lost quite a bit of progress. It's usually not more than ~10 minutes, but replaying even that feels like a slog due to the issues above.

Wholesome type game. it was lovely

As my better half is a cute black small dog, this game completely reminds me of her and the game made me cry way too much. Its very emotional and too cute to handle. The graphics are awesome as they are hand drawn and the music fits the atmosphere. Its cozy, cute, emotional, can fully recommend. Warnings for (not only) other dog owners - might make you emotional or even cry. Beautiful.

Charming game. I would show it to my children.