Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon
Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon
Sorti le 8 janvier 2021, Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon est un jeu d'aventure et de rôle indépendant développé par Cornfox & Bros. et édité par FDG Entertainment sur PC (Windows), Mac, iOS et Android. Propulsé par le moteur Unity, le titre s'inscrit dans la lignée des hack 'n' slash et beat 'em up à l'esthétique 16 bits, proposé au tarif de 8,79 euros.
L'intrigue se déroule deux cents ans après la Catastrophe qui a ravagé le royaume d'Arcadie, désormais réduit à des îles dispersées dans la Mer Inexplorée. Menacés par les troupes des Terres Extérieures, quatre aventuriers découvrent l'entrée du mythique Donjon de Chronos, où reposerait le Sablier du Paradigme, un artefact capable de réécrire l'histoire et de redonner sa splendeur au monde. Ce scénario sert de préquelle aux événements de la saga principale en confrontant les héros à Chronos lui-même.
Conçu avant tout pour le multijoueur coopératif local jusqu'à quatre participants, le jeu permet également à un seul joueur de contrôler l'ensemble du groupe, avec la possibilité de basculer entre les personnages à la volée. Les quatre classes — chevalier, chasseresse, grand maître et mage — offrent des styles de jeu distincts, leurs statistiques de départ variant selon le signe du zodiaque qui leur est associé. La structure roguelike repose sur des modificateurs aléatoires qui reconfigurent chaque étage du donjon, promettant une rejouabilité théorique infinie, ponctuée de combats de boss et d'une collecte d'objets variés, le tout dans une ambiance sonore et visuelle revendiquant l'héritage des classiques d'arcade 16 bits modernisés.
Du côté de la presse spécialisée, l'accueil a été plutôt critique. Pocket Tactics a jugé le titre « sous-cuit », pointant un combat et un rythme décevants malgré une présentation charmante. Multiplayer.it a pour sa part souligné un gameplay répétitif, des combats simplistes et une exploration ennuyeuse, le qualifiant de « grande déception pour les fans de la série principale ».
Les retours des joueurs se montrent plus contrastés. Sur Metacritic, certains utilisateurs louent une expérience coopérative amusante et addictive sur Apple TV, idéale à deux manettes en main, tandis que d'autres rapportent avoir enchaîné les parties normales et difficiles avec enthousiasme. Sur Steam, les avis positifs nuancent toutefois cet engouement : l'un regrette un manque d'inspiration et un système de risque mal exploité, quand un autre se contente d'exprimer son plaisir simple à y jouer.
Médias
Avis des critiques et joueurs
Critiques de la Presse (Metacritic)
« Despite its charming presentation, Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon is an undercooked roguelike dungeon crawler with poor combat and pacing. »
« Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon suffers from repetitive gameplay, simplistic combat and boring exploration. A big disappointment for the fans of the main series. »
« There are secret passages to be found in the bland, procedurally-generated levels, but all the enemies do is vaguely wander towards you, adding to a pervasive sense of playing a prototype rather than a fully-fledged game. For most players one run will be more than enough. »
Avis des Joueurs (Metacritic)
« Fun coop game for Apple TV arcade! Ideal to play with the gf, not too hard and very addictive. Must have controller(s)! We have 2 controllers, bought a Steelseries long time ago, and a second hand PS4 controller, which is better imo. »
« Just finished both the normal and hard run through the dungeons. I will say that I’m already addicted and have been picking up my phone to play again whenever I get a spare few minutes. The randomly generated dungeon floors and modifiers that come with the heroes randomly assigned buff make for an enjoyable experience that keeps things interesting. •Each hero has their own weapon, attack style and special attack. As well as this each hero will be assigned a randomly selected buff that makes minor changes to gameplay, such as the ‘Wealthy’ buff, which doubles the value of all gold pickups if collected by them. This keeps things interesting when playing at times, but overall doesn’t appear to do much to shake things up in combat. •For my tastes, I find the combat a little to simple - even with each hero’s own unique style of combat. Many fights can be completed by repeatedly pressing the attack button and maintaining distance from enemies. This changes to an extent in boss battles, which require a bit more planning and thought in order to defeat - but for me the combat overall still leaves something to be desired. It isn’t bad in any way, but it would be interesting to see the combat fleshed out a little more. •The idea of randomly generated dungeon floors is great and definitely helps keep things interesting. However, it was disappointing to see that I’d got the achievement for exploring all unique floor variants almost immediately after completing the introductory level. I would like to see more varied environments and layouts as time goes on. •The risk mechanic is a nice feature, increasing the dangers and enemies as you delve deeper into each floor. This naturally makes it harder as you progress, as you’d expect. Unless you’re willing to spend large amounts of gold to decrease your risk level via a golden statue hidden on each floor. This offers a nice incentive to take the time to explore, loot and kill all enemies in order to gather as much gold as possible, rather than simply rushing floors. •I’ve encountered the occasional bug in my time playing which needed the game to be restarted in order to get around. One where my character disappeared, and another where my game would not load. Nothing major or gamebreaking, to be expected with a new game to be fair. From my experience it’s definitely nothing that ruins the experience - but worth mentioning. •All in all, I’d give the game 4/5. It’s kept me playing and coming back. Little by little, the Oceanhorn series seem to be developing their own identity and style - this game is another step in the right direction, even while delving into new territory gameplay wise it holds up. I’ll play this entry into the series through to its end, maybe even more than once. But would like to see some new features and improvements made along the way to keep me coming back for longer. As a side note: A small issue for me, while it isn’t major, is one that I’ve had with all Oceanhorn games to date is the lack of character development. Unfortunately this doesn’t change here. In this entry, just like the previous, our heroes aren’t named and very little is learned about them as we progress. Both the first and second Oceanhorn games followed the story of “Boy” and “Knight” respectively, each of which we learn very little about throughout the course of the main story - to the point of not even having a name. The Oceanhorn series has had so much potential to become great since its first release and has reached it more with a new release - but I feel like the lack of character development lets the games down, this one included. »
