Incredibly smooth and snappy combat, the story and world is moody and atmospheric; it was a joy to play the whole way through, my only gripe is that despite being such an exploratory game a good chunk of the collectibles are miss-able. I respect its emphasis on story but I'd love to be able to just return to the game at any time just to wander around the different areas without having to start a new game. Even just reverting your save to before the final sequence rather than wiping it outright would be preferable.

Side note: I saw in a 100% speedrun in which seemingly after collecting all of the ship-in-a-bottles a new section is added to the main menu, a box with a ship on it. I've been thus far unable to identify what this is. Can anyone tell me before I ultimately do a 100% replay?

Olija foi um jogo que eu joguei a demo na Steam e peguei o final de semana para zerar antes de sair do GamePass
A começar pela gameplay que é bem gostosa, a exploração é bacana e o combate é divertido
Uma história confusa que tu tenta resumir a homem branco destruindo tudo para retornar para seu reino e pisa em culturas por pura ganância, transa com uma rainha e ainda mata uma entidade
A arte é curiosa e impressiona como não limitou um segundo as animações
Mas, o resto é bem raso, nada de memorável, os chapéus é bem fodase, melhorar a vida não ajuda, os coletáveis não te dão nada a não ser conquistas e quase no final ele fica meio repetitivo mesmo te dando a espada (o que não chega a ser muito um problema já que acaba no mesmo momento)
Devo dizer que me pegou o fato de não poder continuar para fazer 100%, é arriscado mas acho válido depois de ascender, você só joga se começar outro save

[Reposting my old reviews from another site for archive, and updating them if needed]

This game has been quite the rollercoaster ride for me. Leading up to its launch, I wasn't very interested in playing it because there's nothing that struck me as being something special. I pretty much ignored this game until I checked out one of the story trailers near its release out of curiosity. The trailer I saw had showed some phenomenal minimalist animations that served a love story arc that I didn't expect at all, and because of that I decided to try this game out. Now, I'm happy to say that I love this game. It's consistently fun and engaging to play, and there's some lovely story moments sprinkled throughout.

I'll get the story out of the way first. The main character is a ship captain that got stranded in a unfamiliar land after a storm hit his ship and wrecked everything, and he need to find a way to return home with his fellow castaways. The game leaves a lot to the imagination, since most of the dialogues are pretty vague, little is explained, and it's the main way of building its world and setting. The thing that impressed me the most is how well the game conveys emotion and detail in many of its story scenes (mostly through the animations), while being constricted by its simplistic nature and art style. It also uses interactivity to great effect at certain points. There's a very intimate interactive moment between the main character and his lover at the very end of the game that actually made me shed a tear.

This game is essentially a semi-linear action platforming game that takes a lot of cues from 2D games of recent years. It channels that metroidvania-esque feel of discovering new areas and solving obstacles along the way, while staying true to its simplistic nature. Each of the main areas in the game has a dungeon that you need to go through in order to get keys that'll unlock the next set of areas. Every once in a while there are boss encounters after each dungeon, while other times there are only puzzles.

The levels themselves are quite varied in terms of aesthetics, from dark caves full of mindless slaves to beautiful yet not-so-peaceful forests. The levels are designed around your trusty harpoon's ability, which allows you to teleport to wherever the harpoon is thrown. The best thing about the level design is that it strikes the balance of being not too stressful and confusing, but also not too straightforward which would make it feel boring. Maybe the only criticism I have about it is that the levels doesn't feel so different compared to each other in gameplay, outside of the visual aesthetics.

Speaking of using the harpoon, the combat in this game is quite fun. The impact of hitting the enemies feels satisfying, and you'll often see their bodies explode with surprisingly gruesome detail as you smack them against a wall, which adds a lot to that satisfaction. The combat really shines during the boss battles, especially the later ones. I was quite impressed by how frantic and intense some of the bosses are, and most of them have really cool visual designs.

There's also hats that provides unique abilities, such as allowing the harpoon to accumulate lightning energy. The hats are only obtainable through crafting, and the resources you need are scattered in the main areas, with some resources only appearing later on. Some of the hats are certainly more useful than others, but at the very least they're fun to try out at least once. I do wish that obtaining these hats doesn't feel so random, it can feel like you just got these resources accidentally while exploring.

