Owlboy

My playtime: 12.2h (based on Steam, 100% achievement)
Grindy Achievement(s): No.
Optional Achievement(s): Yes (12 achievements).
Difficult Achievement(s): No.
Intro
Owlboy takes on an interesting approach by featuring a flying character in a platformer game. The game sets on a planet where flying is required to reach most places. You'll explore a lot of areas, seeing breathtaking visuals as you flap your wings.
Pros:
- ~7 unique boss fights
- Plenty of checkpoints to make the game easier
- Secret places for collectibles for those who like to explore
Cons:
- Clunky controls
- Some areas are too dark to explore
Should you buy this game?
Yes.
If you like to play platformer games with high detailed pixel art, buy this game when it's heavily discounted.
In-Depth Review
Graphics
Owlboy surprises me with its stunning visuals. The high detailed pixel art reminds me of Metal Slug, especially with the use of sub-pixel animation, an animation technique to move some colors in a sprite to simulate movement. Animations are the core of Owlboy; every scene feels lively with how everything moves outside - the characters, the clouds - even the grasses are moving. While the exteriors are filled with animations, interiors are filled with detailed backgrounds instead, making you fully immersed in the game.
Story
The story in Owlboy is brief despite it holding a lot of meaning. Most dialogues are simple and easy to follow with your best friend commenting about what is happening to both of you. However, it makes the story empty sometimes since you have to fill the important parts yourself. Some events also feel a bit rushed, especially with the introduction of villains. It took me a while before I can fully grasp the story because of this.
Despite the straightforward story, the game doesn't fail in its worldbuilding. Detailed pieces of information are left hidden in several places and you must piece the story together to know what happened. The extra story only serves as additional information, but it's still an interesting read.
The Game
Gameplay
Platformer games are usually denoted by the use of platforms to reach other places, but it doesn't seem to be the case in Owlboy. The flying mechanic makes the grounds feel useless, especially when the area features open spaces. There are some cases where the game disables your flying ability and forces you to either use your jumping or companion skills, but when you do, the control doesn't seem to cooperate since it's hard to switch between flying and jumping. Heck, it took me a while to realize that I can also jump.
Stealth
Stealth areas are plenty but felt useless. The game offers some sort of warning at first where you have to clear an area without being seen. However, the warning seems to be gone as time goes and you have to figure out the stealth areas yourself. While this might work okay since most stealth areas have similar enemies, it's hard to figure out what you're supposed to do to clear the area without being seen most of the time. Surprisingly, you can clear the area faster by rushing your way through the exit, beating the purpose of a stealth mechanic in the first place.
Combat
The idea to implement different characters to clear different obstacles is clever, although it's ruined with its controls. Three companions will be available as you progress the game, each with its pros and cons, which can be summoned and carried whenever you like. However, having three companions that you have to cycle through to summon makes it hard to summon the ones that you want - I spent most of my time in boss fights just for this.
It wasn't easy to figure out how to defeat all bosses since you need to notice the safe spots from their attacks - some bosses will do an attack that almost occupies the whole screen for you to avoid. It took me several tries to beat all bosses due to their difficulty, but it felt satisfying to beat them. Some bosses feel unfair though, especially one particular boss where you must defeat it without taking damage.
Length and Difficulty
I finished Owlboy in 11.7h and continued playing to check the secrets that I missed. The game feels more like a bullet hell at first, especially with the game featuring a flying character and a party member that can shoot bullets. It shows more of its platforming elements later on, despite the empty map. Although there hardly any health-restoring items, checkpoints are abundant and you'll always respawn at full health. It turns the difficulty down a lot while giving more challenge to those who want to try no death run at the same time.
Problems
