Review: Oxenfree (2016) [pixietails.club]

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====== Review: Oxenfree (2016) ======
Original post: https://misthold.dreamwidth.org/7833.html

**[[http://nightschoolstudio.com/oxenfree/|Oxenfree]] (2016)** is a supernatural thriller adventure game starring a group of teens who try to have an illicit beach party on what turns out to be a hideously haunted island. You play as Alex, a junior in high school who recently lost her brother. With you are Jonas, Alex's new step-brother, Ren, Alex's childhood best friend, Nona, Ren's crush, and Clarissa, Nona's friend and Alex's brother's ex-girlfriend. 

So basically the gameplay is entirely talking and walking, with some clicking and scrolling. There's not really any puzzles, though there IS two trivia mini-games that depend on having paid attention in the earlier part of the game. 

There's also three ways you can choose to play your interactions with other characters: friendly, mean, and neutral. Picking one way over the other changes certain plot developments and generates different endings, so there's some replayability. I, of course, chose to play the friendly route. 

Though it's a thriller, it's not a horror game. It's spooky, but the character design is slightly cartoony-- and tiny-- so it's not as scary as it might've been if they were hovering super close to the camera, as it were. There are a lot of blinking/juddering/shaking movements, which I <i>think</i> you can turn off or dampen. There's also a subtitles option, which I turned on.
 
I think originally this game was made for a console, e.g. something you play with a controller. The PC/Mac port has some playability issues. First, walking is VERY slow. There are no options to go faster; you can't run or dash. (This might be the same as the console version.) Since basically the entire game is just walking from one place to another, and then backtracking, it feels a little like playing in molasses. 

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Second, scrolling through the radio channels is AGONIZING. The PC/Mac version makes you left-click and drag to scroll, but it's VERY slow and you can't drag TOO much or it just resets to where you were before. A good 30-40% of the game is scrolling on the radio channels, which just made it way more frustrating to play. I checked a video of the console version and it's about 100x faster than the PC/Mac version, which just seems unfair.

Third, you have to pick your dialogue choice while someone is still talking. If you wait until they finish, your choices disappear completely. This doesn't make sense to me AT ALL, since an important part of the game is your relationships with the other characters! And when you <i>do</i> choose your dialogue, about 60% of the time it just interrupts whatever the other character was saying, instead of waiting for them to finish. Which means you lose potentially important character development because one half of the dialogue never completed!

Is this a bug, or is this a feature? Maybe the "neutral" options means just never picking a dialogue? But! I feel like I should be able to leisurely pick my option while also being able to 100% hear what the characters are saying! 

Fourth, whenever you do something emotionally important to/with the other characters, or they do something to each other, a little balloon with the characters' face pops up over their head. But there's no explanation what this means, or if it's good or bad, or how it's affected your relationships in any way. I'm guessing it's moving you along the kind/mean/neutral storyline route, but it's super weird that it was never brought up anywhere.

Fifth, story-wise, the ghosts enjoy playing games but there wasn't any really interaction for that beyond the two mini-games. The ending had no games at all, which seems like a misstep. 

Anyway, it took be about 6 hours to complete the "kind" route. I probably would've finished faster if I didn't spend about 3 of those hours trying to tune the radio. At first I was REALLY into the story and the characters, but my irritation with the controls ruined the experience. I wanted to finish and get out of there so badly that I didn't even bother finding all the hidden thingies that told the whole backstory to the island! 

Unfortunately, I'm not planning on going back and doing the other routes because I just can't face having to click-drag again for hours.

I really liked the story, the characters, and the setting, but I don't recommend playing it on PC/Mac if you can help it.

Price: $9.99

Available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Playstation, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox. I played the Mac OS version.