The difficulty of the game is a bit on the easy side (I think I only died three times), but the game never got boring, mostly because of how well it keeps you in check by putting all sorts of hazards and situations that'll eat my health away if you get careless.

While it's not the most unique game out there, Olija makes the most out of its minimalist approach and it even punches above its weight in some aspects. It's not a long game, and I expect people to take issue with that, but I had a great and satisfying time with it.

Olija is the story of a guy who ended up on some islands and has to get back to his home. Truth be told, I had no clue what the story really was, but I thought it was well told, especially with the pixel graphics. 2D pixel platformers are my favourite genre, and this game is all that. Really enjoyed the movement, especially when the Harpoon is introduced. I enjoyed swapping between the various weapons, and the bosses were all very enjoyable, if not very simple. I do wish the game let you explore after you beat the final boss though, as I was 2 music boxes away from getting them all and I do not want to replay the game all over again.

Overall, Olija is a game that I enjoyed a lot. Not for the story, but for the excellent platforming, decent combat, and great music. Might be biased though, as I love this genre of game.

Olija sabe criar uma atmosfera e transmitir sentimentos com muito pouco. A Pixelart é minimalista, linda e expressiva. E é justamente esse minimalismo que abre espaço para que o jogador preencha com a imaginação, os poucos pixels na tela.

O sentimento de exploração que o jogo passa é bem verdadeiro, não que o jogo dependa muito da exploração do jogador, mas o sentimento de estar numa cultura nova, em um local desconhecido e a curiosidade é genuína.

O combate é fluido, a trilha sonora é incrível e a história é uma delícia de acompanhar. Tudo muito simples.

Pra mim, o jogo poderia ter se arriscado mais em introduzir coisas novas, pois quando o faz, faz muito bem. Porém o maior erro do jogo é em torno da experiência de usuário. Por exemplo, entrei em um boss com a vida baixa, morri repetidas vezes e busquei alguma forma de voltar meu save para um momento anterior à sala do boss, mas não tem como. A única forma de voltar seria reiniciar todo o jogo. POR SORTE, Olija não é extremamente difícil, então consegui matar o boss com muitas tentativas, mas fiquei um pouco decepcionado com quanto o jogo é pobre em acessibilidade e design de experiência.

A neat and compact pixel adventure. I loved the music and sound design despite them clashing a little with the otherwise retro style visuals. Progression was swift and I respect a game that doesn't stretch its playing time unnecessarily.

My big downer however was the combat. I've read that a lot of people really liked the gameplay mechanics and the combat and everything and while I think that there were some cool ideas in there the overall gameplay feel was sluggish and not very satisfying in my opinion. The game invites you to try a fast paced combat but fails to keep up with itself. Also there were too many secondary weapons. I never used - nor did I feel the need to use - any of them besides the one that was actually required to solve some of the puzzles.

very fluid and engaging movement + combat
a bit simple, but fitting with the length
wonderful art style with very elegant designs
and a great kind of pixelated grain/dust & scratches effects

i kept wondering why the guy used that font though instead of a nice pixelated one? it kind of undermined the aesthetic to me.

overall a great & short experience, perfect for a game pass game

The whole presentation part of the game is quite good, from the fitting 8-bit graphics to the excellent animations, but it never delivers upon its promises in anything besides that.

Even though i thought the combat was pretty easy, i’ve never felt like i really “got good” at it, it was satisfactory to play but never evolves upon itself.

This lack of “evolving” (progression if you will) is felt in nearly every part of the game, such as the bland health system, “basebuilding”, which straight up disappears after the first quarter of the game, and even the story, which, even though presented in a way which i enjoy and thought would grab my attention, never did

It is a fairly short game, and as such (adding to the fact i played it via gamepass) wasn’t a complete waste of time, so if you’re interested, you should give it a try.

