Oxenfree

Damn, what do I even say about this game? I guess I can start by saying this is less so a game and more so a 3rd person walking simulator with a Stranger Things-type mystery narrative. Even though I had my initial gripes with the dialogue coming on too forced or cringe, I think they laid off it by the second half of the story. In Oxenfree you have your staple high school archetypes: The quirky skater girl (Alex), The meathead (Jonas) the quiet one (Nona) the mean girl (Clarissa) and the dork (Ren). High key, I thought this game would do more with these characters because it felt as if they were trying to. For example, there is a reason why Clarissa is mean and we quickly understand why, but the game doesn't provide any opportunity to expand on her character, much less any other character because it feels like 90% of the time, we or these other characters are getting spirited away by the ghosts of dead marines. The game markets itself as a choices matter game--I'm not sure why it's so difficult for games to get this right. Clearly, we're meant to influence character relationships through the dialogue options we choose, but never at any time do you understand how characters truly feel about each other. There's just no way to gauge it. A picture will appear in a thought bubble after you select some dialogue options, but it's not always obvious what exactly that's indicating. Games like The Dark Pictures Anthology/The Quarry/Until Dawn do this right where you can pause the game and look at literal bars about how relationships are changing positively or negatively. By the end of the game, I learned that I made Clarissa hate me, but I don't think the game gave me enough of an opportunity to change that. [spoiler]In fact, I searched for her first instead of going after Ren--why was that not a big relationship buff? She was otherwise possessed and or being fake dead a majority of the time, so when was I supposed to influence this?[/spoiler] The choices matter element felt frustrating to me because so much of the dialogue options felt like they DIDN'T matter. The narrative was interesting. That Ren ask Alex to bring a radio to try and tap into spooky ghost stuff, that was neat. It was also neat that eventually, we got to understand who or what these ghosts were. [Spoiler]At least in my game, they turned out to be the big bad who wanted to possess me and my friends because they don't think it's very fair they died in war, so they want another lease at life.[/spoiler] I thought that was fine, but also I had the feeling that there were some big choices I was supposed to make at the end, like save myself instead of abandoning my friends, for instance, that didn't at all feel in line with the character I made her to be (having not picked any of the mean dialogue options). That meant there was only really one reasonable option for me, which ultimately didn't feel like a choice. I liked the little talks I had with Jonas, the guy who you spend the most time with. It's interesting that you should bring your step-brother to this trip almost immediately after your parents get married, that's definitely a choice, but I liked how they warmed up to each other at the end. Like I was saying, because you don't spend nearly enough time with the other characters, the same can't be said for the rest of them. [spoiler]At one point when Ren and Jonas were pointing fingers at each other for who knows what reason, the game asks you to spend time with either Jonas, Ren, or Nona for just one small trip. I chose Nona because I didn't think I'd otherwise spend ANY time with her in this game. I don't think the chats we had in our time together had any impact on the game whatsoever. I don't think my views of her or her of me were influenced in the slightest as we did our little fetch quest, and this was me CHOOSING to spend time with someone else other than Jonas.[/spoiler] As a result, these characters feel stagnant and remain, for the most part, their surface level archetypes. Some final things to rattle off--I did not enjoy playing marco polo with the radio. It was novel the first few times but quickly got old after having to slowly through every single channel until you hit the correct one for the 20th time. Excruciating work, made worse by the fact that this is really the only game part there was to this "game." I did not enjoy how slow you walk in this game, and how dialogue would often times run on longer than the duration of your walk from A to B, which would then force you to stand in place before moving on to the next area, since doing so would end the current dialogue. I also didn't appreciate the artful but messy layout of the map, where it often wasn't clear which direction you were supposed to go to reach your destination. I wanted to like this game much more than I actually did--maybe because it's dated. Maybe it's because I've played many other games, like the ones mentioned above, including any Tell Tale game and also Detroit: Become Human, that do what this game does but leagues better. I got the feeling that this game was attempting to go for the, "If you could go back in time and change the past, wouldja???" But I don't think that really panned out, and that's the worst. Herein lies my main frustration: By my definition of what a choices matter game should be, you are meant to feel you have some sort of agency and influence as to the outcomes in the game, whether those outcomes are as expected or not is beside the point. I simply do not think a choices matter game in which the player lacks the feeling of agency as a commentary of "one’s lack of control in the real world" is particularly fun--it might as well have been a normal, linear game. In fact, to me, it felt like one. This is an awful combination of ideas and mechanics, and therefore execution. I think games (or shows, or movies) that subvert expectations, while unique, don't always execute them well enough, despite the best of intentions. To sum up my feelings about this whole experience by quoting the game: "I guess that happened." 5/10