Oxenfree

Oxenfree was quite a surprise for me as I played it to relax but got involved. It was so captivating that I finished it in one day ! I really recommend it to anyone willing to live an adventure.

I've completed it twice in a row (like finishing it the first time and presseing the new game+ immediately after). This game was not hard in any way, it didn't have a ton of mechanics, but it just kept me glued to see it from alternative perspectives, because the world and character building is awesome. Everything felt so intriguing to poke around. The only complaint I got, is that this game is not meant for a laptop, performance-wise. I'd put a 4/5 because of the lackluster optimisation, as I've played much more complex games with this 1000 passmark points laptop vga (I had to play on 1366x768, to have 60fps, dropping down to 20-30 at several map sections). But let's assume I was on my pc, so it's a 5/5.

I went into 'Oxenfree' with an open mind. I have heard and read both good and not-so-good things about this supernatural adventure game; with this free copy of the game in hand, I decided it see for myself. There were things that I liked about 'Oxenfree', but the game was only somewhere from mediocre to good in the end. Let's start with what I liked. The graphics were beautifully drawn and presented, even when I turned lighting and antialiasing visual effects off. The voice acting was also well done, and I found the dialogues, written almost like a stage play, to be captivating. Most characters were well fleshed out through their dialogues, giving them distinct personalities. Dialogues were snappy and felt natural, too, especially when your dialogue selection would interrupt other characters. There were a few surprises here and there, but nothing truly shocking or scary. I also liked the setting of Edwards Island the first one or two times I explored it. My biggest complaint about 'Oxenfree' was how unoptimized it was. Despite my computer meeting the minimum system requirements, the game became annoyingly slow in parts, including the introduction/tutorial. This still happened when I turned off the visual effects and dialed down the screen resolution. For a game that relied on the snappy banters between characters and the quickness of your responses, this slowing down really broke the pacing for me. Strangely, this sluggishness did not happen when I started New Game Plus (NG+) mode. NG+ becomes available upon finishing the game. I will not say much more about NG+ in fear of sharing spoilers, but I found it rather unnecessary and monotonous. If I had not start NG+ immediately right after I finished the core game (which took 5 to 7 hours to complete), I might have a different opinion about it. I suggest giving yourself a break after finishing the core game before starting NG+. NG+ is still set on Edwards Island. This meant exploring the same locations again, which was my fourth time doing so since I pretty much ran around the island three times the first time around to collect all hidden collectibles. Edwards Island was not a big island, so it got boring by the third time I traversed it. Unfortunately, there are no fast travels in 'Oxenfree' as plot and character developments were tightly tied to where you happened to be on the island. While I can understand why the developers did not include this feature, it would have been nice to be able to fast travel after having explored the island twice or thrice. In the end, 'Oxenfree' is a good "game" at best, but not great. The "game" part comes from the light platforming, as well as your choosing dialogues that will affect your relationships with other characters and the story outcome. Play it if you have run out of games to play (as I did), but I think there are better games to try in the meantime.

This game was on my Gog wishlist for ages and full disclosure I finally got it for free on Epic. But I will get it on Gog for my perma library as I did enjoy it thoroughly. It starts off a bit slow, the tiny characters are hard to see and I didnt get into it at first. Given time the game really starts to take off and you become invested in the characters, or for me at least the main character. I found the others annoying as heck. You explore the scenery, looking for actionable areas and using a radio to find hidden stuff. There is conversation every step of the way, in fact, the story IS the game. You make choices in dialogues and that changes the game and endings. Its very relaxing and enjoyable. Fiddling with the radio, listening to the snippets of songs and radio plays, morse code and various other soundbits was great fun. The game gets pretty dark and creepy at times. I found the graphics nice, the painted back drops were very good. As i said before the soundscape is very engaging as well. The story is intriguing and fun to tweak. There is replay value as you want to see what happens if you change responses. The games saves automatically as you go. Lots of documentaries open at the end to see the making of which was fun. Some cons, the tiny characters are very hard to see. The reponse time for your dialogue choices is very very fast, if you blink you miss out on choice. The worst bit was the radio tuning, it takes forever to scan all the channels manually, and it resets as you leave a level so you have to reset it to the channel you want usually at the other end of the spectrum. There is no fast travel, for that reason alone i didnt finish gathering all the letters. just couldnt bother with walking all that way again. its still a very fresh, novel and fun game with a clencher at the end. well done

Oxenfree has very good voice acting, an excellent soundtrack, and absolutely nails its eerie summer aesthetic. The story is solid, and kind of feels like an epsiode of Riverdale. Multiple playthroughs strongly recommended for... reasons. From a gameplay perspective, comparisons to Night in the Woods are well-deserved. It's a "walk around and interact with things" experience; almost more of a visual novel than a true point-and-click adventure game. I like this sort of thing, but a lot of people don't (which is fair). My knock against it is the backtravel. There are enough easter eggs hidden around to make the map interesting, but some kind of limited fast travel would have been nice. Oxenfree is a mainstay on my summer/fall games list alongside Firewatch, The Outer Wilds, and Night in the Woods.