Owlboy

2018 | D-Pad Studio | Switch

There is something truly wonderful, almost mystical, about the passion behind certain indie projects; stories of small developer teams trying to do everything in their power to deliver a laser focused interactable culmination of their collective visions. Between the Hollow Knights, Undertales and Signalis’ of yore, there is a story about a little owl and his friends in the form of Owlboy. With the recent 10 year anniversary of D-Pad Studio I felt it was a good reason to finally sit down with this game that has been on my ‘to play’ list since its initial release in 2016 for PC. In 2018 Owlboy released on consoles as a physical version, and frankly, who am I to say no to that. It is a long time passion project of a few dedicated individuals, whom through nearly a decade of development, managed to create one of the most visually stunning and narratively satisfying entries in the Metroidvania genre. It emphasizes freedom of exploration and a narrow cone aimed directly at a wonderful cast of characters, as they face insurmountable odds and the possible end of the world.

What initially started as an idea based off a few neat character designs, eventually ended up telling the story of a world whose shattered lands now float in the sky. Societies formed around clusters of islands and civilization eventually formed around a sky haven by the name of Advent. In one of the outer villages we find our protagonist, Otus. He is a mute owl who serves as part of an organization of owls that guard the rest of humanity against pirate threats. Under the watchful and scornful eyes of his teacher Asio, Otus is being trained as a protector of the Vellie, a task for which the confidence lacking, young owl seems rather ill suited.
After oversleeping, Otus is pulled out of bed by Asio and is tasked with patrolling the village, as pirates have been spotted in the area. Teaming up with his chipper and hyper supportive best friend, Geddy, the two start patrolling the village of Vellie. This part serves as an introduction to your main two mechanics of the game; flying and gunners. Most of the game is designed in a vertical manner, allowing you to freely explore the area by using your owl cape as wings to fly around. It’s an incredibly liberating feeling to not be restricted to platforms to stand on. It’s a sensation of adventure that reminded me a lot of my first playthrough of Link Between Worlds, which allowed Link to turn into a painting on a wall and traverse the world as 2D as you can get. Flying around as a main mode of transportation allows the game to introduce some unique environments to explore and challenges to overcome. The other mechanic, the gunners, is basically Otus carrying his friends around while you control where they can shoot.
The threat of pirates soon becomes more tangible as the duo sees a shadow dart into a cave nearby. Following after the shadow they find themselves in the game’s first dungeon, the remains of a structure from an ancient owl civilization. At the end of the dungeon, we fight the first boss; an angry hermit crab lizard with wings. After beating this boss the pair finds an ancient owl relic, before being strung up by the pirate they’ve been chasing. Escaping from the web we are rewarded with a device that was part of the relic that allows Geddy, and later the rest of the gang, to teleport to Otus‘ side at the press of a button. Honestly, this is a neat way to bring a very video game mechanic into the video game world. Geddy getting all giddy about the possibilities of being able to teleport to his best friend with the press of a button is just the wholesome cherry on top.

The threat of pirates is no longer a threat, but a grim reality as the duo emerges from the ruins to find the town of Vellie overrun. After sneaking through they get tasked with hightailing it to the Owl Temple to turn off some kind of device, which will cause the islands to collapse on the pirate fleet before they reach Advent. However, after making it to the control tower and facing off against a mechanical beast with a frog tongue, they find the machinery deteriorated and in a state of disrepair. As it turns out, the islands weren’t floating apart because of this mechanism, so there must be some other thing that causes this to happen. The way that Owlboy manages to create tension through natural feeling narrative progression, while instilling some questions as potential story threads, is something that I really came to appreciate. There is a web being woven all around the player, and it’s up to you to find the answers before you become a fly trapped in this interwoven tale of ancient civilizations and mechanical pirates. It plants the seeds for later revelations in the story without losing focus on the current narrative beat.

With the news of the Owl Temple’s defective machinery, Otus and Geddy make a beeline for Advent only to find the main city under a devastating assault from the pirate fleet. Up until this point you’ll have encountered some of the henchman, and one, Alphonse, even defected to your side, but Molstrom feels like a powerful villain. During the assault, the goal of Molstrom and his goons is revealed and using one of the relics that he stole from Vellie, the pirate leader absolutely annihilates Advent. This leads to a brutal defeat of the heroes as they retreat back to Vellie for refuge. It’s weirdly refreshing to see a game not only circumvent common expectations, but also deal such a sudden and devastating blow to the good guys. On top of that we also get time to interact with the townsfolk and have a particularly touching scene with Geddy in the wake of this event. It also gives the experience that the gunners that join the party throughout the game are so much more than simple tools to take down enemies with.

