Koira review — A beautiful balance between whimsy and cruelty

One of my favourite things about the Indie game community is the way developers use their voice, platform, and creativity to say something meaningful for their audience to engage with. Especially in recent years, indie games are the playable format for raising awareness on many global issues and instead of passively reading about them, the player is actively a participant so you feel more connected. Recent examples include Loddlenaut and Naiad commenting on the endless pollution in our bodies of water, Snufkin: Melody of Moomin Valley discussing the preservation of nature and freedom, and the game I’m reviewing today, Koira, with its focus on the cruelty of poaching and hunting our wildlife.

Koira is a narrative puzzle adventure set in the woodland where you play as what seems to be a spirit of this enchanted forest. You’ve emerged from a long slumber and stumbled across a puppy ensnared in a trap; once saved you quickly realize he has some special powers. In Rudolph fashion, his little red nose shows the way, banishing the darkness to reveal where you have to go next. Paired with this, you both possess musical abilities which act as your form of communication. If the puppy is scared, you sing to calm him down or to call him to you, and together you find ancient statues which reveal melodies for you to duet. You begin your journey restoring these statues and doing fun, silly activities, from building snowmen to throwing a stick for the puppy to fetch. The game is relatively peaceful but doesn’t hesitate in throwing the duo into the reality of human influence.

Hunters and their hounds stalk the forests, disrupting the scenery by entrapping the fauna and destroying the flora. One of the key moments of the story is helping the woodland creatures and their families to escape cages and sneak past the hunters to safety. The stealth element of the game is relatively basic, you can distract enemies by throwing objects and use boxes and shadows to hide. Koira is also not afraid to get violent in its portrayals with the hunters wielding loud and blasting guns, chasing you down in tense scenes.

Overall, the narrative trajectory and gameplay are relatively simple, with the puzzles being incredibly accessible to a younger audience which is always a great thing in my eyes. For me as a young adult, these types of games act as a chill night in which I admire the pretty scenery with minimal effort in my actions, but for a young kid, it presents just enough challenge for them to figure things out on their own. Allowing younger audiences to experience these very real issues through a game with a guardian by their side, is a great method of learning. For older players though, I can see why someone would shrug this game off with how it acts as more of a walking simulator.

My main qualm was that the puzzles weren’t very innovative and didn’t require much thought. I was also left disappointed with how the puppy didn’t really play much of a role in the gameplay, if it gets trapped it loses its powers, but you just have to feed it some apples, and instead of being a consequence, the moments are mapped out already. With a lot of these types of games, it often feels like style is prioritised over substance, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing for me.

Koira’s style is beautiful and unique. Instead of choosing the setting to be a forest in spring where the trees are full and the grass populated with color, they chose Winter with its muted tone. Therefore, creating a mystical yet cruel environment, mixing harsh monochromatic characters with dabs of red in the trees and bushes. For me it represented the black and white situation we face in animals being hunted and rapidly becoming extinct and the standstill we are in when solving the issue. The main character represents this anger in its gameplay mechanic, when the animals are being trapped you build up an anger that then allows you to press a button to let out a shout, making hounds cower away. However, as this power is more frequently used, your companion becomes scared of you, showing that anger is not the solution. However, your little buddy is never too far away to calm you down.