Owlboy

[Nolan]

I’m honestly surprised this game didn’t already have a thread of its own actually. 

 

I went into this pretty blind honestly. I think I recall hearing the name prior to my purchasing it but I didn’t really know anything. 

No regrets, it’s a unique and fun game and so far a intriguing story. And the pixel art is just beyond detailed. And even when there isn’t much detail everything is so damn expressive. I really feel for Otus. Like the opening segment got to me. 

Controls take some getting use to but are perfectly functional. I just get a bit all thumbs with it. And every once in a while I do experience a bit of lag but within seconds the lag is gone. I’m guessing it’s related to just loading the area rather than intensity. 

[MindFreak]

Actually just started this game yesterday, put 45 minutes into it or such. Really feeling it. I think I failed the first challenge with the water jug and I was like "what?" after that sequence. You instantly feel sorry for him but it's fun. I don't think the controls are that hard, though, quite standard. I'm looking forward to progressing the game and story tonight.

[Hero-of-Time]

I'll be picking it up once the physical version gets released.

[nekunando]

52 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I'll be picking it up once the physical version gets released.

I'm tempted to go physical aswell unless there is a significant discount on the eShop version between now and May!

[Nolan]

I play my Switch nearly exclusively in handheld mode and with the exception of (early release doom) most games play flawlessly.

I have now encountered a certain fire spewing boss and when he spews fire the frame rate absolutely chugs. I’m talking single digits, it’s pretty awful and kind of ruins an otherwise fun battle. 

Also ruining the battle was that the software crashed exactly as I completed the fight :/

edit; on the plus side the game saved and loaded right there at the cutscene so nothing was lost except time. 

Edited March 23, 2018 by Nolan

[MindFreak]

I am reaching the final boss now so want to give some thoughts on the game.

While it is charming, I found it getting tedious towards the end. There really isn't much in the game and what's there is not overly challenging or much fun to actually do. The bigger battles especially are really not difficult because of anything else than lackluster fighting mechanics. Geddy is useful but weak, and the muscet is way to slow to do anything. So it's more or less spamming ZR until your fingers hurt - don't play in handheld mode. 

Then there are a few riddles but they aren't really anything but a delay in the game.

Furthermore, the game has crashed five times for me. I've played for 5 hours or so. That's really not good enough, especially since nothing was going on at those times. Also had the single digit framerate at the lava boss. 

Overall, it's charming, the story is fine, the setting is interesting, and the characters are good. The game itself isn't that good but luckily it's short. That makes it way too pricey, though. At this price I would expect something more.

[Dog-amoto]

Yeah, that pretty much sums up my feelings toward the game. You also don’t mention the lack of a world map, which for a game like this is unforgivable. Biggest disappointment of 2018 so far for me. I’m glad Team Cherry are putting extra time into Hollow Knight so it doesn’t turn out a buggy mess like this one. 

[Ronnie]

Completely agree, I was definitely willing it to end so I could move on to something else. That said the final boss and ending are a bit better than the rest. 

Looks nice but otherwise just isn't much fun. It's ok but these days there are so many great games, I'm not sure I'm keen to just play ok games anymore. 

Edited March 24, 2018 by Ronnie

[nekunando]

With those impressions, I'm definitely not keen to pay the current asking price

[MindFreak]

Finished the game now. The final boss was indeed a better fight than the rest. But

Spoiler

Otus wasn't really doing anything. In fact, had he not done anything, the result would be the same, since Solid was actually almost finished when we interrupted him. He would have made it before Molstrom would catch up to him.

3/5. 

[Nolan]

Yeah, the initial charm doesn’t carry the game well. It’s still beautiful and expressive, but does so little with that capability. Certain areas are purely tedious due to the ineffectiveness of weapons. And the world feels less than fleshed out. 

[MindFreak]

So it seems that the crashes are getting fixed. From reddit:

Quote

“Hi, developer on Owlboy here! We have become aware of a memory leak issue in the game that is causing these crashes. Blitworks (Owlboy's porters) are working to fix these issues right now, and we are submitting a patch to Nintendo next week to address these memory leaks!

For those interested - Here are some specific details on what's going on: Every time the game moves from one map to another, there are some textures that are not removed from memory and eventually the game fills up the Switch's memory cache, prompting the Switch to close down the game, so the memory can be restored. Blitworks are digging for the culprit textures, and while they're a little hard to find, they've found most of them by now. We'll make an announcement on our social channels and on Nintendo's News once the patch goes live.

Thank you guys for reporting and helping us improve the game! Always feel free to get in touch with us at support [at] dpadstudio (dot) com, or our Twitter @dpadstudio if you have any issues or feedback on the game at all.”

It won't fix the game but it's good that they get this fix up and running before the physical version hits the shelves.