Oxenfree

I agree with you Ross, too much drama, too dialogue heavy (I hate the fact that you can't stop the conversations), it felt like there was no end to it and I basically had to force myself to finish the game and ended up feeling pretty much unsatisfied about the whole experience.

I got bored at the lighthouse to be honest. I was going to continue playing it, but I never picked it up again.

Also every character kept berating me for not wanting to drink. More funny than anything, but, I just don't like it when the game makes me feel bad about a choice I made.

I guess I'll be the opposite of the comments here:

 

I really enjoyed this game a lot. The characters act like their age in most cases, and that means being irrational about trivial and not-so-trivial bullshit. The conversation system is a lot of fun, I loved how it seamlessly fit into the gameplay (what little of it there is, anyway), and I just had a really good time with it. The game also has a little replay value, since certain things change on subsequent playthroughs (not ENOUGH changes however, you'll still be playing mostly the same thing, so your mileage may vary on whether it's worth it).

Yeah, I also liked it. BTW, it seems dialogues go differently depending how you respond, so it might be a factor in why people have different feeling about them.

It's not that I hated it (yet), but I just got bored, I'll pick it up from where I left off though. I just stopped playing for a while though.

12 minutes ago, RaTcHeT302 said:

It's not that I hated it (yet), but I just got bored, I'll pick it up from where I left off though. I just stopped playing for a while though.

It's by no means a perfect game. Gameplay for example is very limited. Searching for radio station, while I really liked it and it gave great atmosphere also became bit tedious with time. And there was so much walking.

 

Still, I overall enjoyed it, but it might be one of those cases when I found a game out of nowhere and have absolutely no expectations so it seemed better than it would if it was recommended to me.

I also picked it up at random, but to be honest, I just ended up playing other games in meantime, so I kinda left it in the backburner.

It's a story that makes a lot of promises but falls flat by focusing on teen drama instead of the supernatural side of things. When it does let the supernatural shine it's pretty good since the spin on ghosts is interesting and trying to find secrets with the radio is a really good idea for a ghost game. Which is strange because this game has two plots happening at the same time. The one most people will see is the teen drama crap but if you find the hidden notes and translate the morse code sometimes found with the radio you get a much more interesting story.

 

Also worth mentioning this game had a very poorly coordinated ARG alongside it. The bulk of it was just hunting for clues but it fell on its face immediately as the first clue delivered via phone involved the main theme of the game in a modified form. Except the phone didn't actually play the modified version of the song. The rest of the ARG was more or less made up on the spot.

Yes, the main premise is teen drama and occult mystery, but the spooky atmosphere is spot on. Soundtrack is brilliant and story serves its purpose. Personally loved it.

I personally loved the game, it was a bit lackluster on the gameplay, and there was way too much walking, with no way to run (and adding to that was the game being super choppy most of the time), and there were a few bugs (all visual), but, I loved the game nonetheless, it felt more like an interactive movie than a game, and I dont feel like thats a negative, the story was really good, and the characters did what you would expect them to do with how they were characterized, the game has a nice amount of replay value, with almost all conversations having at least 3 options and a secret 4th option after you finish the game, speaking of that, the content that you get after finishing the game is super interesting, and ties a lot of the loose ends together.

 

All around, if you like action and cant go without it, dont play this, if you enjoy a nice mystery game with a cool mechanic, I recommend it

Hands down, I absolutely love this game. 

 

I'm not really a huge fan of 2D or "2.5D" style, side-scrolling games, but this game did a lot to change my mind towards appreciating this particular style of game.

 

The art direction is fantastic. It does a fine job of striking a balance between dark and eerie as well as cartoony and stylized. Characters that are illustrated to look as if they belong in a Saturday morning kids cartoon (in reference to the in-game "photos") in contrast with a dark, creepy and uneasy environment just seems to work so well, at least for me. The texturing and lighting in this game does a great job of giving the environment some depth of field, even though it's a "2.5D" game and it really adds to the creepy atmosphere of the game.

 

The story is equal parts awesome and creepy. The occult and supernatural elements are well done (the tuning your radio bits were a nice touch), it made me wish the game went even deeper with these themes. The twist at the end of the story has a nice, subtle impact, enough for an "Oh poop..." moment.

 

Gameplay is rather minimal and there is a lot of walking, with no real sprint function but I was able to overlook that since the story was so well done. I imagine there is some replay value, given the multiple dialogue options and there is a "New Game Plus" option which apparently offers another dialogue option and a different ending. Although past that, I suspect you'll be playing through more-or-less the same scenarios.

 

The teen drama stuff didn't really bother me that much. I didn't feel that it was overdone or that the game put too much of an emphasis on it. I mean, the characters ARE teenagers, so I guess that sort of stuff is to be expected. I managed my expectations on this front.

 

The music is phenomenal, no complaints there.

 

Overall rating: Fantastic.

Fantastic: Likeable characters in a neat meta setting.  Guess Teen drama doesn't grate on me as much as it does to Ross.

