Mobile gaming is becoming a daily activity nearly in everyone's lives. When iOS came out, several small indie games got popularized. Now wonderful game comes to iOS devices.
Oceanhorn is an open-world action adventure game that follows the same concept as the classic Zelda games. Instead of a linear top-down perspective, the game utilizes the top-down isometric view, similar to XCOM and Fallout games. The story embarks of a young whose father is an adventure and one night he departs to fight with a mystical creature called the 'Oceanhorn'. Since the young boy wonders about his father's whereabouts, he decided to walk in his father's shoes and become an adventurer. The game has its own lore with different humanoid species, lost civilizations and world. As you progress the game, you will discern more about the game's world.
The game has fantastic colorful graphics, great music scores and solid voice acting. These make Oceanhorn a great mobile game that it stands out strong among the other bland mobile games. The graphics are so eye catching and the wonderful background musics gives the game a unique atmosphere. The voice acting during the cutscenes make you watch it with attention. This also helps in understanding the game's story and make it more enjoyable.
The game itself uses many of Zelda's game mechanics. Attack, charger attack, guard, object pick-ups, bombs, arrows etc. The controls work quite well on touch screen and the game itself being simple and easy to play makes it even more enjoyable. The enemies vary and each has different behavior. Some are just punching bags but can be dangerous when they are in size. Some enemies act more clever and requires tactics to overcome them. At the end of dungeons you will face boss battles and they are very challenging and may take several tries to defeat them. Oceanhorn also follows the dungeon crawling method where you may kill enemies to earn XP and gold (or stock up inventory items). You will also face short puzzles where you have to pull and push boxes to open gates or use bombs to excavate hidden areas or even use magic. Items and magics are acquired as you progress the game. Then you may backtrack to access the hidden parts of the islands and dungeons. After finishing dungeons you will jump on your boat travel the seas to discover new islands with new dungeons and surprises. The boat travelling sections do remind Zelda: The Wind Waker but it is more simpler where the boat automatically travels the location you want and you have to use your pumpkin seed rifle to shoot any hostile creatures and objects. Some islands are just for adventuring and some are towns where you meet new people and access the shop.
The game is quite long and can be even more longer if you try to accomplish everything. Although the game can be quite tedious after backtracking becomes and issue and you may get lost on where to continue the game. The game does not keep a quest log so you have to figure it out yourself. The game can be tiresome when trying to solve puzzles or navigate through hidden doors and paths since it has a fixed camera. Since the game is new, you may also faces bugs and glitches.
In general it is an iOS game you must not miss it. The game is only around 160mb and does not ask you any in-app purchases.