Baldo: The Guardian Owls Reviews

Reviews seem pretty harsh on this for the most part unfairly so. Its a Zelda-like with great artwork. The world is expansive, dungeons and combat are fun but difficult. Pros: Cute Windwaker/Ghibli Style Artwork Nicely Scored Music Expansive Map Difficult Puzzles Complex Dungeons. Cons: No Control Rebinds. (though default controls aren't terrible on a PS4 controller) Combat Is Often Hard. (in a Soulsborne perfect reflexes type way- though some may see that as a positive?) Puzzles/Quests Often Don't Have A Logical Solution. (feels like an og Zelda Game, where you had to ask your friend how to do something, before the days of youtube and guides) Map Is Very Large. (Overworld map is vast for the size of the game, and the map is not the best) Characters Seem Very Generic NPCy (No memorable characters, but again this is a dungeon crawler.) So with that in mind, for the price, if you want an OG Zelda-like with cute artwork and intense dungeons I recommend it highly. If not, maybe this game is not for you.

Just finished the game, it was great, the game is completely fixed now. I had no issues at all. The only complaint is the ending. WTH?? But I hope they come out with DLC or a sequel to this game.

Baldo is actually much more enjoyable than I thought it would be for me. I stayed away from it, until recently, due to its bad mechanics and optimization. Now that those things have been majority improved upon, I recommend this game if you enjoy Zelda like games. It’s a very lengthy game and the developers are working on their last DLC to fully complete its story, which is mind boggling that they’re still adding to it. Im glad though, it shows dedication to the community of Baldo. I’m still far from completing it, but I plan on doing so eventually

**RECOMMENDED WITH CAUTION** PROS -Beautiful Art. -Interesting story. -Great Soundtrack. -Fun Game play. CONS -No Graphics options. -No control options. -Not much options at all. -Performance Issues. -Difficult in a bad way (needs a tutorial and hints at the start)

You see where the Game gets it's inspiration. Ghibli and Zelda had without any doubt a big influence. Also the Core Gameplay reminds a lot of Zelda. But not the new ones. Its more like A Link to the Past and Links Awakening with some sprinkles Majoras Mask and one or two genes of Breath of Wild packed in a Ghibli like Artsytle. If you think it's a easy game because of it's Artstyle you are wrong. The difficulty of Fights and Riddles are definitly inspired by old Adventure Games of the 90s and early 00s. So don't expect any Questmarker, Selfhealing and other mediocre Gameplay helps. As in the early Zelda Games you get a Quest and a vague direction where to start. Thats it. You have to find out for yourself what to do. Same for the Riddles. If you can't live without Questmarker the game is NOT FOR YOU. If you don't do the Sidequests you will definitly come to a point where the Game would be pretty hard to beat because you only get additional Hearts trough them. If you don't like Sidequests and just want to rush the Main Story the game is NOT FOR YOU. As per 01.09. all Bugs got fixed. The Performance is great (you can unlock the 30fps/hz lock by forcing higher fps in Nvidia Control Panel). There is definitly no need for Graphics Settings. Maybe Resolution and UI Scaling but to be honest the Game runs great on potatoes. And like "Death's Door" this Game is a no brainer if you grew up with Zelda or other adventure Games from the 90s and 00s. Yeah it's hard, some riddles are a pain in the ass and normal enemy and boss fights let Dark Souls look like a kindergarten. And still we managed to 100% such Games without Let's Plays, Youtube or walktroughs.

This game should have been recommendable with it's low price, Zelda like game play, and Studio Ghibli like art design but instead it's terrible. First off the main map gives no details for each zone. The quests are anyone's guess since they rarely give any hints as to what to do and the only way you can even get a hint is through the library option in the Rodia town and you have to pay for those hints and since getting money in this game can be tediously long, good luck with that. Also something to note is essential items required to go further in the game are made extremely difficult to find because of the vague nature of the quests. Like for example you don't even get a sword until you do a dungeon first and you can find yourself being cornered by enemies with no means of offense throughout the dungeon and unless you are really paying attention to the text, you won't even be aware of that fact until you complete the dungeon. There's also the run meter which runs out very quickly and regenerates back very slowly, forcing you to walk over vast areas most of the time and the other problem with the meter is that you need to be able to run with certain enemies and can find yourself dying because of that short meter. Another thing to note is the shield. They for some weird reason decided to make the shield breakable and certain enemies require you to have that shield so once it break after about 2 fights, thats it, you are forced to avoid those enemies. The other problem with the shield is when you get hit with the shield, the character stops using the shield, forcing you to have to hit the button again to use the shield which makes it that much harder to get a sword swipe in. But my biggest gripe with this game is the fact that certain boss enemies freeze you in place when you are fighting them and you will automatically get hit or instant killed and good luck trying to survive because even if you make out of that, you come across such little amount when it comes to hearts and the fact that the enemy will then have another chance of hitting you as run away, you more than likely will die afterwards.

