One of the interesting advantages indie games hold over their more complex cousins is that they are a blank slate that designers can experiment with. They aren’t held hostage by board meetings with executives who demand millions of units sold, and therefore indie games allow an avenue for experimentation that would never make it past the drawing board of larger studios.
Ophidian Wars: Opac’s Journey takes that blank slate and fills it in with a bit of retro nostalgia and mixes up the formula just a bit. It is extremely reminiscent of other Metroidvania games such as Metroid and the post-Symphony of the Night Castlevania titles. There are plenty of power-ups that allow Opac to reach new areas, in addition to a number of well-hidden secrets and plenty of reflex-testing chasms to cross. But Ophidian Wars isn’t a total rehash of the classic franchises due to the omission of one trait that is present in nearly every game that inspires it: combat.
Unlike the legion of undead that the Belmonts regularly admonish or the alien monsters that Samus sets her sights on, Ophidian Wars’ shadow ninja faces no adversaries other than the obstacles of the world itself. The lack of combat changes the general feeling of the game into one more bent around exploration rather than annihilation. The game is more about how to get to the next location, rather than how to kill the next demon.
As the game progresses, the ninja does learn some new tricks like hovering and wall jumping that help him on his quest to reach the surface of the world. The story is a bit cryptic, but revolves around escaping underground chambers in order to reach the surface in order to reach a woman named Maya. The new abilities can be upgraded by collecting Roots that are hidden throughout the labyrinthine levels.
There is almost a sort of relaxing quality to running through the levels knowing that the hero is practically invincible and there is nothing lurking around the next bend waiting to rip off his face. There are still plenty of pitfalls that he can plummet into, but thankfully the checkpoints are frequent and the lives infinite, so there is no stress of worrying about falling one-too-many times into that black abyss.
What is tragically frustrating is the absolute lack of a save system. Of course, I discovered this absence the old-fashioned way: by playing about half an hour and then turning the system off only to discover I was unable to resume my game. I assumed that the frequent checkpoints were doubling as save points, only to be forced to replay a good chunk of the game. Yes, the vast majority of the 8-bit games that inspired Ophidian Wars lacked a save system, so replaying and perfecting levels was commonplace. However, they also had enemies and a limited amount of lives that introduced a sense of thrill and tension into the whole ritual. Returning to those desolate corridors and leaping from platform to platform a second time is nothing but tedious and boring.
The save point issue isn’t detracting enough to make Ophidian Wars a bad game, but it is definitely something that needs to be spelled out to anyone before starting the adventure. The game is about an hour and a half long and requires you to have the time to finish it in one sitting.
There are some other issues with the general platforming that are equally disturbing, including a strange glitch where I latched onto invisible walls and had no recourse other than to fall to my death and start over. There were plenty of times when I was stuck, adhered to thin air, unable to pull myself up or even drop onto the ledge directly in front of me. It’s not a game breaker, but the wall jumping is a large enough component of the late game to be a nuisance.
At the end of the journey, Ophidian Wars still leaves a good taste in my mouth. The adventure-platforming works well, and the lack of enemies is a bold, if somewhat bizarre design decision. It’s a solid foundation for what could be a very cool retro series on the indie platform, and I’m eager to see what lessons could be learned and implemented in the already-announced next entry into the series. It’s not perfect, but at the very least, check out the demo to see if its retro charms are for you.
Ophidian Wars: Opac’s Journey was provided for review by Small Cave Games. It is available for 80 MS points ($1)
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