Game Cover

Old shadows… old… shadows… they bring the Harpoon in the hands of a stranger.

Platform played on: PC

# Review

Olija is an indie platformer that follows Faraday, a lord of a fishing village in decline. Faraday sets sail with his crew in order to seek salvation for his village but finds himself shipwrecked in a mysterious archipelago of Terraphage. Faraday must muster his crew and return home.

The core game is a 2D platformer with 8-bit graphics. There are various enemies and puzzles. The combat is pretty varied as Faraday gains new weapons and abilities, opening new depth to the game. The puzzles are fairly straightforward and require both logic and dexterity to accomplish.

Faraday fighting enemies

My favourite aspect of the game is the soundtrack, which heavily uses Asian influences, such as incorporating shakuhachi music. The atmosphere is also very poetic for an 8-bit game. The downfall for me is the controls for dashing, which can oftentimes be hard to manage. I played with the mouse and keyboard, and it was very difficult to aim the harpoon in the desired direction consistently. The game also had a glitch with a certain scripted fight scene which I had to replay several times to get it to progress.

# Conclusion

An atmospheric 8-bit platformer.

# Overall rating: 7.3

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