Embark on a cinematic platformer adventure in a mysterious world filled with mythical creatures and gruesome adversaries.
Picture a cinematic platformer starring a young protagonist. This small boy has to move through a mysterious and deadly world and bear witness to things no being -- child or not -- should ever see.
It’s a brief journey tainted by darkness and developed by a Scandinavian studio. And while those details describe the 2016 classic ‘Olle’ set within a fantastical world rooted in Scandinavian mythology, players come across cute little gnomes, freaky big trolls, bog fairies, nasty witches, and other types of fictional beings, many of whom have a predilection for bloodshed. Regardless of who crosses his path, Olle, the young protagonist, is almost always on the menu.
Many of the game’s more cinematic platforming bits have him scurrying away from some titanic beast who is trying to swallow Olle in one gulp. They’d be deadly to him as a normal-sized boy, but goes one step further by shrinking said child down to only a few inches. It’s a thoughtful way to ratchet up the tension and make these threats even more scary. Olle desperately clambers over loose, rotting meat infested with maggots.
There’s a burial scene that is particularly heart-wrenching and touches on something most games don’t even attempt to deal with. It uses this darker tone to convey its lessons in a way that doesn’t sanitize them, carrying on the tradition set by titles like ‘Little Witch Academia.
’ While not all of it is explicitly violent -- some parts are more haunting than filled with blood and guts -- even these scenes demonstrate its maturity and how it isn’t dumbing itself down to tell its story just because there are children involved. Olle also contains flashes of joy. Some of the aforementioned gnomes play around with Olle and give him something more gleeful to focus on.
The darkness of the night gives way to the light the sun brings, highlighting how pristine the natural scenery can be when it’s not being perverted by twisted trolls and nefarious witches. It bounces back and forth between oppressive bleakness and serenity, a symbiotic dichotomy where each side benefits the other. The darkest moments mean the brightest ones are more effective.
‘Olle’s tone and presentation are its best components and are able to compensate for its relatively standard gameplay. Players run, jump, climb, and hide, as is the standard for the genre, and do little else of note. Because it is a platformer of the cinematic variety, all of these mechanics are purely functional and not meant to be the core of the experience or that rich in terms of mechanics.
The expertise from those teams is near the apex of the entire industry, so it makes sense how most other games wouldn’t be able to quite hit that benchmark, a reality titles like ‘Olle’ say rich folklore well to convey a dark fable that, despite the age of its pale protagonist, doesn’t handle its subjects with kid gloves. Its original release may have been overshadowed by ‘Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night’ (which came out the following day), obscured by its admittedly unintuitive name, or how it came from a small and unknown studio with no pedigree to tout.
Regardless of the exact reason or reasons, games like this are a great fit for services like PlayStation Plus where they can find a new audience and get some well-deserved recognition
Platformers Cinematic Gaming Scandinavian Mythology Mature Themes Gameplay Mechanics
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