Owlboy

It takes 10 minutes to understand that a lot of thought and passion went into this game. Every couple of minutes you are surprised by a new twist in the narrative, by an additional gameplay mechanic, by some surprising element. That keeps you going on and on. The music for me plays a big role in this game. It pulls you to this world and fits just perfectly. Sometimes, the pixel animation reminded me a lot of the Lucas Arts Adventures. The controls are well thought through and executed very well. The most refreshing thing for me is the flying mechanic which makes the game just 100% more vertical and interesting than any other platformer out there. Up, up, up you go. Great story. Great graphics. Great sound. Great controls. A great adventure action game.

This game has a lot of flaws I will start with those then go on to what I liked. TL:DR The game has many moments were it will fight against you. Nice art and music. Don't pay full price for it wait for a price drop. Cons: -The controls were stiff. I felt like I was always fighting against them. -The camera was rigid. It killed me almost as many times as the controls did, I just don't understand why; we've already perfected the smooth carmera movement for 2D platformers. -The enemy placement was annoying. There was always that one enemy placed right were you can't see past the camera and you go to peak around the corner then, BOOM. Enemy right there. -The story was cliché. -The game was too easy to play. Pros: -The music lovely. I have the soundtrack and will definitely listen to it again and again. -The art was beautiful. -The animation was nicely done. In the end as long as you don't mind the flaws you can enjoy this game, but I wouldn't buy this at full price wait for the price to drop.

Generally sweet aesthetics, great music and some VERY DARK plot twists coming out of left field. So far so good. What grinds my gears though is the gamepad controls. It takes some kind of inverse genius to have a distinct button in your game - that is about free 360 degree movement - to actually take off. And the same button ends flying immediately. And when you get hit, it is never clear whether you need to press the button to recover or if that would accidently end your flight, because on every received hit the whole screen shakes like you put rocks in a food processor. Why not just go "When you are on the ground and you press up on the gamepad, you start flying"? It boggles my mind and has killed me many times over.

A boring, tiresome, awkwardly controlling, poorly designed slog of a game with little or no merits. It seems to borrow heavily from better games such as the castlevania, metroid and Zelda series, but then goes out of its way to separate itself from its inspiration by using contrary mechanics and game design just for the sake of avoiding comparison with its forebears without once gauging why such mechanics became standardised in the first place: because they actually work, and make a game fun. This game is not fun. Thus: getting hit sends you right across the room (knock back damage was eliminated in the NES era because it wasn't fun - and this is 10x worse), the shotgun reload takes about ten seconds when a second and a half would have been sufficient to suggest a slow reload, this is just unusable; There are no maps - either in the overworld or inside the massively sprawling dungeons: no maps (why? Why!); The currency you collect cannot be spent in any way on disposable items, equipment or optional arms, etc. it merely tallies up and unlocks certain upgrades at set tears - there is no choice or sense of achievement; the pick up button always picks up the wrong item. All of the meticulously drawn backgrounds have zero degree of interactivity - particularly inside the buildings, while the overworld is completely devoid of distractions or sidequests to occupy you when not inside of an overlong and repetitive dungeon. The story is awful: just awful, on so many levels. The characters are uniformly unlikable, charmless and wooden, and in some instances outright detestible (and not actually the villains!). **sigh** I could go on. It pains me to write such a shitty review, because it is clearly evident that much time, effort and passion went into this game, and no one wanted to like this game than me: it is bitterly disappointing to me that I cannot bring myself to even like the game much less love it as so many others have. I guess the music and graphics are OK.