Xbox Reviews

Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas Review

Review: Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas | There’s  no denying that Oceanhorn has some similarities with Nintendo’s famous Zelda franchise. That’s not a bad thing because the developer Cornfox & Bros added new ideas and personality. Check out this review and prepare to buy this game!

THE GOOD!

  • Oceanhorn is a good-looking game, the colorful world helps to give each and every  island a big personality and many variation. Green beautiful trees, desert-like environments, dark caves, far-reaching open seas with great water effects, nice believable villages, I could go on and on. The developer spend many time adding small details to make every location stand out.
  • The game features an experience system that works with tiers. Each tier will give you a reward, it’s a simple and easy mechanic but it works. Giving the player a satisfying feeling. Getting experience with your character is fairly easy too, killing enemies or completing side-challenges. For example, killing an enemy by pushing a crate or killing three enemies with one sword blow. Each island has three of these challenges and every one unlocks an achievement too, a nice touch giving you more motivation to complete it.
  • Oceanhorn’s light story isn’t going to beat a  big emotional Final Fantasy story but it is good enough to have a meaningful reason for your traveling efforts. To be honest, it wasn’t for the story that I kept playing, the addictive and fun gameplay is the guilty one for that.
  • I’m always a sucker for fishing mini games. I was glad to see that after a while you receive a fishing rod. For a small mini game this feature is pretty big too. The number of fishes might seem a bit low, seven in total but finding them all isn’t an easy task. Would it have been sweet to have a friends leaderboard for the biggest fishes? Yeah, but I understand that this was not a priority for the dev.
  • I currently played the game for 16 hours and 36 minutes, with still quite a few things to do.  Keep in mind that I spend a few hours on the fishing mini game, most gamers will finish it in ten hours. The thing that’s pretty rare is that I played it non-stop. I normally play 2 or 3 different games each day but Oceanhorn was running all day long. It had that magical sweet spot that kept me interested throughout the game’s story.
  • Another thing I really liked was the perfect camera. I’m sure that I’m not the only one that hated a few games because the camera got stuck behind objects, etc.. Oceanhorn’s camera angle doesn’t have a single issue. Quite a rare thing to see for this genre!

Mixed Feelings

  • Villagers will give you information about new islands, or you find it with a  message in a bottle. You travel between islands with your small boat and you are forced to see the character sail, and that can take a while. It’s also a shame that you can’t control the boat, you can only shoot at enemies and objects for items. It would have been fun to sail at an open spot in the sea, take out the fishing rot and catch some pretty fish species. Oh.. and fast travel is not available either.

THE BAD!

  • The only minor disappointing thing about Oceanhorn is the lack of a challenge. The final boss has a difficulty curve but everything else is easy, too easy for my taste. Even casual gamers will have no trouble with defeating enemies.

Score 93% | I truly enjoyed Oceanhorn in a way I haven’t enjoyed a game in a long time. Besides the lack of a real challenge the game is pretty much perfect for me. The best news? Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm is already in development.

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