OU Reviews

very linear, doesnt allow you to make any significant choices since the game wants you to play a very specific way, but it was a nice game anyway.

The concept is very interesting. (kind of remind me of all the fanfics I read lol. They're all one new U-chronia, sort of, I would love to dive into their world) Also beautiful art and animation! We should all appreciate hand drawn animation games, it's all hard work. But the diving into new pages really bored the hell out of me, it took soooo long, almost gave up in the middle of the loop, luckily didn't.

OU is a game about going - slowly, because even running isn't fast enough - left through ~25 screens, while examining your surroundings, reading dialogues and solving puzzles so simple that you may actually solve them without realizing they were even there. The game looks very good visually, but those pretty backgrounds stop being so interesting when you've seen each of them three times, and to reach the true ending (tip: you want to reach the true ending) you need to finish the game three times, which means going left through all ~25 screens 6-8 times. If you want all achievements, perhaps even up to 10 times. I even tried using Cheat Engine's "speedhack" option to go left through the ~25 screens faster. Alas, to no avail. While forcing myself to not uninstall the game and tirelessly holding the button to go left through the ~25 screens again, I was already composing a very harsh negative review in my head, but then I did reach the true ending which somehow left me feeling like I had enjoyed the game. Curious. As much as I feel the true ending was still worth it, I'd suggest waiting for -75%, especially if your country has funny prices like Poland does (150% of the original Japanese price). And only if you think you're tough enough to go left through ~25 screens 6-8 times. There is no point in playing the game just once. The true ending is the whole point. If the game was at least - at least, I'd like to emphasize - 50% shorter than it is, it'd be a solid 8/10, maybe even 8.5/10. However, as it is now, even after seeing the true ending, the tedium of it all has to be taken into account, for objectivity's sake. [spoiler]Objectively:[/spoiler] 6.5/10

This game caught my eye back then because of the amazing artstyle, and it does not disappoint. The art is extremely lovely, and the OST is very soothing, so if you are looking for a calm storydriven game, I absolutely recommend this. The gameplay is pretty simple, most of it walking from one scene to the next, and you have to play through the game several times to get the true ending, but it's worth it for the warm feeling it leaves inside your heart.

I could easily recommend OU for the rich hand-drawn artwork and soundtrack alone! The gameplay itself is very easy and simple; you spend most of the time adding sticky notes to points of interest as you walk through storybook pages, which is just enough for this kind of adventure. I wouldn't quite call the experience "cozy" however - rather it evoked an odd sort of melancholy in me with each playthrough.

I saw the trailer a while ago and loved the art, so I added it to my wishlist on a whim. When I got the notification that the game was out, I bought it on a whim. It's a super cute game! The art is adorable and the music is very soothing. I've played through it once and am more than halfway through the second playthrough. The game does a good job of getting you to play through it another time. [spoiler]There's multiple endings to the game, so whenever I got stuck on one route I would go to the other one.[/spoiler] It's definitely more story focused than having super engaging gameplay, but I think it's worth playing! EDIT: After playing through all the endings I can fully say I enjoyed this game. It has an overarching theme of grief and finding a way to deal with those emotions, and it definitely affected me. I didn't expect to get so attached to characters that barely had dialogue, but OU did great at hitting some kind of fairy tale nostalgia with the art style and character design. I will say it's on the pricier side for sure, and is definitely a shorter game, but personally I didn't mind paying. The biggest issue I had with it is that you can very easily softlock yourself out of one of the endings and I got stuck for a while.

Art and music are clearly the standout qualities here; they bolster the melancholic story. I just wish the gameplay and level design received greater attention. There's a basic puzzle relatively early on, so I had hoped there would be others like it to change the pace of listening to Zarry the opossum, walking forward, and pixel-hunting for stickyable things. It would've been fine for the game to keep a minimalist gameplay formula, only if there was a more seamless presentation. That could alleviate the repetition of traveling between pages, because you spend no longer than a minute on most of them, and every time you head to the next page you have to see the same loading screens. You're revisiting pages as well. I'm curious to discover the differences and variations in the second playthrough, but that repetition I mention is preventing me from wanting to do it right away. Still, I admire the effort and will recommend this game to anyone who might be in a pensive mood, or somehow craving it. Hopefully the developers take my criticisms to heart and can make another game that marries art and gameplay way better.

The art and music are, as you can tell from the store page, absolutely incredible. Unfortunately, behind that art I did not find much substance. The game certainly has some kind of deep story it wants to tell, but the path it takes to get there is meandering and inconvenient, and after 1.5 hours I don't really see much point in continuing. The game is broken up into short scenes where very few things happen. There are interactibles that can lead to different paths, or that are just straight-up required for any progression, but are entirely hidden, meaning that you have to just click everywhere to do anything.

This game caught my attention a while back for the art style. I haven't really gotten nearly far enough to say anything about the story (only gotten one ending, on second play-through right now) though I will say the way it handles an additional play-through is really satisfying. Will edit later when I can say more. Definitely get this game though

This game won me over after my initial review. I still think it has some major flaws, but it's overall a nice experience with fantastic art and music. The big thing that threw me off is that you need to play this game 3 times, and you need to actually wait through the credits and start a new game from the "Next Game" button that shows up. Reloading from an existing save to get the other endings DOES NOT WORK for getting the true ending. You do not need to collect the item that it mentions in the note after eacj playthrough, you'll get one automatically after you complete each non-true ending. Once you have two, the true ending will be impossible to miss. The game doesn't make it clear when things are interactable which made it feel like I had no choices to make in the first playthrough. If you don't find certain items, then you'll miss out on decision points without being aware of it. If you see anything of interest in the foreground/background, you should try to press A because it might be something that influences the game. On the whole, the game has pretty rough pacing because of the short scenes with loading screens between each one. And there isn't any real challenge in the gameplay. It's best to think of it as a slow paced interactive storybook. If you want meaningful choices with clear consequences then it's probably not for you. But it's pretty good if you want to relax and take in the atmosphere. Initial review after one playthrough: Not for me. The art and music are beautiful, but the gameplay is non-existent and the storytelling never really kept my attention. I felt like I spent most of my time aimlessly throwing sticky notes, waiting on loading screens, or backtracking through pages which hadn't changed.