244. Oceanhorn (Cornfox & Bros, Playstation 4, 2015)

As you start up Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas, the very first credit is "Music by Nobuo Uematsu", and honestly, I can't blame them. Oceanhorn is a Finnish-developed game that is heavily inspired by Zelda. When I say heavily inspired, not only do you play as a mute kid on a predestined quest who goes into peoples' houses and breaks their pots, even the gameplay is basically lifted right out of A Link to the Past / Link's Awakening, and the world is reminiscent of Wind Waker's islands.

Unfortunately, while Oceanhorn wears its Zelda influence on its sleeve, it doesn't borrow/steal all the good stuff from Zelda. I'll admit I've never loved the combat in a top down Zelda, but in Oceanhorn it's particularly egregious. Swinging a weapon is extremely floppy and feels like you're slapping the enemies with a garbage bag. There are block pushing puzzles, naturally, but your character pushes the blocks like they were made out of paper. Unlike in a Zelda game, none of your actions feel good to execute.

The world design is very blocky, but the game has full 3D movement, which feels at odds, especially when you can't use the d-pad for movement. The art style isn't terrible but it also pales in comparison to any Zelda. The stamina bar takes forever to refill, but I would hope that it is upgradeable later in the game. 

While the story and world both feel kind of thrown together, Oceanhorn isn't all terrible. The voice acting, while sparse, is also so well done that it threw me off, it's kind of too good for the game. The main compulsion loop involves finding new islands, and the few that I did find came quickly and were decently varied, so I could see fans of the genre getting a small kick out of this, but for me, there are still actual Zelda games I should play first.

3/5, an uninspired but also inoffensive Zelda tribute