You have to buy this now. Game is fixed. Loving the game! Only thing I wish now is the option to change controls. Check this review for the updates/fixes done in the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5yuYY17DBw

In my experience, the game is so much better now! I play with the assist mode on, because I like things a little bit easier, but still chalenging. The gameplay has improved a lot. It is one of the best games I´ve ever played now. Thank you developers, who listened to the community.

This game is made by two people over the course of 12+ years, and this fact has good and bad side-effects. On the plus side, the map is large, with varied side quests and secrets, and it would easily take you 25+ hours to finish the game. The art style is amazing and yes, it takes inspiration form Studio Ghibli. The devs have executed this pretty well. This game will scratch that Zelda itch you have as it borrows mechanics from it. There's shrine-like towers and temples, which increase your health or give access to new weapons. Some of these towers are hidden and are unlocked via story or puzzle elements. On the bad side, the game is not thoroughly tested. If you play with a keyboard, you are going to get frustrated most of the time navigating the environment and fighting. There is noticeable input lag, as the animations have a hard finish and does not smoothly transition to other animations. Game-play wise, this game is brutal. You will die very often in the first dungeon itself. Most of these are induced by inputs not being registered. But a significant amount of deaths occur because of the enemies. Almost all enemies can kill you in 1-2 hits. Personally, I like the lack of tutorials in this genre of games, as exploring is encouraged. If you are looking to play this casually, you have to wait till the game is patched enough to remove input bugs, clipping issues, and overpowered enemies. The developers are working to patch the game on PC, while the switch already has the day one patch. That being said, It took me 50+ hours to finish this game, and it was worth it for the ending alone. I would recommend this game.

I wanted to like this game. Unfortunately this game is bad. It is so unpolished it is kind of unbelievable they released it like this. Where to start.... Music is generally pretty good and the game is cute. Runs fine on my PC and I've only encountered one bug that froze the game (died and entered a door at the same time). I actually enjoyed parts of the first dungeon. A good concept is there somewhere, it is just buried under so much garbage it's hard to find. Unfortunately the puzzles in the game have yet (~10 hours in) to branch out from pushing objects around or throwing pots at things. A lot of times it is really hard to figure out what the game is asking you to do. Why can I only push this box in one direction? Why can I push this box but not this other box? Why do these pots never have anything in them? How come this one switch needs a pot placed on top of it while this identical switch can just have one thrown at it? There is just no consistency, making it hard to tell if you are missing something or if you need another item to progress. The controls are bad. Attack and interact are on the same button. Half the time you try to talk to a npc or interact with an object, you just flail your sword instead, breaking the object you were trying to move or pickup. There is no precision in the player movement at all. You are constantly bumping in to things or walking off edges, causing you to back to the start of the room in dungeons. The combat is a mess. Enemies either one shot you or just stun lock you until you die. You can buy a shield that costs half your money which breaks in like 5 hits. The roll is so inconsistent. Most of the enemies can just hit you through it. A lot of the time there is an npc that follows you around. Because attack/talk are on the same button, you end up talking to the npc instead of attacking the enemies you are trying to kill. In dungeons enemies will be sitting right at the entrances to rooms, hitting you before you can even react. The overworld is like a maze. The map is almost no help to determine where you are. The environment is littered with tiny cliffs that the player is unable to jump down, making it almost impossible to tell what is an intended path and what isn't. The dialogue is just complete vomit. Npcs will either say nothing useful at all or just unload six quests/plot clues on you at once. There are countless shops/items that drop but I have yet to really find a use for any of it. A npc will tell you to go to someone's shop by name, but there is no indication of where that shop is or who that person is. Somehow everyone knows where all the legendary artifacts and dungeon keys are hidden. The worst part about the entire game is the UI. It is so horrible that it is hard to explain without experiencing it. Wouldn't recommend buying this until they fix some of these issues.