Hello, videogamers!
I guess this is the right time for yet another review. We have a saying in Spain which roughly translates as "It becomes a rightful person to be thankful," and since I was recently given a copy of Oaken for free, maybe I can return the favour by tearing the game appart on a public Internet forum.
Oaken is a turn based roguelite with cartoonish art design and such a paper thin plot it puts porn movies to shame. In short: the wild spirits of the Oak Tree lived happily, listening to the eternal Oak Song, an ancient magical music that gives the spirits shape and purpose. When the Song goes silent all of a sudden, spirits start going slowly insane. It is our hero, a spirit known only as The Lady, who must travel all the way down to the base of the Oak to find out what has happened with the Voice that Sang the Song.
Oh, and since half the spirits in the Oak have completely lost their mind, you will have to slash your way through hordes of evil plant-like spirits. It is a bit like a gardening simulator in which the hedges you try to prune try to prune you back, in a sense.
The game is composed of a tutorial and four chapters. Each chapter is also composed of a number of events. Each time you complete an event, you decide on which of the next available events you will face on your way down. Events such as encounters and battles give you things that make you stronger, whereas finding shelters lets you lick your wounds. The end of each chapter is crowned by a badass boss you need to overcome in order to move forward.
Battles occur on hex grids. If you are familiar with Battle for Wesnoth, you may already have an idea of how this works. Fights have a main objective (most of the time you have to burn all opposition down) and a secondary objective. The secondary objective is useful because achieving it grants you resources to upgrade your junk, which is actually the way you win, but more of that later.
Oaken also has a deck building component, in which you slowly raise up a deck composed of allies and spells. During fights, you have 4 cards in your hand, which you can play to summon an ally to aid you, or cast a spell, or a combination thereof. Used cards go back to the deck, but if you use a card twice in the same battle, it gets burnt out. This makes Oaken function like an assets management game in which you really need to consider if achieving a victory on a given turn is worth the resources you are going to spend.
Battles are not difficult but you rarely feel you are in control. The game will keep spawning foes against you and your allies, some of which have special skills. Oaken's bad guys actually have some nasty abilities that turn each encounter into a new strategic puzzle so the game does not get stale too fast.
At its core, what wins or loses a run is your capability of managing your resources and building an army of spirits. Progressing down to the end of a chapter is not hard, but the boss at the end of each won't surrender to your charming smile. You'll need a powerful armory and a solid spirit squad to turn him into firewood, and you will only get that by using your resources for upgrading your units and spells instead of using it for healing yourself adter getting beaten up.
Oaken is a Munchkin's paradise by design. Most skills, gear and spells don't grant you big advantages, but they stack very quickly so you can build crazy combos. Yeah, that skill that makes grass grow under your feet must be a joke. But maybe if you combine it with this other skill that makes it so that you get extra attack when you are on grass, it works better. And if you add this other skill that gives you regeneration when you are on grass, it becomes better. Add enough effects and soon you are a meat grinder. Or, more accurately, a wood chipper. Since allies can also be granted skills and be powered up by spells you can actually munchkin your army almost as hard as a D&D 3.x player.
Music ranges from serviceable to good. Art is what draws many people to this game, and opts for a cute cartoonish style which looks very good. Sadly, the art-in-game is a bit overloaded and it is a bit hard to tell which unit is which at a glance on the board.
In fact, the main drawback this game has is the user interface is too busy. There is so much stuff clogging the screen and sometimes it is a bit difficult to find the information you need quickly. You can get used to it, but geeze, didn't these guys have a quality assurance team or something?
The main quest can be beaten in a single seat, but Oaken is designed to be replayable. The idea is each time you make a run you unlock need stuff and new difficulties, so you can play again and again and again with increasingly cool powers against increasily tougher foes. At some point you unlock a new hero and new Guides, which are spirits you can play on the board who also grant your team skills, spells and cards.
Is Oaken worth it? I would not pay full price for it since in the end of the day you are supposed to play the same game over and over again with slight variations in order to make the most of it, but if you get it at a discount it is quite solid entertainment for a couple of afternoons.
Oaken is available on Steam, Gog and I think Nintendo. As always, I endorse the Gog release because it is DRM free (and also they gave the game away for free to me).
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