Olija is the latest release from the aptly named Skeleton Crew Studio, a small and clearly closely-knit team working out of Kyoto. The team has delivered an intriguing story wrapped in fast-paced combat and new mechanics refreshing to the familiar landscape of adventure platformers. Spearheaded by one-man outfit Thomas Olsson under the Skeleton Crew umbrella, the game benefits from a strong sense of place, time, and identity, while also proving impressively assembled and polished.

Entering the story as Faraday, a castaway stranded at sea yet tied to a destiny much larger than himself, the game at first seems to tread on equally familiar “chosen one” tropes. Indeed, this seems to bear fruit in some of the game’s more tense encounters, with strangers and enemies knowing who Faraday is well before he arrives. However, Faraday’s goal is less one of personal glory and more one of rebuilding his community, a delightful breath of fresh air in what might have otherwise proved cliché.

Along the way, he meets a host of interesting characters. Some are members of his community that he’s been able to rescue, and others are local to the land of Terraphage on which he finds himself. Chief among these may be the eponymous Lady Olija, a mysterious and intriguing figure who (as the story progresses) becomes increasingly relevant not just to Faraday’s narrative, but to that of the in-game world and game as a whole.

Thankfully, given Olija‘s emphasis on character relationships, its chunky-styled pixel graphics don’t prove an impediment to the communication of character and personality. These in fact serve to maintain the sense of atmosphere and nostalgia that has clearly permeated the game from its influences. They also allow for great playability on a very wide range of hardware.

Indeed, Olija‘s nods to previous works like the Prince of Persia series and Éric Chahi’s Another World (1991) are clear and fondly rendered. Despite this, the game is far from a carbon-copy of prior influences. Rather, it nods to the aspects of such games Olsson clearly remembers dearly, while also striking out on its own path and introducing elements that serve the particular story Olija is trying to tell.

It should be noted that combat is a particular strength of the game. With secondary weapons, equippable items, and impressive versatility in Faraday’s primary weapon — the legendary Harpoon at the game’s heart — Olija doesn’t just favor different playstyles. It actively encourages players to switch up their approach between and even within individual rounds of combat. That flexibility is something that proves increasingly useful as the varied creature designs and well-balanced difficulty scaling comes into play.

Something particularly enjoyable is that the Harpoon serves as not just a weapon but also a tool to navigate the satisfyingly varied level designs. It is situated less as a simple tool of destruction, though I must say I don’t think I’ll tire of smashing crates any time soon. Furthermore, this versatility cements it as the powerful artifact it is, with the capacity both to defend oneself and others and to solve the myriad of environmental problems the game tosses one’s way.

If there’s anything to critique, one of these is that the use of the in-game “map,” essentially the equivalent of fast traveling, offers little by way of explanation for itself. Over time, I did figure out how to wrap my head around its symbols and indicators. Yet there’s a “learn by doing” approach to identifying which locations one should visit in which order that felt a little overwhelming in the early moments of play.

The other issue I ran into, personally, is that the narrative cutscenes at times felt a bit abrupt and jarring. I’ve gotten used to them now, but there was a lack of preparation for suddenly having my movement locked. Often, there was also a slight but significant lag of silence between the start of the cutscene and the commencement of the actual dialogue. This certainly threw me for a loop several times when I started the game.

It’s unfortunate because the cutscenes, along with Olija‘s invented language through which they’re delivered, are so compelling otherwise. It makes it all the more upsetting that they are book-ended by this clunky presentation. I also want to mention that the language is accompanied by a beautifully evocative soundtrack that is wonderful.

That said, overall I remain deeply impressed. It’s no small thing to bring something that feels new and refreshing to the adventure platformer genre. Olija pulls it off by remaining true to itself and not feeling constrained by genre “conventions” that might have limited its vision and undermined its heart. I look forward to diving into the rest of the game. In fact, full disclosure, at the time of writing I’m stuck on a boss fight, oops. I am looking forward to seeing what is yet to come in Faraday’s story.

A PC review copy of Olija was provided by Skeleton Crew Studio for this review.

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Olija

$14.99

9

Score

9.0/10

Pros

• Great atmosphere
• Brings compelling new ideas to a familiar adventure platformer genre
• Intriguing story
• Enjoyable level and creature design
• Fluid, challenging combat

Cons

• Not always clear which locations/levels you're supposed to visit first on the map
• Cutscenes are a little jarring