Tuesday 14 April 2015

Oblitus

Usually I only talk about games after I've beaten them and despite the fact I've not beaten Oblitus it might be a while before I do so here we go.

Oblitus is a game 2D adventure game available on Steam developed by Connor Ullmann.  You play as a short masked dude with a spear tasked to save the world from some kind of great evil.  They story is a little thin on the ground but that's OK as "save the world" is quite frankly good enough for a game like this.

You, as the little guy, have to run, jump, roll and stab your way through a number of different settings in order to reach a boss.  Your ultimate goal (I think) is to kill "The Harbinger" and save the world or something, I dunno.  As you play you gain upgrades and abilities that make your life a little easier but none of these upgrades are over powered enough to ever ruin the challenge of the game.  The big thing is that every time you play the game is a little different.  The level layout and the locations of certain items and enemies will always be constant but what those items or enemies are may change.  For example, an ability scroll will always spawn in the same spot but on one run it will be a high jump and on the next run you might get a health boost or a double stab or something.

One thing that becomes very clear almost straight away is that the game takes a lot of inspiration from Dark Souls.  It plays almost as if someone took Dark Souls and made it considerably shorter in 2D yet ramped up the difficulty to 11.  Oblitus itself is actually that hard but the game features permanent death so every time you mess up a run you have to start from scratch.  Also, the healing that you get from defeated enemies is VERY small so one fight that went slightly wrong can throw up huge blockades for you later on.  The game is quite short but extremely tough and will require a good few runs before you can learn the lay of the land and make some decent progress.  Even with knowledge of the game though, your execution has to be pretty spot on to do well and since I'm a bit of a clumsy bugger the games ending eludes me so far.

The game features some nice graphics and some great music that really set a nice mood.  In general the atmosphere of  the game does a very good job at making you feel small and insignificant in it's world.  The world might not be very big but you are still nothing more than a shitty under equipped gnat trying to kill a deity. 

As for complaints I don't have many but the perma-death thing does kind of piss me off.  Also the fact that there is no save feature for mid-way runs means that I'm not able to play all that much because I fear of not being able to finish due to time.   Finally, it might be because I'm shit but sometimes the hit detection feels a bit iffy.  Like an attack that I'm sure I rolled past connects and takes off a good chunk of my health is frustrating enough to make me want to put my fist through the screen but luckily I enjoy the game enough to not do it and try again.

So yeah, you should try Oblitus, especially so if you are looking for a decent challenge because this game will keep you occupied for a good while.

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