Your intrepid heroes play with pixels, bounce off balls, and give a hoot. Owlboy faces the CHAIRQUISITION!
Game: Owlboy
Webzone: http://www.owlboygame.com/
Devel: D-Pad Studio
Engine: FNA
Price: €22.99 / US$ 24.99 / CDN$ 27.99
Wazzat: Owlboy is a ‘hi-bit’ adventure game, where you can fly and explore a brand new world in the clouds! Pick up your friends, and bring them with you as you explore the open skies. Overcome obstacles and greater enemies, in one of the most detailed adventures of this era.
Mandatory Disclosure: They sent us keys
CHAIRQUISITION:
Makes with the working
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Shiny / Sounds
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- It’s really nice to have a hipster-pixel game that doesn’t make my epilepsy bleed.
- Looks like something from the never released Super Duper nintendo.
- Bright, colourful, and amazingly detailed.
- The sounds and background music are legit for what they were going for.
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- If you go look at the blogs of the artists who worked on this game, you can easily tell how much effort these guys put into the visual aesthetic
- Another example of pixel art done right. I like the faux-comic bookey style they use when they do that big siege cinematic
- Little environmental transitions
- I also love the little animations that all the characters do in dialogue.
P-
- It looks good… Really good.
- “OMG! Pedro likes how a pixel game looks. Fire and brimstone must be raining from the skies.”
- No, I simply hate lazy pixelated graphics made by people who don’t give a fuck and just want to skirt by on the “retro” look.
- The visuals in Owlboy, even though they’re evocative of the 16bit era, are really finely detailed and look very good.
- The background music didn’t really do it for me, though. It ended up getting muted because it actively got in the way of the atmosphere in some scenes.
- I guess they also tried to keep the sound effects simple but effective enough to compliment what’s happening on screen.
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Control
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- This is where most hipster-pixel fall flat.
- If you are doing retro platforming those controls best be wicked tight.
- These controls are wicked tight.
- Everything is spot on.
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- Bcuz fna
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FUN
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- The only real complaint I have is Owlboy is borderline to easy.
- It’s no Axiom Verge
- Yes, yes I know the game took 10 years to make.
- But at the end of the day that means FK and ALL #DN4E
- Wish it had came out five year ago.
J-
- This is just a really well put together game
- All the levels are big, there are lots of little secrets, and it really does encourage you to explore
- The carrying a guy around took a bit of getting used to, but it adds a lot of different option and approaches
- The story is exceptionally well written, and with the exception of your douchebag mentor, all of the characters are likeable and unique
- It’s also fun to see this story smack existing tropes in their face
- The gameplay is very solid, and the game doesn’t treat you like you’re dumb either.
- The puzzles only require a modicum of thought though. However, if your brain is drug addled like mine, they might give you pause for a few seconds
- Lots of little homages to all sort of past platformers in terms of enemy and boss fights
- All in all, this is a fantastic love letter to old SNES adventure/platforming games
- It’s a bit pricey at 30 bucks, but the devs didn’t slack off on any aspect of this game. I’d say it’s a $30 in terms of quality.
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- Do you remember how I’ve complained about how 2D hipster pixel platformers usually do nothing but fuel the delusions of the Nostalgia crowd and don’t innovate or push the limits of the genre?
- Well, Owlboy illustrates that point perfectly by proving that yes, you can innovate and you can push the envelope as to what constitutes a retro-inspired 2D platformer.
- It’s a Metroidvania which leans heavily on the Metroid-side, often the side I’m least fond of in that subgenre, and I still very much enjoyed it.
- Why? What is it that makes Owlboy so good when compared to even that completely fucking pointless AM2R?
- Well, it’s not a remake for starters. It’s an entirely new story which is only made all the greater, in my not so humble opinion, by having a relatable main character and using the story as the perfect narrative compliment for the mechanics.
- That is the mark of a great game. That’s what puts Owlboy leagues above the rest of video gaming mire we call Hipster Pixel Platformers.
- It stands wing to shoulder with Half-Life 2 and Silent Hill 2 in the Mechanics-driven-Narrative department.
- Otus, your main character in Owlboy, like Gordon Freeman in Half-Life, manages to convey more emotion and be more relatable without EVER saying a single goddamn thing, than Max Caulfield can ever hope to be.
- That glorified pair of protagonist pants you wear in Life is Strange has the emotional depth of a travel ironing board compared to Otus.
- And Otus’ big story isn’t completely invalidated by the end of game, either.
- I guess 10 years of development do make a difference.
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