OWLBOY is a game that from the opening few minutes grabs you in with its gorgeous art direction, beautiful soundtrack and well-written dialogue. Otus becomes a sympathetic protagonist, and the selection of characters you pick up on your travels through the skies are well written, characterised and thought out. Their shared struggles of ostracisation and their need to make up for their mistakes and redeem themselves link them together throughout the plot. The main gameplay draw of the game is the ability to fly, which makes most of the stages and levels vertical, and allow for interesting experimentation with flight mechanics and traditional platforming elements. The moments where you are able to fly freely are where the game excels most. It's a shame that the developers added so much content whereby you are restrained from flying, and must rely on traditional platformer mechanics. Whilst having a few of these sections would be fine, the final stages of the game limit you to these elements, and the magic of being the Owlboy was lost on me. Moreover, once you have assembled all your companions, there is very little dialogue between them, and a tense conflict between two of them is resolved quickly, and without a meaningful resolution. However, with all that said Owlboy remains a brilliant platformer, with one of the most memorable and soaring orchestral video game scores to date, and it nails the high-bit aesthetic. Whilst the main story is regrettably quite short, there is a tonne of secrets and collectibles to find throughout the world, however the lack of a NG+ feature means that you can only really reward yourself for these efforts. OWLBOY deserces to be up there upon the pantheon of Recent Retro Revival titles such as UNDERTALE and STARDEW VALLEY.
This game had a great deal of hype behind it coming out, and given the ambiguity of the developers promises regarding the game, we didn't really know what to expect from No Man's Sky when it came out. No Man's Sky is a procedurally generated space exploration game, which has borrowed a few survival elements. Whilst there are a variety of features, at its core this game is about exploration, and charting your course through the galaxy whilst you unearth and explore cryptic hints about the galaxy, the various species that inhabit it, and Atlas, your supposed creator. The emphasis on exploration is where the game excels, as it often produces beautiful environments for you to explore, which in itself is a technical marvel. Moreover, the way information is conveyed to you through the game to me feels organic, and has the same essence of writing that the sci-fi novels it drew on as inspiration had as well. There are however, some issues with this game, which I hope will be fixed. Firstly, whilst this is not the case for me, there have been numerous reports of instability and crashing for PC users. The game's textures often look muddy, and the pop-in for chunks is jarring. Moreover, combat feels very light and shallow, and none of the weapons you acquire really feel like they have any weight to them at all. Secondly, there are, for me a variety of issues with movement across the game. Controlling the ship is a nightmare at times, and often seems to directly disobey your input. Moreover, I wish that there were easier ways to move around on foot on planets, as the rate of movement is often quite short, and the limit of your exploration on foot suffers for it. Along with this the inventory and trading system does need refinement as do the ported menus for mouse controls. With all those complaints however, I am still wholeheartedly enjoying my time in NMS, and love its' subdued tone and pace, its' beautiful score and its' gorgeous aesthetic.
