Oxenfree

An absolute masterpiece of storytelling and dialogue, with just enough interactivity and mysterious horror to keep your glued to your screen! We need so many more games like this one!

Decent story telling, but boring and dull script and characters.

In this game, you walk around a lot and annoying teenagers (i didn't manage to kill any of them in my playthrough; your experience may vary) talk to you constantly. Sometimes you get to a ledge. You have to then press spacebar to climb up or down. There are also intersections in the road. Furthermore, you possess a radio, and you have to tune in to specific frequencies when the game tells you to. In the dialogues, more often than not, you can respond with one of three options - if you catch them in time that is. That way, the game enables you to shape the story and the character relationships the way you want. If you still find yourself caring about any of it after hours of this, you may actually roughly understand what the underlying ghost story is about. Oh, and it's kind of like Stranger Things, so everyone, go get it!!!

After playing Life is Strange, I was quite ready for another supernatural teenage adventure drama. Oxenfree fits the bill on the surface but really doesn't hold up. The story has maybe one hour of content in it, but stretched to some 6 or so hours of just walking (and some very slight, yet still annoying platforming) through some really unremarkable environments, so even though the game is really short, it still drags on. And honestly the whole mystery is pretty weak anyway. The characters are kinda charming in the millenial hipster-ish teenagers kind of way, but every, and I mean every piece of dialog was written to overflow with snark so it can get pretty annoying (although admittedly quite funny at the same time). At the end it's quite meh. It does have some charm though and I do appreciate a game that tries to do something different rather than the usual Jack Dynamite hero stuff but it's just not gripping. It's worth trying out with a price around 3 € or so. Maybe you'll end up loving it but I wouldn't bet on it. I'd give it 2.5 stars if I could but since I can't, 2 stars it is. For better alternatives, I recommend Life is Strange (for teenage adventure drama) or Swapper (for a unique creepy platformer).

Nice story (not much original, either way). Several endings, so its replayable. Beautiful artistic design. Music is fine, not masterful. Unbearable loading times. Wandering around is annoying, going through the same places frequently (going and returning). In the end it becomes tiring. You feel you are losing your time. Dialogue options passes so rapidly (if you move around, they fade). Artificially dense. Companion voices don't attenuate if you get some feet away. Everything is given to you with litle circles that warns you when to take out the radio. No logic thinking. 2D scenery is tricky, detecting badly your commands (e.g. up arrow, but goes down; left arrow, but turns the other side). Unnecessary platforming. What put me off are those collectables: Adler letters (13) that are misteriously placed on the ground around the isle, and don't fly away, and (most important) you can't gather until the final stretch (upgraded radio), returning to the places you previously were. Thery are essential to get the right end because, at some point. you are inquired about some details. It's an discouraging method to lenghten game's duration. Duration: 4 hours.