'Baldo: The Guardian Owls' Content Update Impressions
With its evident Ghibli-esque aesthetics and classic Zelda-like gameplay, Baldo: The Guardian Owls offered ample reasons to be a game many looked forward to. However, upon its release last August, the general consensus was less than favourable, with the title scoring 59 on Metacritic and 57 on OpenCritic. Given the apparent disappointment, I didn’t look further into the game; that is, until recently when Baldo received a number of free content updates on all platforms and also launched on GOG. I decided to give it a go and will share my impressions here after having spent some time with it.
As a refresher, in Baldo: The Guardian Owls, you play as the titular Baldo who embarks on an adventure across a magical land filled with equal parts mystical creatures and equal parts mysteries waiting to be unravelled.
While the Zelda x Ghibli likeness might be what initially drove most to this game, the numerous bugs and wonky gameplay led to most disappointments at launch. Saves were not frequent, glitches were commonly encountered and the combat felt unfair. These all point to the game being rushed and unpolished. With the high profile titles that Baldo: The Guardian Owls evidently drew inspirations from, expectations were high and it would have been challenging for a development team of 2 to live up to the hype around the title in any case. That said, an unpolished game would be better off being delayed or launched in early access to allow more time for QA than get released as a disappointment.
However, I didn’t play the game at launch and didn’t come across these issues. What I played felt wildly different from the initial state in which Baldo: The Guardian Owls released. The game saves automatically whenever you move into a different room, combat is more balanced while still offering a fair challenge, and no striking glitches are present. Other smaller improvements such as an improved world map and updated dungeon maps make the gameplay more fluid and intuitive.
The inclusion of an assisted mode that can be toggled on-the-fly from the menu also makes the game more accessible by providing more waypoints on the map and refilling your hearts over time. Moreover, the game now also features the free The Three Fairies story update, which adds around 8 more hours of gameplay to the ~30h of the runtime of the main game. You can start the either story at any time, but The Three Fairies feels more introductory with its softer pacing and smaller dungeons, which can help ease you into the game and its universe.
Sure, Baldo: The Guardian Owls doesn’t feel as polished as a Zelda or Ni no Kuni title; even if the maps have been improved, I still came across instances where they weren’t that intuitive for navigation. The plot progression feels rushed or anti-climatic at times and regarding “glitches”, a pesky recurring gripe I’ve had is with the blinking notification whenever Baldo gets a new item or quest information that won't go until I've checked the menu. Sometimes prompts don't show such as for climbing ladders or picking up items but these aren’t too common occurrences.
That said, for an ambitious indie game, it’s not in a bad state at all currently, all things considered. Adventuring across the magical, open-world of The Guardian Owls is charming, especially with the interesting cast of NPCs and well executed animation and original soundtrack that adds to the ambiance. Puzzles that you’ll encounter in dungeons are original and combats offer a fair challenge for regular encounters and boss battles alike.
So if you’ve been thinking of getting into Baldo: The Guardian Owls or stopped playing shortly after launch, it might be worth revisiting this title at this time. With the new updates, it feels like a decent enough title if you’re looking for some old school Zelda puzzle-adventure game with the bonus of having a charming Ghibli-like anime look. I wouldn’t call it a redemption story like No Man’s Sky (yet?) but it's encouraging to see the developers listening to community feedback and updating the game accordingly; and if they keep working on new updates and content for the game (more polishing, new story expansions and voice acting would be welcome), that comparison with No Man's Sky might hold true.
