Other characters – some sympathetic, some nefarious, some with ambiguous intentions – eventually enter the narrative, with Riley having to delicately navigate an ever-growing thread of relationships and motivations.Īt its core, Oxenfree II is a sci-fi mystery, infused with just the right mix of strange visuals and even stranger audio to keep players on edge. Joining Riley is her old school friend Jacob, someone who never left Camena and whose attitude and perspective on life in this small town could not be more different. Riley has recently come home for a bit of a personal reset after years away, only to be immediately drawn into a mystery involving strange signals interfering with local electronics. Oxenfree II casts players as Riley, a former resident of Camena, a (fictional) town in northern Oregon. The big difference this time out is that, rather than a gang of hot-blooded teenagers, the main cast is a pair of thirty-somethings, friends on the verge of a midlife crisis while trying to hold onto their youth. There’s a lot of dialogue – not all of it well-written – and much of it is branching, leading to multiple endings depending on which narrative paths you choose. Gameplay largely revolves around walking, wandering, and solving simple environmental puzzles. There’s a return to the mysterious island of the first game. Oxenfree‘s sequel is, in many ways, more of the same. Despite its weaker aspects, I liked Oxenfree: it was weird, it did something different, and it did a decent job of capturing a certain style of teen drama common to horror movies (and which last year’s The Quarry handled just as well). Oxenfree had you spend a lot of time walking, here and there, back and forth, the game deliberately confusing you and its case of teen characters as they tried to unravel a ghostly island mystery and avoid the fates of the spirits who haunt the island.
A 2.5 mystery-adventure title with a striking, painterly aesthetic, its grand narrative aspirations often struggled against its technical limitations and occasionally meandering gameplay. The original Oxenfree was a bit of an odd duck. It’s teeth-chattering, but not bone-chilling. Available now for PS5 (reviewed), PS4, Switch, Windows, iOS, Android, and Netflix (! More on that in a moment.)Ī fascinating, occasionally frustrating adventure through time. Our review of Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, developed by Night School Studio.
0 kommentar(er)
