Review – Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas

Game– Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas
Platform – Xbox One
Release Date – September 7th 2016
Developer – FDG Entertainment, CornFox and Bros
 
 
Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas is about a young boy, who we know only as “kid”, who goes off in search of his father. One night, kid’s father left in the middle of the night in order to find and defeat the monster Oceanhorn, who was responsible for the death of his wife. Kid is left all alone, raised by the townsfolk, and goes off to search for his father when he’s old enough. Kid needs to find the three emblems of Earth, Water and Sun in order to finally bring down Oceanhorn and hopefully reunite with his father. Here is where your adventure begins. It’s also a whole bunch of fun!
After releasing on Ios back in November of 2013 and then later on Steam, Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas has made its way to console. Oceanhorn brings with it a retro style while also integrating some of its own original ideas and story. As soon as you first see Oceanhorn, you’ll notice just how similar it is to Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker. In fact, it’s nearly identical to Wind Waker in a lot of its aspect. There is a tightrope one walks when it comes to copycatting a game vs. paying tribute to a game, and Oceanhorn stays right on said line full speed ahead. In fact, it stays so close to the line that I was unable to tell whether it wanted to be a Zelda game or actually was a Zelda game as it looked so beautiful.

Gameplay wise, Oceanhorn stays tried and true to the exploration system we know well. After locating your father’s sword and shield as your first weapon (sound familiar?), you’ll need to go to bomb island. Here you’ll get bombs from a dungeon in order to clear a path on the next island and enter a dungeon there. And so on. There is nothing wrong with the setup at all, as it’s something we are all used to and can navigate. I noted that Oceanhorn walks a line between paying tribute and copying a game. This is true. But on the same token, there is also a line between reviewing a game’s contents and sounding spoiled for mentioning what it doesn’t have compared to other games. This is where Oceanhorn gets tricky. It’s very easy to get lost in the unique features of Oceanhorn due to its similarity with Zelda, but it still does offer a number of its own, original ideas that are executed extremely well and help it stand out.
One of the first things you’ll notice is a nifty little challenge system for each island. Every island presents three challenges that encourage you to explore a little more than normal and possibly uncover some secrets or upgrades. A few of the challenges often come with an achievement as well. These stay the same for each respective island throughout the game, and you can see them at any time simply by bringing up the pause menu while you are on an island. It’s a good mechanic that’s integrated well into the game’s leveling system. Every time you destroy an enemy or complete certain quests you receive blue diamonds which grant you XP. Reaching certain amounts increases your level and also provides various rewards or upgrades such as increased bomb capacity or a faster boat speed. The challenge system encourages you to explore as you may need the upgrades earned from doing so later on in the game, and might not have enough bombs for example if you didn’t earn the upgrade.
Oceanhorn does possess a dedicated passion for the retro style game and includes its own, improved visual appeal to it. The colors pop, there is a lot of aesthetic detail and the 3D rendered environments truly add a current gen feel to retro designed gameplay. The sky has a Sonic the Hedgehog type crisp blue hue to it and none of the colors are shortchanged for something else. Its gameplay is straight forward, mostly linear exploration with slight room for exploration. Most of the time, this entails branching off into a smaller section of an island or dungeon not too far off the beaten path. It’s easy to get back, but there are some tricky ledges. At some points it’s hard to tell whether you can walk off a hill or if it’s a ledge too high to fall off. If you happen to walk/fall off and there are no stairs around, you’ll find yourself backtracking through areas you just explored in order to get back on pace. Luckily, it’s not too much of a pain because the islands are small and easy to remember where you need to go. When you don’t know where to go is where some issues come in and the HUD is at its center.

The HUD in Oceanhorn is a standard size small circle in the bottom right corner of your screen. Enemies, treasure chests and friendly people are highlighted on the HUD, but one thing is not; the location you need to go. The small HUD is the only map as there is no way to pause and bring up a larger version of it. Navigation was a bit of a pain because of this as there was no waypoints to head toward. Not having a point to head toward was a bit of a bother but wasn’t too bad. I would have liked to bring up a larger version of the map in order to see the entire island at once even if I couldn’t set waypoints. This way, I could have at least had an idea as to what direction to go to in order to head directly for the quest.
You will be able to see islands while traveling in your boat, but won’t be able to dock at one until you have unlocked it through the story. If you find yourself stuck, it’s just a matter of finding the right person to speak with in order to get the next location. Your boat can not be controlled, however, which I did find a bit odd. The boat sails on its own after you select a location with your only control being a handheld gun. Rapid fire can bring down some water monsters fairly quickly, but that’s about it.  You can travel to any unlocked island in any order to fight enemies and such, but certain content may be blocked until you reach certain points in the story. Puzzles are simple and straight forward, and often times are simply lining up blocks on pressure plates in order to open up a door, etc. Further on in the game you can fish from any island, and a helpful log keeps track of all your caught fish in the pause menu. It’s a neat little feature and had a rather nifty piece of physics with it. While Kid is reeling in the fish, you can see he leans back and pulls the reel. It’s not just your normal display where the line comes in and your character doesn’t really move much. It’s a rather small feature, but impressive none the less as it’s a technically advanced one.
The simple exploration is something I really enjoyed and it was augmented by the excellent color scheme. With the worlds and islands being relatively small compared to most other games, it allowed Oceanhorn to present its own piece of the retro pie. With nearly every piece of gameplay resembling Wind Waker, an item icon system like Ocarina of Time and these two games being so iconic, the ability of Oceanhorn to stand out with its own appeal was rather impressive.

The menu is the only real issue I had with Oceanhorn as the font is rather small and difficult to read. Not every item is selectable and switching from one to the other is a bit clunky. Items under the “Quest items” section can’t be highlighted and there is no way to tell what they are. In fact, the only reason I knew what blood crystals were is because it was the only quest I had at the time that entailed an item, and I just put two and two together. No save option exists from the menu either. In order to save, you’ll need to reach a certain point on an island, or simply enter/exit a building to which saving is done automatically.
Overall, Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas is a game of mixed emotions. On one hand, the tweeks it offers to add its own twist are done extremely well with a blend of retro and current 3D aesthetics. On the other hand, it seems to have borrowed a bit too much from the Zelda franchise. The looming shadow of Zelda was a reminder that Oceanhorn could have been much more because of how good its unique features were. By no means does this make Oceanhorn a bad game, far from it. I would have liked to have seen more individuality from Oceanhorn because of just how good what included in the game actually was.
I definitely recommend picking up Oceanhorn: Monster of the Uncharted Seas as it’s a great blend of both retro and current gameplay that everyone should enjoy. It has crisp colors, an outstanding soundtrack and is a fun game to play that represents a throwback to when games were games. You know, when you could play a game and not feel empty waiting for the DLC. The manner in which the game ends leaves open the possibility for more adventures, and I hope we all get to see them.  All in all, Oceanhorn is what a game should be; a great, fun time that you’ll remember playing for good reasons, and I recommend picking it up to experience.[rwp-review id=”0″]