Most problems that I had with this game are due to the clunky controls. The game revolves around grabbing your companions before you can use their ability and it's hard to do it when you're standing on the ground. This affects greatly on boss fights, especially since it takes longer than your invincibility frame to last before you're ready to fight. Moreover, the game uses the left mouse button and hold the left mouse button to trigger different attacks - it was hard not to mix up both.
Specs
Intel Core i5-9300H 2.40GHz, 8GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650
Conclusion
This game is a mixed bag to me. Most of my enjoyment comes from enjoying the beautiful-looking scenery. Exploration feels empty since it's easy to avoid enemies by flying while areas that don't allow you to fly has nothing in it, encouraging you to dash through them to clear the area faster. The clunky controls also hindering me to enjoy the game to its fullest. However, despite all that, it is still a good game, although I'm not sure if I can recommend it if it's not heavily discounted.
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Owlboy is a pixellated adventure game. Beat it and 100%'d everything in roughly 15 hours (12 hours and 3 on the one minigame), using a game controller for everything but the minigame, where I switched to keyboard. Difficulty is Moderate to a little hard (minigame has an absurd difficulty curve and is very hard).
- The soundtrack is amazing. One of the most inspired, active soundtracks I've heard in a long while.
- The story starts out sad, almost depressing, but gets better until a whopper of an ending.
- Layout and levels are tight. The world doesn't feel big at all and there's lots of hidden places to find and explore within it. Each level is unique, though there isn't much variety in enemies between them. Instead of keeping the camera centered on the character, the camera moves from room to room. This leads to enemies being out of sight one path over, then the camera swinging to show them out of nowhere when you enter the next area and you getting hit randomly (Or their projectile comes at you from off camera). Other gamers had an issue with this, but it didn't get in the way whatsoever during my playthrough.
- The bosses are all different and memorable. Their difficulty varied.
- The controls are... Okay? Aiming was a bit of a pain (accursed flying swarms). My joystick was extra sensitive to some inputs like jump-gliding at the last level and I had to use the D-pad instead. Minigame is, well, I'll get to that... Flying around, swapping between helpers, dashing about, and shooting in general wasn't that hard to figure out, though I did continually teleport a friend into my grip instead of grab fruit from trees throughout the playthrough.
- Most achievements are attainable easily on the first playthrough. Choice others, like hitting your friend X times, seem arbitrary and a chore.
- The cannon minigame is about as fun as a nail in the boot. You need to do it to get 100% of the coins. Its controls are foreign from the rest of the game (I had to swap to keyboard because my controller wasn't very responsive to them), it's intolerably fast, and unlike the rest of the game the difficulty curve is insanely drastic. Another issue is there is no quick-start option for it; if you die, which you will, repeatedly, every 10 seconds for over 30 minutes until your reflexes get in order, you have to jump back up to the cannon and hit the mouse button to re-initiate the launch sequence animation. At some point it stopped being fun. Which is a shame. I did have fun playing, in a masochistic sort of way, but making it mandatory to 100% the coins seems cruel. The only good part about the mini game is the course is short.
-*** Epilepsy warning! Do not play this game if you have epilepsy. Blinky blink blink blink blink flash boom white trigger lights ahoy!
-* (Lite) Motion Sickness Warning! On top of the constant strobing light show, the screen will shake. A lot. Like you're playing on an excited washing machine. Never the less, I had no issues playing right up until the end of it, where I got a miserable headache. And a short break with water fixed that. So if you get motion sickness from games, you'll probably be fine if you take breaks now and then.
Would I recommend Owlboy? Oh yeah, sure. It's a fun, cute game with a fascinating plot and gripping music. It's fun trying to 100% everything on the first play through. The game is by no means perfect, and I could see the one mini game royally turning people off, but you can still beat the game without it. Owlboy is a game that deserves at least one playthrough and some fan art on the side.

