Koira Review- What A Human-Dog Relationship Really Means

There is an entire movement around making sure you can pet the dog in any game that has a dog.

Despite all this love for dogs in the video game space, even games that have deep interactions between the human characters never seem to truly capture what the human-dog relationship is actually like. I’m not saying it’s easy to do this, considering one of the characters can’t talk. But dogs mostly serve as a silent partner in a buddy cop type of film in most video games. They help you out in fights, maybe save you from danger once in a dramatic way, they get a few pets, and that’s about it.

I think anyone who has a dog knows that things feel deeper than that. Dogs are more than just a buddy. They are healers. They take on our biggest stresses and anxieties without knowing it. They distract us in difficult times. They even force us to touch grass when we don’t want to. My last dog helped me with depression more than anything else. Because of this, I really wish games did a better job of showing what a human-dog relationship can really look like.

Koira might be the first game I’ve played that truly captures what my relationship to dogs means to me. This is a narrative adventure game, with no dialogue, where you travel through the woods with your trusty companion in order to find your way home. Koira is a well-rounded game that I would say executes on most of its elements well but not at the absolute highest levels.

But I think it handles the themes of a friendship with dogs better than perhaps any game I’ve ever played. This gives it a special and unique power for me personally. That alone was enough for me to really enjoy my experience with it.

Little Known Fact, Dogs Are Fucking Terrible At Puzzles

Koira starts out with the main character finding a dog stuck in a trap in a forest area. After showing the dog that they can be trusted, the dog and the hero set out to go home together. Unfortunately, this forest is filled with hunters (who are the ones who trapped the dog in the first place) and other wildlife that make it a treacherous journey.

In order to make your way through the forest, you will do a mixture of solving puzzles, sneaking by hunters, and even some rare combat sections. The game is also buoyed by the occasional set piece moment.

The first few hours of this roughly four hour journey are pretty chill overall. You spend a fair bit of time playing with and getting to know your new dog as you navigate the forest. Koira mostly has a lot of environmental puzzles, where you have to figure out exactly how to get through to the next area. Your new dog has an ability to eliminate dark clouds that permeate the forest when you feed him. You can also throw objects to knock things down, which helps in various capacities. By exploring, you can also find musical notes that help you advance through certain sections. The forest itself seems to be powered by music, which isn’t used in as many interesting ways as I would hope, but it helps give the game a certain unique flavor.

I can’t say I particularly loved the puzzles in the game. You don’t have a lot of mechanics to play with, so many of them just come down to the same tricks, or exploring the environment to find all the musical notes in the section you are in. Luckily, they are so easy that almost none of them tripped me up. They are just pleasant enough little tasks that allow you to interact and bond with your dog in various ways, but it was a bit disappointing that I can’t recall any real “aha!” moment throughout my time playing it. There are a few puzzles later in the game that do get a tad trickier, but I mostly ended up feeling they were difficult more because of design mistakes over actual clever puzzles.

As the game goes on, you start to come across the aforementioned hunters that had the dog trapped early in the game. This is when the game ramps up and starts to get more intense, both narratively and with the gameplay. Encounters with the hunters are mostly stealth-oriented. You are going to spend a lot of time going from one bush to another when a hunter leaves your sight lines. The game also throws in occasional puzzle elements or even combat a few times within these encounters.

Much like the puzzles, there really isn’t much special to these stealth encounters. They are about as barebones as it gets. I also had a few moments where I felt like I mostly got caught because it the level wasn’t designed in a super intuitive way. But they did get my heart pounding occasionally, especially in the moments when I felt particularly engaged with the plot and characters. There are also a few moments where these more action-oriented segments spiral into a full on set piece section. I thought these were generally pretty strong and often serve as a great climax to big moments in the game.

Despite none of the gameplay elements fully clicking with me, I can’t say I hated any element of it either. It can be unexceptional, but puzzles, combat, stealth, and everything else are generally brief and easy enough to be inoffensive and even slightly pleasant at times. The game also mixes things up enough in various ways where things stay pretty fresh, especially with Koira’s brief run-time.

