Ogu and the Secret Forest
Game Title: Ogu and the Secret Forest
Released: July 29, 2024
Game Length: 25 Hours
Grade: A-
Gameplay
Story: You are the chosen one that stumbles across a broken world to defeat the Evil God. You need to retrieve six sigils from six different biomes. As the narrative unfolds, you learn that everything was fragmented when one of the four divine beasts underwent a risky endeavor to aid the critters below. That is when trash became sentient and started to overtake the land. There were trials setup to challenge the chosen one in the way of puzzles and obstacles.
Mechanics: The controls are rather simplistic with your own attack coming from a swing from your butterfly net. Eventually, you earn the ability to shield yourself for a second as you headbutt forward to knock out enemy shields. The monkeys will teach you how to dance to heal yourself up to half your health. Full health can be obtained from food, hot springs, hats, and safe zones. This ability is temporarily halted whenever you become dirty. Hearts can be found to increase your maximum health.
Skills
Five Masters: Because the game allows you to progress into a number of different regions, one thing you should do before diving too deep is learn all the important skills. Each one can be earned by venturing very early into each region. These allow you to push boulders, pick up stones, smash rocks, swim through water, and dodge attacks by rolling.
Friendly Help: Another thing that you should be aware of is the friends that are capable of breaking down large obstacles across the landscape. There is a monkey that can break down huge rocks, a mole cricket that digs down dirt, an armadillo that can slice up cactus, an otter that can break up hard coral, and a reindeer that crushes ice.
Totems: There are twelve totems total that can be slot into four slots. Each slot needs to be unlocked and totem found somewhere in the world. Quite a few of them will require you to dance with the appropriate divinity hat to discover. These give passive bonuses that can be quite crucial to your gameplay such as increasing your speed each time you get hurt or healing two points instead of one when you dance.
Gems: Across the world are shiny rocks that you can bash open once you learn how to headbutt. Sometimes they drop stones, but other times they will drop gemstones. If you have the Jeweler tools from the Crystal Mines, you can start a mini-game where you time five strikes on the yellow bars to receive one of two gems depending on the region. There is a chalkboard hint you can collect that shows all of the different gems you can collect. Some of these are used for upgrading your hats. All of them can be donated to the museum. Putting a stone or gem on the white pedestal will initiate a Divine Beast Room where you can access one from any region.
Smelting: There are two types of special ore you can throw into the furnace: jelly and iron. A drawing hint will let you know that there is a slight time difference on when you are supposed to press the button after waiting for them to heat up. These are mostly used to sell, but there are some exceptional decorations and hat upgrades that will require them. Time it too fast and you get a mediocre stone. Time it too slow and you get an obsidian too hard for anything.
Cooking: Once you have your skillet and find a campfire, nothing prevents you from throwing two random ingredients into the mix. The mini-game will not start or consume the items until there is a valid recipe. You can learn recipes from buying food from the merchants, calling your friends, reading material on the ground, or discovering one on your own. If you fail pressing the buttons, you can get a "food" or "food waste" instead of the actual meal. Succeed every time and you get two meals. "Instant" meals to bypass the mini-game can be purchased. The game doesn't allow you to eat the same meal twice in a row.
Interactions
Drawing: Across the world are these little markers on the ground where you put down your hat and make a cute drawing of the thing you see in front of you. There are a total of 49 (and 8 from the DLC). Most of them are only there to unlock the option to fast travel to nearby areas on the map. About a dozen will help aid you when it comes to completing activities like what color does two blobs make when combined or a map to the tunnels. Once you obtain them all, you can visit The Pier Way in the Central Forest for a Painter's Hat.
Balloon Travel: The monkeys that are always wearing the red hats will allow you to use the SoongSoong Express to travel to any entrance in any region on the map. As long as you have the ticket, you can use their sky bus anywhere free of charge. You can also freely travel directly to your house or the museum. You can purchase balloons from merchants to travel from anywhere to anywhere directly from the map.
Hero House: In the Village of the Sun, there is a hut that you can travel down the stairs to see a room with a giant ball of fire in the middle along with a hat upgrade station. You cannot remove these two things, but you can move them around the room. The Designer Robot will allow you to change the theme of the room (walls and floor) using the interior house design tiles you buy from the merchants. The Construction Machine allows you to build a number of decorations using a small fee of resources like cloth for rugs or leaves for vegetation. You can get a refund by destroying the items or store them conveniently to place later. You can switch between two overlays (rugs and objects) and filter out functional items.
Flowerpots: Inside the Hero House, you can craft as many flowerpots as you have room for to grow different kinds of plants. They do not require any water. Seeds can be found from striking bushes or be purchased from any of the seed vendors across the world. Considering their expense and the little time it takes to grow, periodically collecting from them can be highly beneficial.
