Owlboy
Like a lot of people I first was drawn to Owlboy a few years ago, when it made a big splash during one of the trade shows, by the fantastic pixel-bit-style art. The game didn't come out till a while later in late 2016. I picked it up almost immediately and then didn't play it for 6 months. As usual.
Owlboy is a 2d platformer in which you play a less than heroic mute owl named Otus. A lot of the game flow is typical of the genre but with some neat mechanic twists. First off you can fly, which is the basic way to travel through the game world which is made up of floating islands and caves with a lot of vertical space. As you swoop around you can carry one of your companions. Which is good as Otus can't attack or do much on his own. Each companion that you gain over the course of the game allows for different attacks and abilities. You can swap them out at any time and in some of the more tricky puzzles and fights it's quite necessary to do so. Otus can also grab items that are buried in the ground and pull it out (usually treasure or health regaining food). For the most part the controls are snappy but in some parts I had issues with the way jumping and flying transition and sticking to one or the other (I played Owlboy with a controller).
This game is very good looking (as long as you like pixel art) and the amount of detail that went into the art is amazing. Both the world art and the characters are beautiful. The various zones, caves and locations each have distinct detail but easily communicate where you can and can't go and what is interactive.
The story is somewhat typical and a little twee but lightly sprinkled and like most games that are mechanics driven is there if you want it but can easily be ignored if that's not your thing. I quite liked the characters and how Otus is not really a hero but more or less is pushed into having to do heroic things (successful or not) and how his friends and companions support and take care of him when some of the more typically important figures in his like (like his father) are less than supportive. The plot of their world in peril and having to fight back against seemingly unstoppable pirates coupled with legends of ancient artifacts is nothing out of the ordinary but there are enough twists and surprises that I was happy with the story overall.
With only few side things to like owlcoins and dealing with a rather crazy merchant Owlboy moves along a good clip and other than a few "chase" sequences with instant death failures that go on for maybe a little to long (IMO) I don't really have anything bad to say about it. Owlboy is a really good game!
Except for the boss fights.
Okay that's not entirely fair. Except for SOME boss fights. There are a couple of bosses (each of these usually marks the end of a story chapter) that I found to be a brutal grind. They are often bullet hell dodging ordeals that require a level of skill and reflexes that nothing else in the game does. They aren't Mega-Man hard but compared to the rest of the game they feel very out of place to me. I assumed they bosses would be some combination of puzzle and combat much like the rest of the game - instead they can be nasty kill-you-before-you-figure-out-what's-going-on affairs. I know I know, just "get gud" - but I am getting old and getting "gud" at thing like this just isn't in the cards for me - I never really had those skills and it's far to late now. But its not that part that bothered me, it's far more that these boss encounters are SO different from the rest of the game they feel out of place.
But overall these few tough boss battles were only a small mark on an otherwise really good game. For $20 (or much less on sale) you can get an easy 10+ hours of enjoyable story and game mechanics with some really nice looking art. I am looking forwards to what next D-Pad Studio does next, hopefully it doesn't take 8 years like Owlboy did.
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