*The excitement of pushing a button on an ancient device*

One of the strongest aspects of Owlboy is the way that the gunners are included into the narrative. While Otus isn’t the most brave or strong, he is an owl at heart. He stops at nothing to do the right thing and protect the ones he cares about, however, the rest of the cast gets to shine as the ‘missing’ facets of his personality. Geddy serves as not just his best friend, but also as a very important hype man that manages to pick Otus off the ground on many occasions. Alphonse presents himself as a more rational type, always having a plan ready, and he makes great use of the information he has on the pirates. Twig on the other hand has a certain false bravado to him that gives him a very uncompromising approach to sometimes dangerous situations. Throughout the game each character fills a specific blank within Otus from which he can learn and grow. In the inverse of that, the others find great faith in the brave acts of the little owl. Otus might grow throughout the story, but he doesn’t change entirely as a character. He’ll still show visible terror or distress near the end of the adventure. Within the story itself Otus will always be stronger with his friends and his friends will always be more complete with Otus. The way that a lot of the characteristics are conveyed wouldn’t be possible for the absolutely stellar work that Simon did to bring these characters to life. With just a few pixels, he managed to create a wide range of emotions on each and every character in the game. It creates a lot more nuance to the story and every conversation in the game.

While the story and characters are the definite spotlight within Owlboy, the gameplay takes the classic feel of metroidvania styled world exploration, and somewhat flips it on its head. It uses the genre as a blueprint, having blocked passageways that require specific weapons to open etc., but utilizes the flying mechanics and gunners in a rather refreshing way. Otus isn’t really capable of dealing damage to enemies, outside of a spinning attack that dazes smaller ones, so he needs the help of Geddy and the rest of the gang to mow down whatever is in his path. The relic mentioned earlier allows you to pick up your friends at the press of a button and you can swap between them with the shoulder buttons. This ensures that you always have someone to carry around. Geddy has a gun that can shoot enemies from far away, Alphonse has a shotgun that doubles as a flamethrower and Twig singlehandedly warps the fabric of reality to his whim by allowing you to snag enemies in webs and leash yourself to pretty much anywhere. Twig’s webs also prevent you from getting hit during any of the leash animations, which is a nice bonus. Each character is used in different ways to accomplish different goals and a lot of the bosses are build around this idea. These boss fights function more as high stakes puzzles than actual damage puzzles. Some bosses will be relatively straightforward, like having to shoot a weak spot, but most are more complex. For example, the first major fight you have to use your spin to knock a shell away to expose the weak spot, another has you luring an enemy into hitting a specific piece of rock to cause it to fall down. It breaks the monotony of constantly having to dodge projectiles and just do enough damage so the boss goes down. This also extends to minor enemies, like having to spin to knock an enemy off its webbing into the other enemies behind it. Owlboy constantly challenges you to utilize all the mechanics you’re given in such fun ways. The game takes it to heart that, if you haven’t been able to do something, you haven’t tried all the tools at your disposal yet.
Throughout the game you also collect coins that you can exchange for upgrades at the shop. These range from silly hats, more health, to a devastating cannon blast for Alphonse, delivered to you by some of the funniest gags the game has to offer. It’s a nice reward for exploring the world and finding hidden treasure. Should you find all the shop assistants you unlock a mini-game that was the source of many hours wasted on getting shot out of cannons.

Owlboy is a bright and refreshing game to play. The way dialogue flows and how characters interact feels like a reminder of why I enjoyed games like Eastward so much. It’s not afraid to pull any punches to constantly remind the player of the insurmountable odds that the gang is up against, and through their hardship you can see the character growth in very natural ways. Molstrom is a tangibly frightening villain that feels like an active volcano looming over the player and the party, which is constantly affirmed through his devastating acts. As a result the finale feels like a nail biting scene to watch unfold. The game never shies away from painting the reality that Otus, despite his incredible bravery, is still a small boy, which leaves him brutalized in the finale.
The worldbuilding in Owlboy is fantastic, it does that thing where it drip feeds you bits of lore about ancient civilizations and terrifying weapons, and then paints the rest of the picture through backgrounds and world interaction. It compliments the themes of exploration and freedom incredibly well, and it feels rewarding to peel back small layers at a time, rather than getting constant streams of information dumped on us. I’m a big fan of this style of worldbuilding and character writing. It makes the world I’m interacting with feel alive with history and makes me care about the characters I talk to. I frequently caught myself calling on of the gunners to Otus‘ side just to have them as company. I simply enjoyed having them around. All of this is backed up beautifully by the fantastic artwork done by Simon Andersen and wonderfully complimented by the musical scores of Jonathan Geer. The main theme has been stuck in my head for well over a month now and I don’t think it’s going away any time soon. Owlboy is a beautiful game to explore that oozes the passion and drive that D-Pad Studios poured into it. Over the long course of its development it ended up becoming a vibrant gem that feels like you’re experiencing the journey of the dev team alongside them.
I deeply enjoyed it and if you’re a fan of good storytelling, great character writing and having the main theme play in your head during every silent moment of the day, then Owlboy is a must play!