Tafdolphin wrote:I'm a bit further into Oxenfree. I'm still liking it, but I'm also finding it to be a bit of a mishmash of genres. Mild spoilers below
It's obviously trying quite hard to be a bit creepy, but this is clashing badly with the Buffy-speak of the main characters who don't seem to care that they're in mortal danger. I love the dialogue system, it's ability to perfectly simulate the messy, unplanned nature of real dialogue is great, but it's not working in the context the game is providing. At the moment I wish they'd either made a horror game or a coming-of-age game rather than trying to meld the two together.
I started a second play through this morning, which seems to be slightly (
slightly) more than just a simple repeat. Fancied getting those letters to complete the story's logic and the scavenger hunt. It's also a bit more fun playing through knowing what the game is, accepting and settling into its tempo without wishing it was different.
My thoughts on the first play-through:Fantastic music and atmosphere. Also great video-mashup-scenes, with their quick-cuts and analogue filters etc.
The HD rumble for the radio and radio-sequences adds a lot, and it's hard to think that it might not have had it had I played it on PC.
I love the radio as a device and wish it was used a little more as a gameplay item such as in the aforementioned radio 'sequences'. I appreciate it's a 'story' game but the unintrusive ability to flip it out without it impeding your walking, and the gentle satisfaction of dialling left and right with the subtle rumble is so tactile and satisfying that it feels underused.
The art is lovely but having such a zoomed out perspective throughout (as minimising as it is probably meant to feel for the characters in their island context) probably doesn't help with the humanity and empathy with the characters.
The voice acting is well done in the main and you warm to the characters overall, but the dialogue is bullshit; overly self-aware and constantly, self-consciously 'funny'/snarky. There's also far, far too much of it. No one talks like this, or as much as this. I've found the effect much better on the second play where I'm selecting almost no dialogue choices for the interstitial chitter-chatter whilst walking around - helps the game's naturalism no end (sorry developers!). If you liked stuff like Chloe in Life is Strange, though - you'll probably have more truck with it. Remember when Alex Garland was drafted in to help with Team Ninja's DmC? And he pared back so much of the dialogue and it felt understated and natural? I do.
The game has a sluggish feel to it. Alex's top clip running isn't bad but arbitrarily she's mainly made to walk slowly, and her only speed for stairs/diagonals seems to be slooowww too. I appreciate the 'point' of the game ('game') is the conversations en route - but they're naff so no thanks.
Loading between areas is a little long.
The End.
TL:DR - Quite liked, but I'd prefer to play a game solely built around the radio mechanic and the event-horizon style quick-flash void scenes. The most satisfying parts of the game for me. But the walking-talking stuff seems to chime better with others so likely a taste thing. And I
am ambling through a second-time so...