I forced myself to beat this but... I don't know... that ending was lame... and the ghost stuff was just... I don't know, I just felt hollow. Like, somehow I got the ending where everyone is alive, but Jonas became distant for no good reason (just because I missed a bunch of random dialogue options, really? I felt pretty damn close with the choices I made...).

 

I don't know, it's one of those games, where you have to play it in a very specific way, it doesn't really adapt to you as a player, and to your wishes, and the character growth is just, I think very artificial. Otherwise, I don't know, you just walk around and it takes forever, you are so god damn slow, the island is such a slog to walk around, and the plot twist was so lame, plus again, the ending pretty much says, that you've done jack shit, you wasted your time dumbass.

 

I didn't even wait for the end credits, I just straight up unninstalled the game. I don't know, I hated the characters, and I just thought this game was bad.

 

I had a very poor experience overall, I honestly understand why I gave up at the lighthouse. Man, sometimes my instinct is just dead on, but I tried to play through this, and I don't know, the whole thing was just so stupid to me, and it never quite grew on me, as much as I would've liked it to.

 

I can't really put it into words, I just didn't enjoy it and I thought the ghost story as a whole was weak, but then you have time travel bullshit, and like, the ghosts try to fake you out a billion times, but then near the end of the game, they just give up all of sudden.

 

You just, call some dude's name and... that's it, problem is solved. That's the conclusion, you just call one of the ghosts by his name.

But you are stuck in an infinite time loop, oh no! I'm stuck in an infinite loop of bullshit, where I keep playing terrible games, with lazy ass meaningless throwaway endings.

 

Man... I should've spoiled the damn ending for myself, if I knew that I was wasting my time for a whole lot of nothing, I wouldn't have bothered with this.

 

Also as far as the whole hidden clue bullshit goes, I figured that out way before the game dropped the bombshell on me. Like you have these random ass rocks, just scattered around, and you can go near them, set your frequency between 99 - 103 usually (the info panels use 102.3 or something). But like, it's all meaningless shit, it's non sense, I scanned a bunch of these rocks for no reason, they literally wasted my time, they had no impact on the game itself anyway, what was the point of adding them in the first place?

 

I don't know, this whole game is just, convoluted for no reason. The storyline is overly complicated, and the characters are as deep as that pot hole in my street. I don't know, I just didn't like the characters at all, they are so wooden, they barely have any personality at all.

 

I thought this whole game was just weak as hell. I'm never touching this ever again, I honestly hated this whole playthrough.

Everything is just too arbitrary for me, there's no real freedom, everything is just pre-determined anyway.

 

I don't know. The ending variations are probably lame as hell. Why would anyone sacrifice that lady anyway. I read right through the fake out right away, I don't know, it just seemed unecessary to me.

 

Oh and, do you want to know the worst part. The game fucks you over, if you decided to NOT talk. I thought I had some ACTUAL CHOICES. But no, there's a point system. You didn't get enough points with that one guy? Well screw you then. It's so damn arbitrary.

 

HOW ABOUT NOT HAVING SOME BULLSHIT NUMBER, REPRESENT IMPORTANT CHOICES. HOW ABOUT I JUST CHOOSE ON THE SPOT, AND SEE THE CONSEQUENCES RIGHT THERE. Why even have choices, if the end result is just a binary thing anyway (bad choice \ good choice). That's garbage man.

 

I was so tired of the game's gimmicks too, like good god they overdo that obtuse ass rewind mechanic, and that dumb radio thing. It's so god damn tedious, this game has 0 gameplay, you just move a bunch of knobs, and that's it, that's the whole game.

 

Might as well just call it Knob Twiddlers Simulator 2010. This wasn't a game, this was a waste of time. I should've watched a let's play.

 

Edit: Man, sorry for being so harsh on this game, but I was so bitter when that ending just invalidated everything I did in the game. I felt like I wasted four hours for no reason, that's why I'm talking so much shit about this game. I really don't enjoy it when a game straight up tells me, that everything which I've worked for, was all for nothing.

 

I don't know, this was very frustrating overall. I don't think I would've bothered to say these things, if it wasn't for that horrible ending. To me that just ruins everything, and it never makes me want to ever come back to this game.

 

Anyway this game does have a very low replay value. I actually do think that's an actual problem, and I think it kinda limits what impact you can have, on the overall game as a whole.

 

Anyway I'm more mildly annoyed if anything, I know this post comes off as horribly pessimistic, I could've been more tactful for sure, but I kinda wrote it on the spot, right as a finished the game, because then otherwise, I don't think I could've been as honest about it. I mean playing through this gave me an actual headache, it just wasn't enjoyable for me.

 

Honestly I was really getting hooked into the actual storyline, along with the game's presentation, but it's everything else about the game, which built up into this ball of frustration, which completely ruins the game for me.

On 10/21/2019 at 11:10 PM, RaTcHeT302 said:

Bunch of words

Haha, holy crap, if you didn't enjoy it that much, why'd you even play it all the way through to the end?

 

Also, might want to cut out all of the spoilers from your post, since you kind of spoil almost the entire story.

 

Edit: One last thing too,