Oceanhorn – Monster of Uncharted Seas

Genre: Action-RPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Oceanhorn is an Action-Adventure that clearly borrows a page or two from the Zelda series. There are Zelda series mainstays like breakable pots, bombs and bow/arrow as sub-weapons, and dungeons with a master key to be found so you can open the big chest and get that dungeon’s special item. And even the game’s setting, an ocean full of islands, that will remind many of Wind Waker.

However, if you’re going to take inspiration from another, you should draw from the best, and to its credit Oceanhorn does a good job of delivering on that Zelda-esque formula here, giving us interesting places to explore, secrets to find, and enemies to fight.

It should be noted that the presentation here is top-notch. While the visuals aren’t doing anything especially ambitious, they are presented here in 1080p resolution at a silky-smooth 60fps. On top of this, the soundtrack for the game has been worked on by legendary videogame composers Nobuo Uematsu (of Final Fantasy fame) and Kenji Ito (probably best known for the SaGa series), and although I would say it doesn’t approach Uematsu’s best works, it’s still pretty good.

As for the gameplay itself, it’s mostly good, though there are a few frustrations here and there. For one thing, at least early on into the game, the player has no capacity to jump or climb, which would be fine except the player is constantly surrounded by obstacles that could be easily surmounted in real life, which is a bit frustrating. Another issue is that often it’s unclear just where the player is supposed to go next. This is compounded by the fact that traveling back and forth between the islands is a bit of a time-consuming chore. Speaking of time-consuming, the player’s walking speed is frustratingly slow, and your ability to dash is limited.

In the end, Oceanhorn still makes for a good alternative to a traditional Zelda game, even if it has these frustrations. Nintendo isn’t likely to feel their dominance threatened any time soon, but Switch players looking for additional games in this genre will probably find Oceanhorn to their liking.

tl;dr – Oceanhorn is an Action-RPG that copies much of the traditional Zelda formula, and does it with a phenomenal presentation. It has a fair number of frustrating elements as well, but those looking for a good alternative to Zelda may find this much to their liking.

Grade: B+

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