![]() ![]() Aspects from the original game are explored in the sequel, and I feel like the game does a real disservice here, making these aspects less interesting in the process. The rest of the on-screen cast are… okay? I liked Jacob, but he was one of two characters that are supposed to be foils to Riley, but neither remotely had her depth, which was frustrating. Positively, when I think of the game, it's Riley as a character that I look back on the most fondly. Everything felt a bit muddled by the end. That being said, I don't think Riley's arc, and the themes the game wanted to explore in turn, were as well-told as Alex's journey in the first game. I loved that Saydah sounded vocally adjacent to Holly Hunter and Natasha Lyonne, and Riley was an absolute delight to listen to all game because of it. She's fun, engaging, complex, and beautifully voice acted by Elizabeth Saydah. It was interesting contrast going from a teenage protagonist in Alex in Oxenfree to a thirty-something adult in Riley in Oxenfree II. Riley is the primary focus of Oxenfree II, and I was quickly invested in her character and story. I wonder if Oxenfree II is setting up for an Oxenfree III? There are elements Oxenfree II's ending that I liked, whereas others I felt were in active conflict with each other. I also feel like I ended Oxenfree II with more questions then when I started, whereas the original Oxenfree felt satisfyingly self-contained. In the sequel, I found them genuinely irritating. The antagonists in the first game were terrifying, keeping me on edge even during replays. (It felt like it was the embodiment of the "I…worked on this story for a year…and…he just…he tweeted it out" meme, except "I played a full game and he just explained it one scene" instead.) I understand it's a difficult position where a sequel has to balance new and returning players in setting up the mystery of Oxenfree II, but it was handed clumsily – and again, there was no real mystery to replace it. Meanwhile, Oxenfree II exposition dumps the same knowledge on the player in the one scene, without offering any real compelling mystery in turn to watch unfold for the rest of the game. Learning about the first Oxenfree's antagonists was a gripping tale that unfolded over the course of the first game. I also found Oxenfree to be quite a tense game throughout, but while Oxenfree II has some fun jump scares, then tension dropped for me after placing the first transmitter, and then never quite managed to get the same level of tension back. For me, it does a disservice to the original game retroactively. I felt Oxenfree II was at its strongest and most compelling when its focus was on Riley, and at its weakest when it was referencing elements of the original game. ![]() I usually don't pre-order digital releases, but I had such a love for the original that I wanted to relive that experience it in some form again – thematically ironic, I know - but I ultimately find myself conflicted if I ultimately would have been better off just replaying the original. Whilst it was a nice change of pace at the time, I ended up feeling quite mixed about the game. Dude said this is too much, let me just get back to Athena pls.Ī belated post! I finished Oxenfree II two days after its release. I was worried he was gonna volunteer since he'd been talking about wanting to do something important with his life, so it was pretty funny to me that he stayed silent. I didn't like the idea of her avoiding reality and running away to a pretty lie.Įither way though, someone is basically abandoning their real life and all the possibilities that come with time for an eternally stagnant fantasy, so I know it's not the black and white situation I might've made it out to be.Īlso, the only teen there was Olivia, on my play through at least. Plus I hoped Riley might still have a chance to make things better, even if a strained relationship seemed inevitable. He still wants to live that life, all the beauty and ugliness of it, so it felt wrong to take that away from him. ![]() Meanwhile you meet grown Rex, who says he's content with his life and who he is, even if it's not the most impressive life. She was just so obnoxious though lol, and it felt like it would've been cruel to deny her the dream she'd been begging for yet again after working against her the whole game. I can see the argument where it would feel wrong to send Olivia, since she's understandably a mess over losing her parents and probably not mature or emotionally stable enough to make such a major decision. ![]()
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