SILVER PLUS MEDAL
-------------------------------
5 star - diamond medal
4.5 star - platinum medal
4 star - gold medal
3.5 star - silver medal+
3 star - silver medal
2.5 star - bronze medal+
2 star - bronze medal
1.5 star - respect medal+
1 star - respect medal
0.5 star - broken medal

Not a fan of this one. My playthrough of this was forgettable and uninteresting. I'd say there's plenty here that's competently made, by that doesn't mean much when none of it vibes with me.

I'm apathetic to the tone and atmosphere of this game. There was nothing of value for me narratively {The Olija interactions felt especially pointless}.

The gameplay's the strongest part... and it's fine. This does a great job of making you feel powerful, but the fights lack depth and meaningful challenge. You just pretty much use your arsenal and go to town on enemies. Sometimes the enemies will join the festivities and be a bit choatic but never in a way that's actually interesting. Your combos can be satisfying, but it's an empty satisfaction made just out of game feel not mastery. When I first started moving around in this game, I took a liking to the leap that requires you to jump on landing, but that didn't end up being a notable form of movement

In fact, the main form of movement with the harpoon is pretty cool. Probably the most interesting part of the game, I'd rather play a game that went all in with the way that makes you move and fight {like the way dandara is designed around it's directional leaps between surfaces}. The harpoon here is definetly underutilized potential.

There's a boss fight where you chase someone through a tower which is almost cool and the final boss feels like what should have been the starting point for how you incorporate teleportation into combat. Unfortuantely the final boss also just sucks. It feels pretty unfair, {it's pretty easy to get hit by explosvies you didn't even see), it's boring,long and repetetive. I don't have the lifespan to grind out stuff like this, so I dropped this game at the final boss and looked up the ending.

The game's almost on to something once you have two different weapons that are capable of teleportation. It's neat to give yourself a get out of jail free in combat or use that aggresively {although this game doesn't truly give me the feeling of going "nothing personel kiddo"} . All the puzzles and environmental traversal in this game feels like the bare minimum starting exploration of these mechanics and never that signature progression on an idea that a game designer's supposed to show me. It's really cool that you can instantly teleport between screens, i wish the game used that mechanic {and didn't randomly remove a teleport weapon that you purposefully left a few screens behind} ! The way other screens are still loaded while you're fighting in one is super cool and feels like an incredibly underutilzed aspect of the game

The health system sucks. Mostly because you don't have any means of healing (unless you wear a a certain hat) aside from enviornmental pickups/rest spots. The real cursed part is that the game saves your health at every checkpoint, if you die you respawn with exactly that much health. Try not to have the audacity to make it to a checkpoint at low health or you'll be locked into fighting the next room with only a sliver of health.

It's satisfying to build up the town, but there's no significant progression system you engage with. Also the town and boat rides between areas likes to waste a bit of your time. For how much this game likes to do moody and vague cutscenes some of the gameplay popups can feel jarring.

Completed with 100% of trophies earned. A well-built action-platformer with satisfying, impactful combat and traversal built around an unusual teleport mechanic conferred by a magical harpoon, I had a good time with Olija but despite a plot with quite emotive themes, ultimately it doesn't feel likely to be all that memorable. That said, there's some strong level design here, with smart use of verticality and hidden collectible encouraging and rewarding exploration, albeit the game's habit of locking off areas after a single visit makes reliance on a guide somewhat necessary to have much hope of finding them all. Even now, several months after relief, it seems that the community collectively has only managed to find around 80% of one particularly well-hidden collectible set! Graphics here take a heavily pixelated style, effective as far as it goes but a little too blocky for my liking; music, however, is a high point of Olija, consistently providing a perfect atmospheric feeling to each area.

Me siento muy mal de decirlo, porque sé que fue hecho por humanos que se esforzaron, pero este lo he abandonado porque no ha podido interesarme en ningún aspecto. Mecánicamente es muy básico y ramplón, visualmente me parece insipido y sin personalidad (el poster es hermoso, eso sí), y narrativamente comienza con unos vibes positivos, un poco «Another World», pero pronto se derrumba en la nada, cree que no decir ni explicar nada lo hace misterioso. Estoy seguro que en otros casos puede ser cierto. Pero aquí sólo es nada.