Classic Resident Evil gameplay with Silent Hill puzzles. If you like those games, this is worth your time. The game ran well for me, played it on maxed settings and had no frame drops or tearing or anything of the sort. Had two minor glitches, one bouncing on terrain and the other having some kind of inventory effect applied outside of the inventory. Neither required a reload to fix. The puzzles go deeper than some of the Silent Hill puzzles. All puzzles were satisfying. I got totally stumped by a couple puzzles. One, a logic riddle. And two, an interactable in the environment that I had forgotten about and struggled to find when it was the solution at hand. It never got repetitive gameplay wise and difficulty felt right to me. They gated progression in clever ways that did not feel forced. The dialogue is a little bit stilted, but that works for me. It's mostly a delivery thing in the voice acting. It didn't keep me out of the story, which I felt was mostly well written. Has some of that RE medical horror but doesn't do that annoying thing RE does where it pivots into paramilitary spy intrigue. Had the SH psychological horror themes. Thoroughly enjoyed the story which is delivered mostly through diary entries found in the world. They do get very male gaze with the camera work in the first two minutes. I found it off-putting insofar as they are setting up a vulnerable main character while horned up. I get gratuitous nudity is a horror trope but it hurts the focus of the intro. And I am happy to report that IS NOT INDICATIVE of the tone of the rest of the game- they never get bogged down into that stuff again. Also, they provide an alternate costume if the big anime bows seem like too much to you as they did to me. Jeans, riding boots and a cropped leather jacket. Overall very happy I played this! It earned all 5 of the stars I gave it. I will be watching this company as I am excited to see what they do next.
A wonderfully put together multimedia expression of rust belt melancholy. Thoughtful, as much as thought-provoking. Its pace is slow very much by design. Some might take that as a negative, I would urge anybody to slow down for a bit and just enjoy this ride. The worst bit of my experience with this game is that I couldn't find the banjo tabs for some of the songs. But I think my favorite quote from the game applies in that case- "...I know just about every story on this river, most of them I've picked up second-, third-, or fourth-hand and so on. Listening, see? Now I know what you're going to ask, so I'm gonna answer it: yes, I'm sure they're all 'true.' I personally believe story gets more true as it's tossed around from brain to brain and the whole community brings their insight to bear on the brittle facts of experience." I expect to be playing the true notes of these songs for a long time after I last close this game.
I totally recommend Ocean's Heart. Story was simple and engaging. Gameplay was what you may expect from a 2d Zelda title, but with some more depth in terms of RPG mechanics. There are cool items and abilities that actually feel useful in combat. Not all of these items are equal, some of them particularly stand out. Powerful optional items are a thing that sometimes feel lacking in Zelda-likes, so having some really strong optional items made exploration feel very rewarding. There's an in-game way to make enemies more damaging- which I did because I am a glutton for punishment. Though I did not find it too punishing. If you think you would enjoy a greater challenge, it was right on the money for me. I liked that you did not get waypoints and instead had to pay attention to NPCs describing where things are in the world. It might be worth it to keep some notes on where things are if you are playing this in shorter sessions over a longer period of time. Definitely made to be played on a controller. The screen shake is real excessive so I turned that off. Keys are rebindable. Though in doing so I briefly caused a glitch where the game would crash, I had accidentally bound two things to left on the joystick and the game did not like that. That was the only major glitch I encountered. Though there were minor glitches about the game queuing up either the wrong animation or the wrong attack when you spam buttons quickly. I can't tell if it was an advantage but it certainly wasn't a hindrance. Art was good if a bit plain sometimes. Music was good but not the kinda bops you get out of Zelda, which I know is unfair. That's a major strength of Zelda. Writing was good, I played in English. It ran well for me, I had no issues. If you are looking at Ocean's Heart and think you will enjoy it, I am inclined to say that you are right. I would even say that this could be a good game for a more patient child.
