As we know, often in the videogame industry there is an attempt to take inspiration from the most successful works in the sector. We have seen it with the souls-like genre, or with The Lord of the Rings: Shadow of Mordor which takes the best of some games and merges them into one. Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas it is undeniably one of the games that was most inspired by The Legend of Zelda, more precisely, that of the first launch of the series for the GameCube console. The title obviously has strong references to Shigeru Miyamoto's videogame, such as the graphic style and gameplay that focuses on moving between three main islands aboard a small ship. How has Cornfox & Bros, a small Finnish development house made up of only three people, fared?
It all starts here
The game starts with a premise and a really interesting opening movie. The protagonist's father abandons his son to go and fight the Oceanhorn, an ancient monster of yesteryear that haunts him. From what emerges during the story, the mother of our avatar has been killed by this diabolical creature, and the boy will have to go to an island to find a friend of his father to prepare for what awaits him. After this short movie you will be ready to go on this adventure. Arcadia, the land of the game, has been devastated by a violent war. To win, a powerful candidate for the position of archmage, harnessed a huge dark energy that was to remain in the depths of the kingdom. Using this power he awakened three sea monsters and one of them, theOceanhorm, survived to the present day. Your destiny will be linked to this monster, also because of the necklace your mother left you, an emblem that embodies the power of the gods. Your goal will be to search all the emblems to find the creature, defeat her and find out what happened to your father.
As long as the boat goes
As soon as the game is started there will be a small tutorial that will reveal the simple mechanics of the video game. This will consist in finding your mother's necklace, armed only with a simple branch and a lot of will. Once you find what you were looking for, you will also get your father's sword and shield. Now you are officially ready to go on this adventure. Weapons, however, will not be the only means available as you can take advantage of stones and vases to throw at enemies. In addition to the blades and environmental objects, the game, at a certain point, will put at our disposal some bombs to use to face our enemies. The gameplay, however, is not limited to this: as soon as you leave the first island you will get hold of a boat and, as you progress in the experience, you can start fighting on it to eliminate the surrounding monsters. Unfortunately these phases are not exciting as the ship moves by itself and on predefined tracks, making the game action a bit monotonous, mechanical and repetitive.
The combat phases on the ground, however, are a whole other story. The clashes take place in real time and, in most cases, sewn around them will be interesting enigmas and environmental puzzles, simple but long to solve. For these it will take a strong sense of direction and often, but not willingly, we will be called to wander far and wide in search of a particular key or switch. Returning to the clashes, it will take a good deal of timing and strategy to be able to coordinate sword attacks, shield parries and, in extreme cases, the use of bombs at the right time. In these phases the title turns into a real action game that manages to entertain but, at the same time, the fights are too easy to represent real threats.
The quiet after the storm
Graphically, the title defends itself very well, with a style that makes it cute, colorful and suitable for all palates in general. Unfortunately we note that the game was originally released for mobile and, therefore, some animations on PlayStation 4 they suffer a little. The environments, especially the villages, are alive and give a feeling of peace and tranquility, the dungeons are varied even if with the same functions and are recognizable at first sight. The soundtrack is really well made. Alone it will be enough to make you travel with your mind and be able to make you identify with the experience. The music was made by two legends like Nobue Uematsu and Kenji Ito, inserted in a context that goes between the classic and the modern.
Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas is a perfect tribute to the long-running Zelda series. The simple and intuitive gameplay, combined with a truly top quality soundtrack, significantly raise the level of production. Unfortunately, an excessive ease and too little imagination in the game mechanics mean that everything is only good but not exceptional. To be an indie title, the longevity is remarkable and can be played smoothly and without too many hitches. You could work more on naval battles which are probably the most disappointing aspect of the whole experience. In a nutshell, it was enough to add some little effort to improve everything but, despite this, the multimedia work is really fun and of fine workmanship.
