4.5/5 ★ – JetDusk's review of Little Noah: Scion of Paradise.

This game was a bit of a surprise from a Nintendo Direct, coming out the same day it was announced. It was only $15.00 so I decided to try it out. It was very refreshing to find a really solid Rouge-like made by the developers of Granblue. The art style made me think of Bravely Default, but I don’t think they’re related. You play as a small alchemist named Noah who uses little creatures called Lilliputs to fight. The cool thing about this is you can change what order they appear in during combos, as well as place them in a special attack slot with cool down. It was very fun to try them all out to see which ones worked best for me. Personally, I feel the Ice elements are incredibly over powered compared to the other two elements, but I won’t lie and say it wasn’t awesome to destroy enemies that previously gave me trouble with massive Crit damage. A feature of this game I appreciate in all Rouge-likes is purchasing upgrades after each run that permanently affect every future run. It’s hard to get into games where you start from square one every time, especially after a painfully close victory. But in this case, at least I’m stronger than before beyond personal experience. I will say the game is incredibly short, I beat the final boss within 10 attempts. There isn’t much more to do after that beyond running through again. There’s no super difficult mode or secret dungeon to go after, so that was a bit disappointing. I also didn’t find much use for the normal element lilliputs, they don’t really get any buffs to make them better, so maybe that’s just for more of a self imposed challenge. This game succeeds as a nice starting point for any casual players who want to get into rouge-like games. It’s easy to understand, the mechanics are tight and fun, and it’s not such a breeze you’ll win effortlessly. You can still die in 2-3 hits in the later stages, but it won’t take anyone long to reach the end. The story is very basic, but the game itself is solid, so I look forward to an expanded sequel in the near future. (Edit: 08/09/2022, the game just added a Hell Mode that makes Noah die in one hit, so there’s an extra bit of challenge to try and finish. Here’s to more updates and a potential sequel in the future!)