Oceanhorn ™ in IOS

★★★★★

★★★★★ I got lost too many times, but I still loved the experience

As soon as I got in the boat and started exploring, I was hooked. The story was great. It’s not the most in-depth story I’ve ever seen in a video game, but the gameplay more than made up for it. It took some patience to fully enjoy it because the controller support is kind of iffy (especially when shooting obstacles in the sea), but I loved the boss fights. Music is also a strong point. The ocean theme ended up getting stuck in my head during the day when I wasn’t playing, but I didn’t mind this because the music was so good. Buyers should be aware of early crashes. This game crashed several times while I was getting started, but it no longer does this and I don’t know why. Just keep trying if it does this. The only points of criticism I have are the controller support and quest logging. I think it should be easy to go to a quest journal or list to get a sense of what I’m supposed to do next. I got stuck at one point and had to scroll way down to read what the hermit wanted for his project. I have a few other gripes, but they can be attributed to hardware limitations at the time of release. Fantastic game, and I hope to be wowed when I play Oceanhorn 2.

★★★★★ EXTREMELY BUGGY. BUYER BEWARE!

Very disappointed in this game. Looks are very deceiving. Despite how attractive this game looks it has a ton of bugs that make it nearly unplayable at times. First: Autosave does not work reliably. I played this on my Apple TV and it erased hours of gameplay after I had finished the first temple. No serious game should have that kind of major big. Second: it’s ridiculously easy to get locked into an area on the screen that you have no way to get out of. This happens a lot. You fall down a ledge or get blocked by a box that can’t be moved or blown up. So you’re stuck. Worst thing is it will save you in that stuck position so you lose your entire game; there’s no other option! Third: the game logic is all screwy so you can end up advancing to bosses you’re not prepared to fight because you don’t have the weapon you need to fight them. This kind of terrible user experience is totally preventable but it takes work and this developer did not want to put in the work. They just wanted to cash in and leave it super buggy for everyone. This is the kind of crappy user experience that causes people to abandon playing a game. Insanely aggravating. I regret buying this game and do NOT recommend it.

★★★★★ A quality game, with some frustrations

With the exception of the horrible fishing minigame, which might be the most frustrating game mechanic ever designed by a human, this is a really excellent Zelda-style adventure game. It does have problems with the iCloud save - the iCloud save will often be about eight hours or more behind my local save - and some of the achievements can get tedious, but overall this is basically phantom hourglass, but modernized and with better sailing. Also, a feature request for the developers: have our achievements be in the Game Center! It’s weird having Game Center support but not having any achievements in the game sync with it.

★★★★★ Great game!

This game was and is AWESOME! I grew up on Arcades, Atari, Nintendo, Sega, everything up through the PS4 and consoles today my kids enjoy, and it brought me back to when I actually enjoyed playing games and figuring out puzzles and bosses again. Have it on my iPhone, but bought a nimbus controller for my Apple TV 4K and played through with my 12 and 3 year olds on the living room tv, and they loved it! The whole family is anticipating part 2, and I couldn’t thank you more for making a game that we all enjoyed together, instead of the typical games these days that everyone runs to their rooms and play alone on their phones and tablets. Great job to all involved, keep up the good work in making what games were originally meant to be! Highly recommended!

★★★★★ Meh

Game is decent for a iPhone game, but if it was on console or PC no one would give it the time of day. Tries too hard to be a Zelda Windwaker ripoff. There are quite a few bugs where your character can get stuck between a tree and a rock without you anticipating it. Boss battles aren't difficult because they are challenging as much as they are difficult to maneuver and manage, making them frustrating. The writing is mediocre at best, save the world from some evil demon and you're the chosen one blah blah. I enjoyed passing the time by beating the game once, but probably will never play again. Definitely worth the $8, and the graphics are pretty decent for a phone game. Controls are decent and concept is repeatable, just try to fix the monotony and this would be a 5-star game.

★★★★★ Worth it!

This is a great game, which is admittedly not flawless, but very worth the purchase price. I highly recommended this game if you are one or more of the following: -Like a fantasy narrative game with a story and puzzles to work through. -Don’t mind, or even enjoy a blocky, cartoon aesthetic. -Played Oceanhorn 2 (a “prequel” 1000yrs in the past of Oceanhorn 1) and want to make more sense of the, some say “perplexing”, ending. Make no mistake, OH1 is a step down in quality from OH2, but it is still very worth playing, especially if you want to understand the broader world and story arc they’ve created. -Or, from what I understand, if you’re a Zelda fan, you’ll also like this. There are some buggy elements to some of the mechanics that can be vexing at times. Other reviews cover them well enough so I won’t belabor that here. I’m not an avid gamer, with the majority of my experience via mobile, so take this with a grain of salt, but this is one of my top 3-5 favorite games ever.

★★★★★ Breathtaking Despite Tech Flaws

This platform-defining title proves the iPhone and iPad work as full-fledged mobile and portable consoles. The music, presentation, and locations showcase this quite nicely. I simply wish I could enjoy the full experience. I bought this game to work with my MFi gamepad, so I can lean back and play on my iPad mini as a portable console. Unfortunately, the text is so small on iPad in the menu and short signs, I constantly have to lean forward to see what is going on, ruining the experience for me. Also, MFi controller support is lacking. On my Steel Series Stratus, X / A attack and Y / B Use item (such as shield). This is not customizable, and means I have to move my thumb to switch between attack and item. Also, on the pause menu, the cursor snaps to selectable items. This is fine, but makes the center area hard to see. Also, I cannot scroll the log text with the controller. The control issues are manageable, but that combined with the tiny text caused me to delete the game unfinnished.