NOT A FINAL REVIEW, NOTES

Good game, not great. Too much unrewarded exploration in the first few islands/hours. Making the game smaller and shorter would have been a better choice. Example : after 1h of gameplay, I feel like I should have already started and completed a dungeon but I still haven't because of the unnecessary amount of (I guess it's optional) exploration. Basically, islands/areas that are bigger than they need to be. Compare the sections of this game to A Link to the Past for example. You'll see what I mean. ALTTP does take 12-18h to complete. But each area can be beaten/explored relatively quickly. Oceanhorn isn't like that because of the size and because the game doesn't let you Dash like you should be able to. Or there's water that slows you down, etc. All of that makes me enjoy the game less and makes we want to stop after 45 minutes even though I'm having fun.

Graphics/art style = great!
Music = very good.
Storytelling = too much too soon and not interesting.

Energy bar = bad game design. Why is the energy bar used for swimming? Slows the game down for no reason. Same thing for when you're on foot. The energy bar gets depleted too quickly.

Good mini-map but no map?

Chests with regular hearts, come on

Unnecessary sailing - also slows down the game. Not as bad as the unnecessarily large islands or areas. Everything could be better by being smaller or faster.

Reset puzzle button = great idea, convenient.

5/10