Collections
Hats: There are a total of 99 hats that can be obtained from secret areas, merchants, completing quests, and upgrades. Two hats allow you to listen to random music as you travel through the DLC. 12 are through the Winter Festival DLC. There are four "divinity" hats - Rahno of Sky lets you teleport on his platforms, Batt of Earth lets you reveal the hidden path in his sanctuary, Tau of Wisdom is only given out when you 100% complete the museum to reveal the post-credits secret ending, and Enki of the Sea that clears out black voids in the ocean. About half the hats have no power at all other than making you look cool. A few like the owl mask will increase your speed while others like the warrior's mask will give you some attack modifiers. A few are used exclusively in quests or bosses such as the catapult hat for the stone boss, drill hat for collecting relics and clay for pottery, and the miner's hat that will light up dark areas around you. 20 hats are "discovered" when you spend resources at the upgrade tool in the Hero's basement.
Fishing: Across the world are these small fishing sites where you can throw bait down and wait for a fish to hop out of the water. All you need to do is attack the fish when it turns downward to catch it. An exclamation mark will appear if it is a rare fish. All available and caught fish are shown on the nearby sign and collections panel. You can also see which fish were donated to the "exhibit" in the museum. Once you converse with the Enki spirit, you can donate any fish item into a white altar for a one time chance at a rare fish. There are a number of fishing recipes you can learn from buying them at various fish merchants across the world. A few can be learned from calling you friends or reading material on the ground. There are 37 total to discover. Notifications on where to find them can be purchased from the merchants in each region.
Bugs: Much of the fish system is incorporated the same into the bug system, except for how to collect them. You can listen carefully for the sound of beetles that sit on the side of trees across the region. Do not run or spend too much time circling around the tree or they will fly away. Butterflies and dragonflies can be seen crossing the entire screen in the foreground. Cut down grass and bushes to find the little bugs that scurry across the ground.
Harbor Activities
Arena: Tucked down a deep well in the southeastern corner of the Harbor is a place where you can face against a number of enemies. You are only allowed one to three health, but you are able to restore health by dancing. No hat can be worn. You start at a glory level of 50 and receive rewards proportion to how high you go. When you reach the maximum of 100, a gladiator hat is given to you. Any enemy can be chosen and repeated. A flame will be lit next to the character when you achieve a victory.
Pottery: In the northeast corner of the Harbor, there is a gated area with a furnace that allows you to make pottery for the locals. The actual clay needs to be dug up with the Drill Hat. The color of clay depends highly on where you dig in the region. The basic colors of red, yellow, blue, green are generally self-explanatory. However, darker colors can be obtained the further you explore a region. For example, purple can be obtained in the dark portions of the Moon Forest and white can be obtained in the Sanctuary. Your goal is to steady the cursor without moving it while the furnace glows red. There are 36 spots you can place any made pottery. A board in front will show you two characters you can deliver pots to for a fee. Even if the pot is the wrong color and shape, they will still provide you around 100 to 200 coins. Give one correctly, and the amount can provide you drastically more from 900 to 1,100 coins (depending on how far you have to travel).
Restaurant: There is a place where you become a waiter that delivers up to four different recipes from your journal. Serving more expensive recipes will net you more money but take more time for the kitchen to prepare. Serving customers their favorite type of meal will also provide you a small tip. You do not cook anything. The goal here is to collect the plates and place them at the right tables within a given time frame. You can stack up to three plates at a time. There are two different restaurants you can unlock at the Harbor.
Relic Hunt: Once you unlock the museum and have a drill hat, you can visit a place at the Harbor to buy "hint" maps that show where you can dig for relic artifacts. Once you find about three to five, you can piece together statues that are available in the corner rooms. Four will reveal past visions regarding each of the divine beasts history. One will provide you with a heart. The others will supply random guests to the museum with selective items as gifts after you converse with them.
Mini-games
Mech Battle: The shrews were taught fire and then learned how to build robots. When you reach their headquarters, you can jump inside and choose a target to engage. Defeating these giant monsters will require extensive matter of skill to time your blocks and punch back. This is not turn-based combat. Defeating the giants will clear the way for you to freely travel on foot.
Tennis: The glowing pant bugs in the Moon Forest host a tennis match. Once you prove your worth with a practice round, Sir Blanc will ask you to defeat their champion. The game also has a two-player mode available outside your play file.
Race: On the far reaches of the Desert rests a Flame Village. Talk to any of the three characters to participate in their track. Hats are disabled, but high health is recommended. Try to find the shortest route, follow through any of the obstacles, and touch the speed tiles whenever you can.
Turret Defence: There are areas with active turrets that will shoot at anything that moves. Thankfully, there are some that can be set to defend against waves of enemies. Ironically, they feed on damage. Hit them a few times to charge them up or utilize an explosive barrel to give them a full bar of energy.
Summary
Review: The amount of substance in this game goes beyond my original expectations. While there is a bit of charm in the overall theme, the difficulty of hidden puzzles and boss encounters has a chance to overcome the average player without making the right preparations beforehand. The UI can become extremely hard to navigate when you have over a dozen windows separated of items you can use, collection panels of what is available, and overall menu options. Though, the game does pause when using items and four things can be attached to buttons for quick access. There could have been slight improvement made to the map system, but being able to see details and travel instantly to any entrance on the map almost nullifies this problem. This was definitely a fun game to play.