Enjoy a magical journey with Otus a half boy, half-owl and some other very interesting characters. Owlboy is a beautiful experience from the visuals to the music.
+ Beautiful pixelated art
+ Hilarious dialogues
+ Fantastic characters
+ Magnificent soundtrack
+ Great story
+ Plenty of collectibles
+ Fun to play
- Excessive use of shaky-cam

mastapeece

Most aspects of this game are just average other than the music which is great. I would recommend it but it has a bad price to length ratio so wait for a sale.

This is an entertaining adventure with charming characters and story, but it feels slightly unfinished.
Some areas feel rushed and have much-less-than-fun mechanisms. The minibosses are not fun - you always get locked in a room with 1, then 2, then 3, etc enemies until you finish all waves. Some characters just disappear mid-story, never to be mentioned again. Combat is very simplistic and feels very repetitve. The twist makes little sense.
HOWEVER!
This game has a lot of soul. It feels like if they had more resources, and if the game didn't have such a rocky development cycle, it would have been a masterpiece. All the set pieces are in the game - a varied cast of characters, an epic story, gorgeous graphics, some really cool boss battles, interesting ideas bordering on the philosophical... Many positive points that somehow make the negative ones feel less bad.
Bottom line, I guess I recommend the game. There ARE several frustrating platforming sections and spongey bosses, but the game is generous with save points and healing, so with a little Metroidvania experience nothing should pose a serious challenge.
I kinda hope for an epic remake of this game, and curious to see what those guys will make next.

Owlboy is a side scrolling adventure that was almost decade in the making, so let's take a look at it.
Story:
You play as Otus, who is a mute owl man living in a village in the sky. Otus is often made fun of by the village because he's clumsy and accident prone, with his only friend being Geddy, a human guard of the village. After Sky Pirates attack the village you set out on a quest to stop them and learn about the history of the Owls.
While the story of the game isn't incredibly deep, it's really well written. It has charm and every character is unique in their own ways. You meet interesting characters along the way to whom you really start getting attached to, not to mention the incredibly emotional story segments that cut you deep.
Graphics:
Owlboy's pixel art style is absolutely jaw dropping. The game looks absolutely stunning and I literally cannot praise the art style enough. Each environment you visit is bright and colorful and you visit a lot of places, each with their unique looks, it's honestly quite impressive how detailed every little thing is.
Every character is different and has their own unique set of animations. The details of this game are absolutely insane to say the least.
Audio:
The audio design is also really good. The music is top notch and there's plenty of music tracks to match the tone of the area you're in. Quiet atmospheric tracks when it's set during the night, intense ambience when you're in enemy locations and so on and forth.
The sound effects are decent, albeit nothing incredibly special. They work with what they set out to do and I found a few of the audio effects incredibly satisfying especially the wooshing noises the characters make. Even the dialogue scrolling noise which is something I find most games tend to mess up, was very light on the ears and I have to give it props.
Gameplay:
Owlboy is a side scrolling adventure where as Otus, you will platform, solve puzzles and fight enemies. Otus is not a fighter and often you will have to pick up items to throw them at enemies to defeat. However as Otus you can carry around your friends to help you solve puzzles and fight enemies. For example Geddy can be picked and he can use his gun to attack enemies.
You control the aiming yourself and it works fine for the most part, but it's never ideal. It feels quite finnicky at first and requires sometime to get used to, but I quickly picked up on it and I did end up liking the combat quite a bit.
As Otus you can fly around and reach areas and that allows you to cover a lot of land. It's quite fun to fly around and look for secrets and explore areas to interact with the village people and other items. It's a very light metroidvania, because there's multiple ways to go, but often then not there's not many places to visit which allows you to cover more land in faster time.
There is puzzles for you to solve every so often, but they are often really easy, only a handful of puzzles might make you stop in your tracks to think, but that's a rare instance, but they serve as a nice little pallet cleanser. So now let's also talk about the boss fights. They are often intense and often more difficult than anything else in the game. They are often the only places where you might die.
Verdict:
Often when games spend a lifetime in development, people think they will end up being bad, but Owlboy shows that is not the case in every instance. It's a brilliant game that is visually stunning, fun to play and has a really great story with plenty of funny and emotional moments to grip you. This is an absolutely amazing game worth your time.
Final Rating:
10/10
Pros:
+ Visuals are absolutely stunning
+ Emotional story
+ Great characters
+ Fun Gameplay
+ Great music
Cons:
N/A
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