“Did You Know That Dog-Human Relationships Are Actually Parasitic” Is A Common Sentence Before Someone Gets Punched In The Face

While I wish that some of the gameplay segments reached higher highs, Koira still manages to excel as a game thanks to its excellent storytelling. It is also masterful at getting you attached to characters who never speak.

I think what makes Koira special is how it well it showcases the symbiotic relationship that dogs and humans have. There are some snobs out there that consider the human-dog relationship to be parasitic by saying that the dog leeches off the human. Unfortunately, these people have a level of self-seriousness that will likely never allow them to truly bond with another creature the way that dog owners are able to.

Obviously, the dog relies on our human hero for help throughout the game. Our hero is the one that saves the dog in the beginning. In order to “power up” the dog, our hero has to find berries to feed them. Our hero protects the dog in spots from the hunters and other wildlife as the game goes along as well.

Yet, our hero could never finish this journey without the dog that they found. The dog has an odd sort of Rudolph nose that lights up, which allows them to dissipate the dark clouds that often block your path. This feels like a representation of how dogs can light the way for humans in dark times. The game also shows this more directly, as there are several spots in the game where our hero is clearly emotionally damaged by all that they are dealing with on this treacherous journey. In these moments, it is the dog that quite literally heals the hero.

It’s not all serious, though. Much like anyone with a good relationship with their dog, there is fun to be had as well. Obviously, you can pet the dog whenever you want. There are moments where you frolic through the forest with the dog. There are moments where you can just sit with the dog and enjoy scenery. There are also occasional moments where you can play with the dog. Playing hide and seek with the dog in the bushes might feel like a pointless minigame, but it’s one of many little moments that builds a connection with the dog.

I encounter many dogs in video games, and I love dogs, so I tend to enjoy seeing them in the games. I obviously don’t want them to get hurt in any way. But I think a lot of times, I mostly don’t want to see them get hurt because my mind will quickly go to my own dog. I’ll envision my own dog getting hurt, and that will bother me much more than this digital avatar being injured.

With Koira, I felt a genuine connection to the hero, this dog, and their relationship. Because of this, I really cared what happened to them. It wasn’t just something that made me think of my own life. This is a genuinely impressive accomplishment in a game with no dialogue.

That connection gives the simple but effective story infinitely more power. Because I cared about these characters, every little thing that happened to them mattered more to me. Every time they were in danger, the game had an extra layer of intensity. The joyful moments also felt better. It’s very powerful. While the story is relatively simple, it does deliver some big moments throughout that were excellent payoffs to the various arcs it has. Koira shows that you don’t need words to tell a great story.

Perhaps The Best Human-Dog Story In Video Games

This story is also aided by very solid visuals and music. Koira is hand-drawn, and it’s quite lovely. The color palette is a bit drab, and there aren’t tons of moments that mix it up, but I still think it’s a very pretty game. The animations are fun, and despite the simple character models, they can feel pretty expressive. This is important, as it gives the game a lot of that aforementioned narrative power.

Music is also ingrained within the entire experience, as the forest that they are in responds to music in various ways. So it’s likely no surprise that the soundtrack hits all the right notes. There is a nice mix of chill, sad, and soaring sounds here that fits every mood that the game has, and it also enhances the experience.

It all comes together to create an experience that is much greater than the sum of its parts. I’m not sure if any one element of Koira is truly elite, but it all flows together so nicely, and it handles its themes so well, that I think it ends up being a lot better than I would have expected it to be given the circumstances. This is one of the only human-dog games that didn’t just have me thinking about my own dog, but the dog on my screen. That is a special accomplishment, as I love my freaking dogs! If you are a dog lover, Koira is an easy one to recommend. If you aren’t, I think Koira is good enough to still win you over.

Score: 8.0/10