Can I tell you a secret? I haven’t actually finished this game yet.
Let me explain. No, there is too much, let me sum up. 😉
I started this game over the three months we were closed due to COVID-19. We had one of the Switches at home and I’d been intrigued by the box art of this game when we got it in. I knew it was kind of a Windwaker clone, but a little different. And I’ve never played a Zelda game, so I figured it didn’t matter.
I got into it pretty quickly and enjoyed it. The story is interesting, if typical, you need to go on a quest to find your father who has gone missing, armed only with a sword and your mother’s mysterious necklace. The art style is cute, and the mechanics are mostly manageable for #NotAGamer.
You don’t have to control the camera, the aiming of the bow and arrow are fairly simple. There are only some places you can fall off of, that’s a big one in my book. The difficulty scaling was pretty slow and steady, which I really appreciate.
But I am stuck. I know that I’m near the end. I’m on the final island and some bad guy stole my mother’s necklace. I’m pretty sure once I defeat him and get it back, then I will be ready to fight the monster Oceanhorn. But I can’t manage it.
This happens to me pretty often in video games. I’ll be going along fairly smoothly and then suddenly the difficulty increases too rapidly and I get stuck. It’s one of the reasons I really like to play two player games. I know that I wouldn’t have been able to finish Luigi’s Mansion 3 on my own. The final boss fight, and the last couple levels before that, were really too hard for me without Cassidy.
I do still recommend this game. A slightly simplified Zelda game is a good fit for a lot of the kids who come in to our store. Oceanhorn is fun and interesting, and the world has a Minecraft-type visual appeal.
One of these days I will finish it.
