Oscura Lost Light
Oscura Lost Light is a lot of fun, but boy, do I not feel sorry for anyone in this story.
So, here’s the breakdown of the story elements in Oscura. There is a wise old man (he’s not very wise, but I’ll get to that in a second) who is getting too old to continue to keep watch over a magic light tower. Because of this he calls upon a young member of his race to take up his mantle and protect the lighthouse, a lighthouse mind you, that serves as the only light for the people of this world -Kind of an important task.
The old man tells some punk kid to watch over the only thing keeping them alive and then apparently bails to go play shuffleboard on a seniors only cruise. But before he does, he tells this randomly selected kid not to touch the light at the top of the tower lest ye face total doom! Lo and behold this kid gets bored of just sitting around and does the one damn thing he was told not to do.
Grandpa then proceeds to get pissed, because who would have guessed that a kid would go and do something he was told not to do, thus placing the entire world in danger. With the light shattered into pieces and flung across the land, it’s up to this kid (not say, an army of people) to go and get the shards back to relight the lighthouse. Oh, and because the light is out the darkness is now creeping into the land and taking over.
It should also be noted that a former apprentice of super qualified wise old man is leading this army of darkness (nailed it!) which only confirms to me that wise old man is in fact a terrible teacher and is a crap judge of character. Twenty years ago I would not have thought twice about this silly story, but I had thought we had moved slightly away from the story telling elements of 1991. Sure, none of this reduces the fun factor of the game, but it did make me do a double take wondering if the game was just messing with me.
Now you might be thinking that I’m going to crap all over this game after reading the last few paragraphs, but you’d be wrong as I really enjoyed Oscura. The game goes for a very LIMBO vibe, if you know that game, but mechanically differs with how you play. It’s like somebody wanted the dark and ominous nature of LIMBO, but wanted the gameplay to feel more Mario Brothers in tone and mechanics. I know that may sound weird, and it kind of is, but Oscura pulls it off with gusto.
The gameplay is what really shines in Oscura. It takes the very best elements that have graced some of the most revered indie games of the last several years and crafts an incredibly fun experience. Each crystal shard that you collect throughout your adventure will allow you to manipulate your surroundings in a certain way. A green crystal shard can phase in platforms for a short period of time that you can use to reach new areas, or use to block certain enemies and hazards. A red crystal comes in handy to break blow up breakable walls as your character can’t do any attacking. You’ll also pick up a blue crystal that slows down time (or speeds you up?), but my favorite crystal of all is the yellow crystal that manipulates gravity for brief spurts of time. What’s even cooler is that these crystals won’t always effect the entire screen, rather some will have a limited range that can be used to manipulate objects at different times.
PC
“Oscura Lost Light is a lot of fun, but boy, do I not feel sorry for anyone in this story.”