159) Rise of the Tomb Raider - Lara's Nightmare (PS4) (DLC)
160) Titanfall 2 (PS4)
161) Soul Blade (PSX)
162) Axiom Verge (PC)
163) Owlboy (PC)
So, let's talk about Owlboy for a bit. I'm sure everyone has seen the stories about how this game took nine years to make by a very small team. It's quite amazing it even made it out, much less that it is receiving all the praise it's getting. Kudos to the team for sticking to their guns.
You play an owl boy named Otus. He can't speak at all. He also has a mentor named Asio, who is generally a jerk to Otus. The game ends up centering on many oddball characters, and their unlikely friendships. Two of your companions are actually partially responsible for the bad things that happen to the main owl city, and Otus' hometown. I don't want to spoil the story, but despite a simple tale everything is written very well, and ends up being enjoyable, if quite a bit melancholy.
But really, the story isn't even likely the first thing you're going to notice. No, it's those lush visuals. I've seen some "good-looking" games back in the day, but something still felt off artistically with them. That's not an issue here. This is peak 32-bit Capcom era stuff. They've dubbed it "hi-bit", and that's probably a good enough description, because it fits within the rubric of the best 2D Saturn/PSX/N64 visuals. On top of that, the game looks splendid in motion. Everyone has neat unique animations, it's all smooth while being very responsive, the whole game is just a joy to behold. Really, the level of polish across the board is consistent with a Nintendo release, which is high praise indeed.
That also extends to the soundtrack. It doesn't use the usual retro-styled chiptune music, it uses orchestral tracks that are excellent, although I have to admit that I don't really have any of them stuck in my head. But it is quality stuff in a filmic way.
With all I've said above, you'd think this was one of the greatest games of all time! Not to be the bearer of bad news, but it's not. It's competent, decent, sometimes good, but never really feels like it fulfills its promise mechanically.
Otus has full-flight capabilities, except for in a few story-based areas (and water). It doesn't even matter who he's carrying. The sense of freedom is awfully nice, but the world tends to lack for lots of interesting things to do. You can find scattered treasure chests along the way, either through exploration or killing groups of enemies to make it appear. These chests, however, do not contain interesting upgrades, though, but "Buccanary Coins", which can be traded in at Buccanary's shop. You will get a few upgrades out of these, but none of them are strictly necessary. Gated progression is limited to acquiring your three companions. The other collectibles are three Owl Medals that can be used to unlock a hidden area after you've finished the game, which fleshes out more of the story.
Geddy is the first, and your default attacker. He fires a fairly weak pistol while carrying him about. You aim his, and your other companions', attacks via dual-stick controls, although there is also some auto-aiming involved here. He can destroy a few barriers, but nothing too impressive. It should be noted that you don't have to constantly pick up and drop characters. The plot gives you a relic that lets you teleport someone straight into your mitts, making what could have been very tedious rather simple.
Alphonse, your second character, has a massively-powerful shotgun, but it takes serious time to reload. It will blast/burn down plants and such from your path. The last companion is spider-like, and shoots webs to bind enemies as well as lets you grapple to far away places, which will get you through some waterfalls you can't pass otherwise. That's pretty much the extent of your abilities. Combat never gets very frenetic, with a very limited number of enemy types, and the game tends to be forgiving enough that you'll slide through a battle on your second or third try pretty easily. It just feels like there was so much more interesting they could have done to make combat more engaging from moment to moment.
(No, they are not making a Navi joke there.)
There are also stealth segments. Oh no. Well, actually, I thought these were pretty solid. They're not mind-blowing, but they end up working pretty well, and also reinforce the sorts of odds that this ragtag crew are up against. Plus, there are a few cinematic segments as well, and the last area sees fit to rob you of your infinite flight. This is where the game finally starts to take advantage of some rudimentary platforming puzzles, but it's sadly far too little of it.
I can't help but compare the game and its free-flight to two other games, Demon's Crest and Child of Light. Demon's Crest doesn't give you the sort of freedom that this game does in terms of flight, but has much more interesting exploration and combat. Child of Light gives you freedom, and it also rewards the player much more significantly for exploring, always doling out new items and weapons to utilize. In this game, things are a little too straightforward and sparse. There are a few switch puzzles here and there, but they're the usual sort of video game logic we've seen many times before.
If I'm going to trot out a comparison to a game, there's actually another one that works, maybe not from a mechanical level, but from a ambition level, and that's Solatorobo: Red the Hunter. This was a sort of spiritual successor to Tail Concerto on PlayStation, one in which you got to ride around in a mech amidst a startlingly well-realized world, with lots of polish and charm all the way around. Yet the gameplay proper boiled down to a simple pick-up-and-throw-things. The core just wasn't enough to sustain the experience, no matter how compelling the world-building was. It's a game I wanted to like, but I ended up just thinking it was a'ight. I have the same feelings about Owlboy. It's a spectacular game for content voyeurism. If you want to see amazing and consistent art design in pixel form, this is your game. If you want a polished story, a compelling world, it's here. But the gameplay rarely rises above "okay". And that's a darn shame. 7.5/10.
TLDR version: Buy it when it goes on sale.
I really have been playing other things, just not beating them.
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