Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas

Oceanhorn Early Impressions (Switch Version)

Oceanhorn is very much inspired (some reviewers argue to a fault) by the Zelda series. There are a lot of similarities here: swords, bombs, action-adventure game, magic, etc. Personally, I don't mind how much Cornfox & Bros (the developers) have borrowed, or been inspired by, from the Zelda series, this is a fun game.

The story starts out with the hero's father going to fight the monster Oceanhorn. Soon after the beginning cinematic of the father's fight, you take over as the hero to search out three emblems and defeat Oceanhorn.

The world you traverse in, is very much inspired by Wind Waker. As the hero, you travel to various islands (levels) via the sea using a... Read All Oceanhorn is very much inspired (some reviewers argue to a fault) by the Zelda series. There are a lot of similarities here: swords, bombs, action-adventure game, magic, etc. Personally, I don't mind how much Cornfox & Bros (the developers) have borrowed, or been inspired by, from the Zelda series, this is a fun game.

The story starts out with the hero's father going to fight the monster Oceanhorn. Soon after the beginning cinematic of the father's fight, you take over as the hero to search out three emblems and defeat Oceanhorn.

The world you traverse in, is very much inspired by Wind Waker. As the hero, you travel to various islands (levels) via the sea using a boat. While you are traveling on the boat you can shoot down monsters, mines, crates and barrels and collect experience and money.

The game plays out using an isometric camera angle. The visuals are really good. Cornfox & Bros definitely put a lot of time into the art. The controls are very similar to the controls of a Zelda game, so people should have no time picking this up.

I have been enjoying this game so far. That being said, I have run into a few bugs and have a nitpick with the character's voices in the game.

The first bug I ran into was: one cinematic did not run to completion. It started up and then all of a sudden ended and cut to the next interactive part of the game. This is not a huge problem as you can replay the cinematic from the pause menu, but it did take me out of the game for a second.

The second bug I ran into was the game crashing. I have only run into this once, but the game crashed out to the switch menu. This was disappointing, but luckily the last save that happened was pretty close to the crash, so I could continue on with my adventure without too much backtracking.

My nitpick with the character's voices is that they seem disconnected from the characters of the game. They come across more as voice over than characters speaking. To me this doesn't kill the game, but it is something I wish the devs spent more time on.

Overall, despite the few issues I have had with the game, I am quite enjoying it. To me this game reminds me of a indie take on the Zelda series (which it is). The game itself is very laid back and fun to explore. I look forward to finishing the game.