Röki Review

In the Scandinavian woods lives a father and his two kids. Life hasn’t really been the same since the passing of the mother, but everyone tries their best to see the brighter side of life. The children are pretty self sufficient, especially the daughter, who has taken on the mother role for her little brother. Everything seems fine until it all falls apart one night and a hidden, almost completely forgotten world reappears and the daughter, Tove, must delve into that world to save her brother, Lars, in the game Röki.

The whole game centers around the strength of Tove and her love for her missing brother (Lars). I’m not going to lie, this game constantly tugged at my heartstrings. The developers did an amazing job getting me to feel emotionally invested in the characters. There were also layers to the story that kept me intrigued. They wove in Scandinavian folklore in a very interesting way. They presented it as this forgotten world/realm that was disappearing and had almost completely become separate from normal reality, but somehow that realm re-opened just a crack, just enough to admit Tove. 

I loved the look and feel of the game. There are unique entities that you get to interact with. There were hidden treasures to be discovered all over the place. There were plenty of puzzles put in your way, and most of them gave me that satisfying feeling when I was able to put all the pieces together. There is a fair amount of back and forth through areas in the game, but thankfully there is a solution that presents itself through the tree network (I know that sounds vague, but once you start playing the game you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about). The developers also did a great job of throwing in a little extra from time to time to help fill in the blanks of what all is going on both in the present, and what happened in the past that put everything in motion.

This game took me just around 8 hours to complete, and I will fully admit that I enjoyed almost all of those 8 hours. Sure, there were a couple of brief moments that I wasn’t really sure what to do next, or how to solve a puzzle, but the vast majority of the time I was emotionally invested and I had to complete this game. This is definitely a game that I would highly recommend people check out. In my opinion it is well worth the price of admission.