The Legend of Z…Oceanhorn?
One quick glance at Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas would instantly remind you of another series, Zelda. It’s clear that Oceanhorn takes a lot of inspiration from Nintendo’s flagship franchise by looking just like your standard Hyrule adventure. Your main protagonist is mute, equipped with sword and shield to defeat an ancient evil…but has to do so by collecting items from dungeons such as bombs, arrows and magic items.
The dungeons even have that Zelda feeling about them, more so when you place bombs in obvious areas to proceed. The only thing missing is the classic “do-do-do-do” tune when you do. The game world is divided between islands that can be navigated by boat, which also looks a lot like another Zelda title…The Wind Waker. The only difference is that you chart out your course and the boat goes into autopilot while you shoot any incoming enemies or objects.
The story itself is a bit thin on the ground, but it definitely sets the groundwork for the recently announced sequel. The game itself has been out for a while, it’s only now that it’s hit consoles, so hopefully it won’t take them too long to bring the sequel out for consoles when it launches for PC.
The game’s perspective is more like A Link to the Past, but with a isometric twist to it. This works well, although it does make certain areas harder to get to and there’s sadly no way to increase the size of the game’s map, so unless you are sitting close…I found myself squinting a lot to see what was showing up.
As with Zelda, the game has boss battles that make use of items/weapons you have found. These are the highlight of the game for me and show some real innovation, it makes me wonder what they could do to top it in the sequel.
The art style is a mixture of Wind Waker meets A Link Between Worlds, yes I know it’s not a full fledged Zelda game…but it might as well be, especially since we have to wait till at least March 2017 for Breath of the Wild. The music has the legendary likes of Nobuo Uematsu and Kenji Iko at the helm, so they aren’t holding any punches and all of them have done an amazing job creating a memorable soundtrack for the game.
The Verdict
If Zelda came to Xbox One and PS4, it would probably look a lot like this. Oceanhorn is one hell of a tribute to the series I hold as my personal favourite. I honestly can’t wait for the sequel to see what else the team have up their sleeves.