Oblitus
Oblitus Review
Fear the Spear
By Brendan Graeber
Posted: 28 Feb 2015 1:21 am
A voice speaks to me from beyond: "A new Harbinger awakens. Find me beneath the trees." I've heard this voice and its message before, and I know I'll be hearing it countless more times. With no saves or checkpoints, such is your often short-lived existence in the bleak and somber 2D action platformer world of Oblitus. How you decide to live that life makes up some of its best moments, while the manner in which you die often highlights its weaknesses.
Oblitus Screens
Finding the speaker, Mudd, wherever he has randomly decided to spawn will mean defeating a towering and fearsome boss in one of three foreboding zones. Doing so will grant you passage to the final treacherous area, and whether you win or lose, the cycle will continue regardless. This type of conclusion may feel like a non-ending, and it's not readily apparent that one of the few things that carries over is the collection of a hidden artifact piece that can unlock a "true ending", especially if you missed it during your run. A skilled player can get to the end in just 25 minutes or less, but rest assured you will be spending countless hours (and deaths) building up to your perfect run, and countless more with the promise of unlocking new enhancements and the true ending. Even though only a few enemy placements, side paths, and item locations actually change in each iteration, it remains enjoyable enough that you'll be constantly testing new strategies and trying to find the best upgrades - and getting the power of slow-falling wings, rapid-fire spears, or fire enchanted armor can make your run wildly different from not getting any upgrades at all.
Beyond telling you where Mudd and the chosen giant you must face are located, figuring out where you are and where you're going is quite a task - especially as you acclimate yourself to Oblitus' beautiful, treacherous terrain. The painted art style highlights the towering woods, the steep slopes leading to a large furnace in the sky, and the soft glow of luminescent plants deep below the earth. For all its beauty, the art can occasionally get in its own way, as the line between foreground and background can get so blurry that I found myself jumping for a length of chain that was never actually there, or getting backed into a corner thanks to a tree branch that I hadn't realized was on my 2D plane.
One location in particular, the caves, adds to this confusion. With the somewhat random nature of Oblitus, this may be your first destination, and if so, you're in for an unintuitive search just to actually reach it. The other locations lie to your right or left and are easy to find, but if you go looking in the direction you'd expect to find caves (down) you can expect a fiery death instead. This doesn't feel right since the game never communicates that I'd need to go through an entire area just to reach the caves. Once I found them however, the caves' backdrops meshed well with the somber music to punctuate the lonely feeling of trekking through a harsh alien world full of creatures just waiting to tear me apart.
The only tools you'll have to beat back the cycle of death are your spear and shield, a combination I'm happy to see to shine in the spotlight. By moving the mouse in a circle around your character, you can target enemies from all sides and angles. This allows for precision stabbing and spear throwing, which you'll need to bypass enemy armor and shields to find their weak points. Hit the wrong spot, and you'll be thrown off balance by their defense, and suffer a vicious counterattack. Tossing your spear will let you play it safe from a distance, but also leaves you vulnerable and weaponless for a few moments, making it a risky tactic. As I slowly mastered the art of thrusting and blocking, dodge-rolling into spear vaults over danger, and launching my spear to watch it deliciously sink into the exposed necks of my enemies, it became apparent that no two fights in Oblitus play out the exact same way. The ever-changing nature of Oblitus further punctuates the need for caution, as an empty corridor during one run may contain a giant rock beast during your next run.
Oblitus isn't exactly bursting with enemies to fight, but it makes sure that most every enemy you brandish your spear at will be a carefully pitted fight. Whether it be an armor-clad bipedal reptile with a spike for a hand, or a giant cave-dwelling bear with fire engulfing its hide, you can bet that charging in blindly stabbing will only send you back to the beginning - all of your hard-won progress lost in the blink of an eye.
Defeating enemies will only slightly regenerate a fraction of the health they've taken from you, and the large boss enemies will lop off huge chunks of your health with every landed blow, which makes for some very intense battles. It's a shame that two of the four bosses become highly predictable after the few runs it takes to get used to their attack patterns, but the other two made me see the benefit of seeking out the optional, randomly generated weapon and magic enhancements found in secret areas, or on the bodies of other fallen bosses. This forms a great sense of risk-reward, as trying to get that explosive-impact enhancement for your spear can easily get you killed by the rock golem guarding it.
When death comes for you in this game, it imparts wisdom, teaching you which mistakes are best avoided, unless of course, it can't be. While most areas in the game let you fall from any height without fear of death or injury, two areas in the game contain veritable pits of death, and unfortunately look no different from your usual drop between platforms. This becomes especially frustrating in the last area of the game, where the path to the boss leads you ever deeper into the earth, and you can find death at the bottom of a lava pit because you can't look before you leap.
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Oblitus is a little game with a big heart, and while not all the bosses end up as intimidating as they seem, the inclusion of random enhancements and beautiful, subtly changing environments make every run a unique and perilous adventure worth fighting. The finale may not be what I expected, but upon unlocking the "true ending" I realized it was just the kind of ending our little hero deserves.
DeveloperIndependent
PublisherAdult Swim Digital
Release DateFebruary 27, 2015
PlatformsPC
Death is never in vain in the beautiful world of Oblitus, even if it's occasionally cheap and unavoidable.