Ever Oasis is quite good

[A Black Falcon]

(This is definitely not a review, I'm still early in the game. I just want to write about it because it's good!)

So, of the games I've gotten in the past few weeks, the one I've played the most of is probably this one, Ever Oasis for 3DS. Published by Nintendo, produced by Koichi Ishii, creator of the Mana franchise, and his studio Grezzo, the team behind the two N64-to-3DS Zelda ports of OoT and MM, this game should have been a much bigger deal than it seems to be. The quality is there, but the people aren't, unfortunately. Apparently most people don't care about the 3DS anymore, Pokemon perhaps excepted, so this really good 2017 release and new IP got overlooked. The game has gotten mixed but some good reviews -- the game got an 8.9 from IGN, for example -- but I haven't seen it talked about nearly as much as it should. New IPs are hard to sell indeed; with the Mana name I'm sure this would have gotten more attention.

Anyway, Ever Oasis is a third-person action-RPG with two elements, adventuring in an Arabian desert-themed environment and building the town in your oasis. You are a special Seedling, and can partner with an oasis water spirit to build a small town around the waterhole in this dry expanse. Your goal is to try to stop the monsters which have destroyed all of the other oasises, including the one you are from.

Now, in the games' box and packaging, they only show and mention the male playable character, but in the actual game you can play as either a male or female character. I have no idea why they hid the female character option, but it's there. You can't customize your character choice beyond choosing your gender, and both characters are cute little semi-human things, but it works in the games' nice, cartoony art style.

Indeed, the graphics in general here are really nice, particularly in 3D. This game fully supports 3d, and as someone who always uses their 3DS with the 3d slider set to maximum, that's awesome. The 3d effect is really nice and adds to the already good graphics.

As for the gameplay, the Zelda influence is clear. You wander around, attack enemies with your weapon, and such. Enemies and plants will drop materials, which you can use to fulfill quests for people in your town, to build new buildings in town, and more. There are also dungeon areas underneath the overworld, as you might expect. By doing quests for visitors in your town you can get them to stay permanently, so that encourages you to explore. This isn't really a crafting game though, I don't think, you just collect stuff and return it to people. I believe the world is semi-randomized, and dungeons certainly are, so this isn't quite on Zelda's level as dungeons probably will feel similar due to the random generation. There are puzzles

As you progress you will get more party members too, and you can switch between them. Each one has a different weapon and ability too. I haven't gotten to that part yet, but it is in the demo.

So yeah, I'm still fairly early in this game but I'm quite liking it and I hope that more people play the game, it's well worth it. The 3DS is still a great system and while next year might not have much releasing for it (we'll see), 2017 was a good year for the platform and it's got some pretty good games, this one included.

[A Black Falcon]

So to add a bit more to this. First, on a controls note, the New 3DS (or New 2DS) is definitely recommended for this game, as you can use the right stick to move the camera around. You can't move the camera at all without a New 3DS, so have one for this game. The New 3DS also duplicates some functions onto ZL and ZR that you'd otherwise have to hit the d-pad or touchscreen for, which is handy.

As for the game itself, at first this game seems pretty hard, but that does not last. At the beginning you start with 10 hit points and die in about two hits, you can only save in town, and when you die the game is kind of harsh -- you have to go back to your last save. You have a dodge-roll button, though, so using it in combat to avoid attack is key.

However, once you really get going things get easier. Pretty early on you get Rainbow Protection, referring to the rainbow over the oasis, which gives a huge boost to your health (I went from 11 HP to 41), varying based on how happy your oasis's residents are. Rainbow Protection also allows you to resurrect after dying, once only at first but more time as you progress. This is really important, given how easy it is to die. But yes, keeping your little town's people happy, by doing quests for them and providing them with the stuff they need to sell at their stores, is a key part of this game.

You get benefits, though, not only in health from Rainbow Protection, but also financially. See, you pick up stuff, like plant or monster parts, but you can't just sell it for money, and you'll need money to build new shops for your residents, synthesize items for yourself (it's simple crafting, thankfully, you just get the items for the listed formulas and it makes them, no guesswork required), and such. Instead, you get money from revenues from sales at the shops. That is, as shopkeepers sell items to the other people in your oasis, they collect a part of the profits and you can collect those revenues once a shop has sold enough. It's an interesting mechanic which fits well with the 'you're the mayor' element of this game.


Returning to the combat and dungeons and such though, your character starts with a sword but you eventually get several weapon types. You can also shoot out small tornadoes, which you use to activate switches for dungeon puzzles, blow away small piles of sand that pile up around and often have items in them, and such. And once you get party members you can also switch between them, and they each have their own weapon and ability for use in puzzles. You also eventually get the ability to warp between where you are and town; I don't have this yet, but it'd be very useful. Overall this isn't an especially complex game once you get used to it, as most puzzles seem simple and the gameplay is fairly straightforward and repetitive -- fight enemies, collect stuff, build town, repeat -- but it's a lot of fun and is a definite challenge. Sure, the game gets a lot easier once you have the Rainbow Protection benefits and party members, but I think there is still definite challenge to be found. Even with boosted health and such, losing a lot of it quickly is easy if you don't dodge well, and healing items are limited. Losing health is particularly easy in battles against multiple enemies, as dodging all of them is much harder with more than one foe at once.

Anyway though, this seems like a very good game that deserves attention.

[Dark Jaguar]

That is weird that they would hide the female lead like that. Sword of Mana for GBA put both of them front and center.

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, it's really weird. The only time I saw Nintendo mention the female lead was at E3, when during one of the Ever Oasis segments on the Treehouse stream they played as the female character for a while. But they didn't make a point of mentioning that again until the game released, and that's weird. I can't think of any reason to not mention the female character, other than the usual 'Nintendo is sexist' stuff...

(And yes, you can only play as the male character in the demo, of course. Still though, if you haven't played the demo try it.)

[Dark Jaguar]

Isn't this game made by someone else?

[A Black Falcon]

Yeah, Grezzo. But Nintendo published it.

[Dark Jaguar]

I'm just saying when it comes to artwork like the box cover, Grezzo is more to blame than Nintendo.

[A Black Falcon]

After not playing the game for a few months for no real reason other than that I do that kind of thing all the time, I spent over two hours playing this game yesterday and yes, it's still a great game! The graphics are great, it feels good to control, the story and characters are decently good, I like the level maps and puzzle elements, etc. I don't really know why this game didn't catch on more, but it absolutely should have.