Oscura: Lost Light

Developer: Chocolate Liberation Front | Publisher: Surprise Attack | Release Date: 2015 | Genre: Indie / Adventure / Platformer | Website: Official Website | Format: Digital Download

We are only guessing here, but we imagine being an ordinary lighthouse keeper is not exactly an exciting job. However, being a lighthouse keeper in the Driftlands, a world under constant threat of encroaching darkness, is a different matter altogether. Oscura, the apprentice lighthouse keeper, is tasked with protecting the Aurora Stone powering the lighthouse but does a rather poor job and ends up destroying it instead. With the stone in shards and spread across the darkest and most dangerous areas of the Driftlands, Oscura must retrieve them before it is too late.

Oscura: Lost Light is actually the third title in the series, but don’t worry if you have never heard of the previous games. Both are on Android, and since this is an origin story, you don’t really need to know the characters or setting to have fun. The story isn’t particularly original either, but this doesn’t matter, as the game’s focus is to deliver a pure platforming experience without getting bogged down in unnecessary details.

Oscura can perform standard and double jumps, but don’t expect to be killing enemies by hopping on their heads. It only takes one hit for Oscura to bite the dust, and levels are filled with cogs, gears, spikes, chains, pits, disintegration beams, and all manner of dangerous monsters. Although you can sometimes use the environment to get rid of monsters by dropping a bunch of boulders on their head, for example, most of the time, avoiding them is the safest policy. As you make your way through the levels, your goal is to collect the light orbs that are scattered about while using your problem-solving and platforming skills to advance. The levels have a great flow, and while less fast-paced than something like Super Meat Boy, you rarely have to stop and think to figure out a puzzle. Instead, everything you need is usually in plain sight or nearby, and you just need to figure out what powers to use to make it all fall into place.

Speaking of powers, the lighthouse accident imbued Oscura with a glowing hand, which allows him to wield four different types of elemental powers. You typically start each level with no power and have to find them to make use of them. However, this is not a Metroidvania title, so don’t expect too much backtracking or exploration.

The abilities at your disposal are time, gravity, construction, and destruction. They are all very straightforward to use, and you can only access two powers at a time. This is useful as you sometimes have to rapidly switch between abilities while performing jumps in order to get past traps and obstacles. The destruction power allows Oscura to break down particular walls, while the construction power is helpful in making platforms. The destructible walls and spots where you can create platforms are clearly marked, so there’s no danger of wandering around aimlessly while trying to figure out where to use your powers. The ability to slow down time comes in handy for sections where you can get crushed by the roof or need to dodge fast-moving objects. In contrast, the ability to reverse gravity allows you to walk on the ceiling or reach spots that would otherwise be inaccessible.

We enjoyed the platforming elements of Oscura, as the game has a nice old-school vibe. There are some very tricky sections, but the abundance of checkpoints (some would say overabundance) ensures that frustration is kept to a minimum. Even the light orbs you collected remain collected if you die, so there is minimal needless repetition. The game features just over twenty levels and completing all of them took us about three hours to accomplish. The timed levels and light orbs that can be collected give the game some replay value, but overall, it is a very linear experience.

Visually, the game uses a nice silhouette art style where all the foreground objects and characters are cast in shadow. It is a style that has been used many times before in games such as Limbo and Knytt Underground, but it still looks good in Oscura. We particularly liked the colorful glowing trail left by Oscuras hand, which also serves as a handy (pun intended) reminder of what elemental power you have ready. The splashes of vivid color work very well with the dark shadows, and while the backgrounds are very basic, there is little time to stand around and gawk at them in any case. We don’t have much to say about the audio, as most of the tunes remain firmly in the background, and nothing really stood out as particularly memorable. It never becomes annoying, though, which is definitely a plus. The default controls are rather tricky to use as they involve holding down buttons to activate your power. Obviously, doing this with the face buttons while also jumping across moving platforms can be a challenge, to say the least. The controls can be customized, though, and as always, a controller is highly recommended.

Although Oscura: Lost Light doesn’t really break any new ground, it remains a thoroughly enjoyable platformer with a very old-school feel. It is challenging without being too frustrating, and, as we mentioned earlier, the levels have a nice flow. If you are not a fan of the genre, there is little here to change your mind, but anyone who enjoys a good platformer will have fun with this game.