2D Harpoon Adventure-Olija

I started actually playing my PS5 a lot in the past week and I found myself playing a lot of Enter The Gungeon. I always liked Devolver and the games they publish so I got on my computer and browsed their Steam page for something cheap and somewhat worth it. Thank God there was a Devolver sale going on, and with that I bought this weeks game.

I really was skeptical by the way it looked like complete and utter trash, but it was the cinematic trailer that got me to pay $10.

This week I become a legend that wields a harpoon in attempts to kill the fabled bad guys to get home; this week I played Olija (Oh-Lee-Yah).

Olija is a 2D adventure game developed by Skeleton Crew Studio (LEL) and published by Devolver Digital. Release date was January 2021. It is currently on most platforms and retails for $15.

You are Faraday, a marooned, penniless man who looses his ship, his crew and washes up in a foreign land. In attempts to find a way back to his home, Faraday stumbles upon a mythical harpoon, which awakens the bad men. Faraday has to fight through malnourished natives, a clan that hates pretty much everyone and a few bad guy bosses to find his way back home.

There is some romance thing too, I guess…

Gameplay relies heavily on Faraday’s ability to fight off bad guys, so he can hold a small arsenal of weaponry to do so. He can use his fists but he has the harpoon, a arrow repeater and few other tools for kill those pesky bad guys. Platforming and puzzles are also scattered across each area to keep you on your toes and stop you from getting bored of the combat.

The combat is fun, the harpoon is actually the most fun weapon because it allows the user to teleport to anything that it is lodged into. Combat is fast paced and fun because Faraday can retreat, catch a breath and then jump back into the foray in the blink of an eye. It sucks that the combat only goes as far as what you learned in the beginning of the game, there is no point to explore the combat because what you know will always work.

Enemies don’t really try to make you change the way you play either.

Bosses on the other hand really do force you to play smarter. They hurt more and they are wayyyy more relentless. Took me a couple of tries to beat each boss.

Faraday captains a bunch of castaways and apparently there was a small base building element. You can purchase a sage that provides health upgrades, a conquistador that, upron a small payment of 25 blue dots, he can go get you crafting supplies to make those cool looking HATS.

Hats provides a small boost to your combat skills, nothing great, just a small additive. There is a hat that effectively makes you Raiden, a hat that syphons health from your enemies and one that has feathers that shoot out upon dashing.

Olija is a fun game. It provides a really good atmosphere, an intriguing story and, sometimes, a beautiful looking game. It’s not impressive in any means but it is fun. Upon completing the game, I have come to the conclusion that the game is actually CRIMINALLY SHORT at around three and a half hours for 100% the game.

All-in-all Olija is a game that I really enjoyed. The story it told kept me on for three hours, the combat was good enough that I probably shouldn’t complain about it.

Side note: The loading screens reaminded me a lot from resident evil.