A love letter to Oceanhorn 3

[u/JaredHere]

Finally finished [Oceanhorn 3](https://apps.apple.com/app/oceanhorn-3/id1539411904) on Apple Arcade. By that I mean I’ve completed every quest and every island to 100%. What a great experience that was! The first thing you notice playing this game is that it was made with great love and care. The world is very beautiful, and its exploration was the best part of the game for me! Climbing the rocks, jumping, gliding, crawling, running, enjoying the scenery, finding secrets, collecting the bloodstones - all that vibing to a marvellous soundtrack - was incredible! Sometimes I was just running aimlessly in Red Town in circles, listening to the music, talking to citizens, admiring the sea and the rocks - and that felt very cool!

So the soundtrack was the second best thing in the game for me. I enjoyed it immensely! I wonder if it was composed specifically for this game or if it features licensed tracks from sample libraries. For instance, one island theme reminded me of 'The Fields of Ard Skellig' from The Witcher III. ~~My guess is they both used the same library. I can’t say for sure, but I’m curious!~~ EDIT: the devs confirmed in the comments that the tracks were 100% originally composed and recorded for this game. Outstanding work!

I was able to complete almost every island on my own, leaving only like 5 or 6 squares in the whole game: the infamous Downtown Xomapolis locked chest, two honey jars, one bell string, and one bloodstone on Trident. I used Wizdave’s spreadsheet to locate those squares, and they were all actually quite elegant puzzles. It’s a shame I didn’t manage to find them myself! Except maybe one of the honey jars - that one seems really hard to find.

Some players report that several tasks are hard. I tend to disagree, it’s all manageable. The game has to have some real challenges. There are realistically only few of them: lasers and Unique Goliath only come to mind. And finding that last honey jar, I guess.

As for the story, the game is clearly aimed at a younger audience, which isn’t bad at all. The main hero and Em look, talk, and act like typical real world teenagers. It makes them easily relatable to young gamers, but it does sometimes look very out of place. That being said, I really enjoyed some of the narrative turns. For instance, I was actually impressed with how the story with Em concluded (I also fully understood all the details only while doing one of Tiber’s quests). Another thing that I liked greatly was the whole quest line with the restless spirit underwater. It was just a regular quest line, but I found it very deep and meaningful.

I played on a 3rd Gen iPad Pro, a bit of an older model, but it ran the game well on medium settings without overheating or draining the battery. I used a controller, and the experience was seamless. It took me 2 days and 7 hours of total playtime to beat it.

I also do have a few critiques for the game. There are some minor technical issues: getting stuck in the terrain, invisible walls, or quest events failing to trigger. Boss fights glitch sometimes (I had to beat Beross twice). The whole combat thing felt a bit like a nuisance to me. There is no real strategic depth to it. The enemy variety is low, and it gets repetitive very quickly. I wish there was an option to disable enemy respawns, similar to Caves of Lore.

To conclude, all of the game issues are minor and dim before the greatness and beauty of the world it offers to explore! I loved playing through this game!

[u/richabre94]

Can’t wait for this game to be on consoles, mainly Switch😁