Oxenfree II: Misplaced Alerts is sort of creepy at instances, utilizing time loops, crackling radio static, and the occasional vengeful interdimensional ghost to maintain you in your toes. Positive, there are moments of levity when the sport’s characters crack jokes or dabble in a bit enjoyable however, like its 2016 predecessor, this dialogue-driven graphic journey sport delights in its unsettling environment. The most effective elements of the expertise are drowned out within the dreadful static of Oxenfree II’s unmemorable companion and aggravating secondary antagonist, however navigating the sport’s rising sense of unease as you slowly uncover clues to a higher thriller is a fascinating and chilling thrill.
Happening 5 years after the unique sport, Oxenfree II has you play as a brand new protagonist: Riley Poverly. Returning to her hometown of Camena–the a part of the mainland closest to the primary Oxenfree’s Edwards Island–Riley is partnered with the city’s resident handyman, Jacob Summers, and tasked to arrange transmission radio towers across the coastal city. The seemingly easy job devolves right into a a lot stranger and extra harmful scenario, nonetheless, as electromagnetic waves take a toll on actuality, opening portals to different timelines. As Riley and Jacob battle to know what’s occurring and sort things, they discover their efforts repeatedly thwarted by a trio of youngsters who’re part of Parentage, a church-like cult within the space, and lingering supernatural specters.
Like its earlier video games, developer Night time College Studio makes use of each a choice- and timing-driven dialogue system, being attentive to not solely what you say however if you say it. Conversations do not pause to offer you an opportunity to determine what to say next–like an precise dialog in actual life, Riley must repeatedly reply to specific curiosity. Throughout conversations, small thought bubbles will seem above Riley’s head as folks discuss to her, supplying you with an opportunity to decide on the way you communicate your thoughts. Wait too lengthy and these dialogue branches ultimately fade away, however communicate up too quickly and you could interrupt somebody simply earlier than they absent-mindedly say one thing that creates a extra compelling path within the dialog. On this approach, saying nothing in any respect is simply as legitimate a alternative as saying one thing.
The principle crux of Oxenfree II is Riley’s walkie-talkie, which permits her to remain in common contact with a number of characters throughout Camena, like a park ranger attempting to know the supernatural stuff that is occurring and a lonely previous fisherman searching for a good friend. It is by this walkie-talkie that a substantial amount of Oxenfree II’s conversations happen, and being strategic in how and if you discuss can drastically alter the relationships that Riley has with these characters and the last word conclusions to their tales.
Forging these relationships with what are primarily simply voices is the strongest component of Oxenfree II. Compelling writing and a proficient voice solid convey these characters to life, and navigating their fledgling friendships by the strain cooker of a single evening of terrifying supernatural exercise will get you deeply invested in each. Riley’s common check-ins and conversations about household together with her supervisor Evelyn are particularly good and really feel more and more poignant to the sport’s themes about priorities and discovering the energy to maneuver ahead in life. (Somebody, someplace wants to offer actors Liz Saydah, aka Riley, and Alaina Wis, aka Evelyn, all of the awards for the way properly they convey their characters to life.)
There’s additionally one thing particularly unnerving about by no means seeing most people that tether Riley to her present actuality, lending additional help to the sport’s themes of isolation. Not offering a face for many of the characters is doubly disquieting relating to the primary antagonists of the sport, ghosts who talk with Riley from one other dimension by splicing collectively their sentences with phrases and phrases from totally different radio broadcasts. Often, they will gnaw on the festering wounds of Riley’s trauma as properly, pulling her into visions of the previous and future in order that she will relive the deterioration of her household life and witness how she pays that generational trauma ahead to future generations. Not often does Oxenfree II go for the soar scare, and the sport is stronger for it, build up the unsettling presence of its villains by not giving them a tangible face or simply understood motivation till the very finish of the sport.
Oxenfree II does an unimaginable job build up the tenuous grasp that Riley has on actuality and her desperation in needing her walkie-talkie each because the one main lifeline to her help community and one of the simplest ways to maintain tabs on the voices who need to kill her. So it is baffling that the sport then undermines that with further allies and antagonists who Riley does get to see and put a face to. Riley is repeatedly accompanied by Jacob, who graciously fills the in any other case lifeless air whereas strolling forwards and backwards throughout the map with dialog. Nevertheless, these conversations are oftentimes boring or, worse, unfunny and cringy. I get the sense that Jacob is supposed to be an ethical indicator for you, along with his habits and characterization evolving in reflection of how he sees you deal with others and him over the course of the sport. However this leaves Jacob feeling extra like a misplaced pet canine than an precise individual, his repeated pleas for Riley to validate his life decisions rising more and more irritating over time. By the two-hour mark, I wished to toss him down a cliff.
Olivia, the chief of the trio of teenagers who function the secondary antagonist, is not as unhealthy as Jacob, although I think that is largely as a result of she solely pops up in short moments within the story. The trio’s tenuous grasp of the multidimensional ghosts haunting Camena additionally offers the terrifying but thrilling alternative for the sport’s villains to enact bodily injury on the world, not simply psychological or emotional. Plus, it is simpler to discern how your decisions are influencing Olivia and her buddies, along with your actions in regard to all three having main ramifications within the sport’s two most climactic moments. Olivia’s presence lends higher emotional weight to your choices, rewarding nonetheless you need to play Riley with tangible results on the route of the story and its total conclusion. That mentioned, Olivia is not all that attention-grabbing of an antagonistic power, particularly compared to the darkish masters she serves, coming off as snobbish, spiteful, and mean-spirited.
Regardless of these shortcomings, Oxenfree II continues to be a very good sport, constructing on how the primary Oxenfree explored somebody coming to phrases with their guilt of their teenage years to now sort out those self same themes from an grownup’s perspective. Riley is fighting how her personal self-loathing and guilt have left her life feeling static, the voice of previous traumas stopping her from transferring ahead throughout a interval when she feels she must. It feels narratively apt that the one approach she’s in a position to take that subsequent step ahead and do what’s finest for her is to actually reduce by the voices inside radio static that is threatening the hometown the place she grew up and most of her trauma began. It is a easy metaphor, but it surely’s efficient and immediately relatable, particularly for anybody feeling a bit caught in life of their early 30s.
The sound design for this sport is completely killer. Video games that purpose for a spooky environment dwell and die by their sound design, and Night time College Studio expertly makes use of barely discernible undertones all through to create the feeling that one thing supernatural is within the air throughout you. I am of the opinion {that a} radio is among the creepiest units you possibly can put right into a thriller or horror sport given the unusual, virtually alien reverberating voices that cascade by the hissing static as you navigate between channels. These sounds populate Oxenfree II from begin to end like a dying voice attempting to claw its approach again into our actuality. It is only a disgrace Jacob retains breaking the strain along with his horrible jokes and unremarkable tangents.
Oxenfree II is a powerful sequel to the unique sport. A selected secondary character and antagonist drag the expertise down a bit however the total storyline is a satisfying foray into an grownup girl’s tenuous grasp on actuality and her final resolution to chop by the static and try for one thing higher with the assistance of the friendships solid while talking over a easy walkie-talkie.
