Leave. teeth. Possible.
In 2016, Night School Studio released their debut title, Oxenfree. This is his horror thriller about a group of teenagers heading by ferry to a nearby island to spend a night of debauchery. Things go from bad to worse when they use a radio to accidentally tear open a portal to a mass of ghosts, disrupting the whole temporary prank. This is one of my all-time favorite games of his, a masterclass in sound design and atmosphere with how to handle dialogue in a way that sounds natural and flows well. Well, to my surprise, more than seven years later, a sequel has arrived. The announcement of Oxenfree II: Lost Signals filled me with both excitement and trepidation, as it had such a huge challenge to keep up with its predecessor. Fortunately, that worry is no longer necessary.
In Oxenfree II, players take on the role of a contractor named Riley Povally, who must investigate a strange signal interfering with air traffic radios over Kamena, a coastal town across from Edwards Island in the first game. I took on the task of setting up a radio transceiver for Joining her is another contractor, Jacob Summers. He is a repairman and aspiring artist who lives near the town’s main square. When the two set up their first walkie-talkie, they suddenly noticed a large triangular portal high above the distant Edwards Island, and a beam of energy was fired into it from the walkie-talkie. From there, the two are plunged into a series of ghosts and time loops, possibly related to the research of the late Maggie Adler, an old lady who once called Edwards Island home. Riley and Jacob learn that three more walkie-talkies need to be installed in certain areas of the area, and three teenagers who are associated with a local cult intentionally for some inexplicable reason. The Ghost also begins learning about a conspiracy supposedly trying to open his portal. .
Oxenfrey II’s biggest draw is its plot and characters, and Riley and Jacob both definitely deliver on that. I enjoy Alex and his friends, the main characters in the original game, but their teenage status made it hard for me, 24, to fully sympathize with them. . Riley, on the other hand, is just like me. He’s in his 30s, tired, and desperately trying to scrape everything he can. Her story and background really come across and make her incredibly relatable, while her dialogue makes Jacob’s awkward conversation starters and seemingly random facts work. . Dialogue generally flows very naturally, and dialogue options not only give you more time to make choices than in the original game, but also seamlessly line-by-line in a way that feels like a real conversation between two people. flows. The biggest improvement in how the game handles interaction compared to the first game is how dialogue handles loading screens. In the original Oxenfrey, ongoing conversations abruptly ended when you left the area, so if you wanted to hear everything, you usually had to sit down and wait until the conversation was over. In Lost Signals, if someone enters the loading-her zone while they are talking, that person ends the conversation above the loading screen. Loading into a new area brings the dialogue back exactly where it came from, including whether or not it was the moment Riley was able to select dialogue options. This is a small change, but much appreciated.
Like its predecessor, Oxenfree II is a great example of sound design and atmosphere. The music is eerie and atmospheric, and the ghosts of Edwards Island speaking through snippets of radio broadcasts remain as eerie and cool as they were in 2016. The gameplay is overall the same as the first game, but with three big additions. For starters, Riley has a walkie-talkie that she can pull out during the game, complete with different channels representing different characters she can check in with as the story progresses, including amateur sailor Nick and her professional contact Evelyn. Each of these characters adds extra life to the town of Kamena, and their side stories help flesh out the events that take place around it. The second is the introduction of a tear in time that leads Riley and Jacob into the past to find a way around obstacles in the present. Finally, instead of the twisty mini-game of its predecessor, Lost Signals includes a mini-game where you have to turn a dial to match his 3D wireframe shape to the on-screen outline. I personally found this to be the least interesting addition as it was not very intuitive and felt like I was just fumbling around until I happened to figure it out.
After all, if you liked the original Oxenfree, you’ll probably enjoy Oxenfree II as well. The game ran smoothly for most of its run time, but it’s worth noting that I ran into a few minor bugs. Most notably, a dialogue bubble remained on-screen when Riley’s radio was taken out while another cutscene was occurring. These didn’t matter, but what didn’t matter was the fact that the game just crashed him once. Luckily, the game always autosaves, so I didn’t lose any progress, but it’s still frustrating when crashes occur. But getting past them, this second entry of his into the story of Edwards Island proved to be worth it. The world is dark and mysterious, the voice actors all do their part, and if anyone’s played the original game, he’s probably happy with at least one of the possible endings the game offers. will walk away I know I was.