Developed by Finnish indie studio Cornfox and Bros., Oceanhorn drifts you into a colorful ocean world in search of three sacred emblems to discover the truth behind the Oceanhorn and why your father disappeared.
Aesthetically, there has been quite a visual improvement over its iOS counterpart as would be expected in porting to consoles (or indeed PC). Lighting and other effects work nicely to enhance the simplistic visuals and overall gives off an eerily reminiscent look to the likes of The Legend of Zelda Wind Waker. But that sets the tone for what Oceanhorn is, a heavily and unapologetically Zelda inspired game.​

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That inspiration carries most heavily into the gameplay formula, ranging from collecting four heart pieces to increase maximum health, to similar dungeon mechanics, or even overzealously wreaking havoc on innocent item-containing pottery.
Not to say it doesn’t have its own twists, the most notable of which is “Adventure Level”, which is increased with “Explorer Crystals” obtainable from chests, enemies and completing challenges. Each island you come across has three challenges, however, if you complete one on a different island you’ll still be rewarded. Raising your “Adventure Level” will increase the carry size of consumables, and decreases stamina and mana use. Early on, it upgrades ocean travel between islands into a rail shooter, which, while not very deep nor difficult, helps ease the monotony of frequent travel.​

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For land combat, using your sword for harder enemies tends to be more trouble than it’s worth, as they block your strikes when they attack. The expectation seems to be to block with the shield (which eats through your stamina super quickly) however, as your ranged weapons and magic cannot be guarded against, they easily (with bosses as exceptions) overshadow your swordplay. Speaking of the shield, it aligns towards the closest enemy, yet puzzlingly often reflects projectiles at an angle, though walking in the direction of an enemy as the projectile hits seems to help. Stamina is drained when blocking attacks, running, swimming and jumping. While there’s something amusing about running straight into an ocean only to instantly drown, slow recovery speed ends up being an arbitrary limit to movement and breaks the flow of gameplay.
Puzzles for the most part are intuitive and leave a sense of satisfaction, but there’s a few that are very counter-intuitive. One such puzzle requires you to drop a boulder atop a lever switch, another has you walk across a gap that on sight would seem impossible.​

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