Olija - Review
Like many games that Devolver Digital put their name behind, I went into Olija not understanding much about it, only that it sported a fairly unique art style and that is saying something, but having played the game, has my understanding changed, or am I just lost at sea?
Olija tells the story of Faraday, a lord who sets sail on a quest, but soon finds his ship consumed by a deadly storm and when it sinks, he wakes up on the shores of a mysterious island. Soon after waking up there, he meets a mysterious boatman, who begins to fill Faraday in, on where he is and what is going on. The where is Terraphage and the what is that the land is cursed, with an evil seeping across the islands, corrupting and contaminating all that they encounter and if they don’t kill those they find, they capture them. After venturing into the depths of another island, Faraday finds a floating Harpoon and upon touching it, is skewered by it, but rather than dying, he becomes connected to it. With a mystical harpoon in hand, Faraday begins to explore the island and soon discovers Olija, an enigmatic lady, who is found within a cage, freeing her is the only action he can take, but that unleashes a deadly foe and makes Faraday’s quest of leaving this land, much more challenging.
The story sounds like it might be one full of twists and turns, but it isn’t, it is pretty straight forward for the most part, there were times when I got moments of nostalgia from movies like Captain Blood and The Spanish Main, but that was mostly in aesthetic, rather than context. The tale that is being told is not bad, the problem is there is just so little explanation to it, leaving you confused at times and when story does come up, wondering how it is connected to something you saw an hour earlier. Given that Faraday is a lord and sets off on an adventure, I would have loved to have seen a log included, that not only provided a way to recall parts of the story, up to that point, but expand upon it some more, especially after the times when Faraday interacts with Olija.
Leaving the story aside, there is two distinct parts to the gameplay, the exploration and the combat, and strangely enough, the two are connected in a very interesting way, oh there are also mystical hats you can craft. Staring with exploration, Faraday is not Robin Hood, nor is he Spider-Man, he can run a little, jump a little and that is about it, but when you start to understand how parts of the world work, you can connect his moves together, to allow for some fun moments. The islands that you can explore are not the grandest of locales, but they offer enough to hunt through, to keep things interesting, the only catch is, once you have obtained the main item from it, there is almost no reason to go back, unless you want to try and find more resources. Those resources do play a part in how you can upgrade your collection of hats, or if you find the currency of the world, you can pay someone to explore islands for you, in fact, the only real reason I went back to some islands, was to try and find captured folks, so I could recruit them back to my base.
As I mentioned before, the other side of the game is combat and it is tied to the exploration, by the use of the harpoon, and later on a giant sword. There are three main ways of attacking, melee or using the harpoon at close range, perfect for dealing with enemies up close, throwing the harpoon to dish out some long-range damage, or using a secondary weapon, like a crossbow or gun, to shoot enemies from afar. The main way you will attack is with the basic attack, the secondary weapons are great, especially when there is a crowd of folks you want to clear, but the throwing the harpoon is honestly a waste, it deals little damage and while it is away from you, your first are the only thing you have to use up close. Now throwing the harpoon away seems like a bad idea, but as you can zip towards it, you can use it to get around. This is actually just as useful in combat, as it is in exploration, because you can cover some ground and there is nothing more satisfying as zipping across the screen and laying the smackdown on an enemy.
Combat does have a sharp learning curve though, there isn’t a real challenge to the mechanics, more just with the different enemy types that you will encounter and how your weapons impact your movement. Throwing a weapon away is not the issue, that comes down to when you are using the crossbow, or the gun, because the reloads, can leave you open to some serious damage, but it gets even more challenging. When you shoot the gun, whilst standing on a surface, you will notice a kick back and it might move you back a little, but if you are in the air, that kickback will send you flying. Not enough that you literally get thrown from the screen, but enough to push you back a fair distance, so much so that I died more than a few times, because I had forgotten about it and found myself falling to my death or landing on a pit of spikes.
When you take each element on their own, they’re pretty solid, the movement for exploration works and combat can be chaotic, even before you start to face off against boss characters. My issue with it all, is that this is a 1+1 situation, but I never felt the answer was 2, there was something missing when everything came together, there is nothing bad about it, I just didn’t click with what I was being offered.
On the presentation side of things, there are some great moments and some odd ones, kicking off with the good, the art style and while characters might look more like they were designed for the Atari 2600, more than the 8-bit style the world was designed to look like, they still all manage to work in the setting. An inherent problem with games that go for a more pixelated look, is that sometimes the detail can be missing, and while many can adapt, some fail spectacularly, thankfully Olija is not one that falls into either, as the world looks incredible. That is not to say that it is perfect, there are some issues with a few locales that you will visit, but apart from those rare few, everything else looks great, from the vines that drape across jungle ruins, to the black ooze that seeps through cracks in the roof and ground. The only real issues with the visuals that you see, are when the game chooses style over practicality and it makes some gaps and paths harder to spot, they are not a common occurrence, but when they do happen, you will likely be annoyed by it.
On the audio side, things are more mixed and that is not a good things, there are times when the game presents a spoken language, which is either one I don’t know, or completely made up. These times are usually reserved for when there is context being provided to the story, usually when you visit a new local for the first time. The words themselves seem ok, but there is no consistency to the length of what is said and the amount of text that appears on screen, the balance just never clicks. Another concern I had is with the main bad guy, or at least the most prominate one, the growling nature of the voice, can be hard to connect with, I don’t know if the voice is over processed, or it’s the words they are speaking, I really just didn’t enjoy it on my ears.
Musically things are strong, there is a balance of themes that contain Asian and Italian influences and one never seems to overshadow the other. The score fits the themes, picking up in intensity when the action does, but barely being noticeable when you return back to your house, that is the type of score I enjoy.
Olija is a strong game, it has a combat system that takes a bit of getting used to but manages to offer up something fresh and while exploration can feel by the numbers, there are elements that elevate it upwards. While the visual style is unique, leaning towards the larger blocks of the Atari consoles, there are times when the design of things, takes over the practical use of them and it can be a pain. For some reason though, I never clicked with the game, the combat is solid, and the exploration is fine, but it never amounted to a game I wanted to return to and that is just weird, which is perhaps a good way to describe Olija.
The Score
8.5
Review code provided by Devolver Digital
The Pros
+Combat takes some adjustment, but you can easily start ziping around the screen
+The art style is unique and somehow still vidid and wonderful
The Cons
-Not a lot of reason to explore locations, once you have cleared them
-Combat and exploration combined, somehow left me wanting
