OOLO

First time I tried an isometric metroidvania. Unfortunately it is also going to be the last time. I just could not find a comfortable way of navigating in an isometric way. Still, what I saw looked very interesting. There's probably a good metroidvania here. It's just not for me.

Classic Solistice style puzzle platformer. I wish we get more of these!

Oolo is a true love letter to the isometric adventure games of the 80s. If that sounds like your jam, I think you're going to love this!

Very nice indie puzzle game. The isometric perspective takes time to get used to. There are some things I hope will get fixed: There's no setting for controller sensitivity and the game doesn't seem to set the deadzone at all, so both of my controllers drift upwards. The controllers are wired XBox360 ones. Developer, if you're reading this, please add the option. Because of this I had to play using keyboard, which is a subpar experience. I wish there was support for numpad, so I can move in all 8 directions with keys 1-9 on numpad. That would make it super precise. The reset option doesn't see to work, at least on keyboard. I press the key and nothing happens. As for the game content, the story is interesting and the puzzles are very good. The only problem I have is, being a metroidvania, you often get into a dead-end where you lack some powerup and you have to backtrack through difficult platforming or perform a tedious puzzle again. I wish there was some way for the game to mark the room "solved" and maybe have the exit(s) change the color or glow or something and then you can press some key combination to just "teleport" to the exit arrow tile. So far it's 6/10 for me, but it could improve up to 10/10 if those issues get fixed.

Recommended with the advice to play on the low difficulty option: essentially, you either restart at a room's entrance when you die, get two restarts then are warped back to a save point, or all save points are replaced with one-ups and if you run out of lives it's Game Over (which, to be fair, is accurate to its primary inspiration, an NES game named Solstice). Save points aren't too scarce, but often you will face a gauntlet of 3-4 difficult rooms in a stretch, making it deeply annoying to re-do the whole sequence if you trip up on the final few steps. Don't convince yourself you need to choose greater annoyance like I did! Outside that, it's very true to its inspiration and if you recognize it, you'll like what you get. There are QOL improvements like the ability to tilt the view slightly left and right to clarify where in space things are, and the controls are generally smooth and responsive. Some things are devilishly tough to find if you want to get absolutely everything (and a slightly better ending). There's room for some improvement, notably in when and where your shadow is shown, but overall a pleasing spiritual sequel of sorts to a captivating-for-its-time old game.

This needs way more love. Criminally underplayed imo.

Oolo is a fantastic exploration game with metroidvania (zelda?) progression, smart puzzles and challenging platforming. I'm going to rate the game at 8/10 and I would have rated higher, but the constant crashes I suffered made it less enjoyable. Well, at some point I took it as an added challenge to get to the next save point ;) I enjoyed the game very much to the point I got it to 100%, and I would have slept on it if it wasn't for a kind soul on reddit that recommended hidden gems of 2025. I also encountered an annoying bug towards the end or maybe it's intended [spoiler] int he pyramid after the north exit, one of the skeletons would randomly stop moving until you move, which in the room where there are three it makes it annoyingly challenging, other times they move faster than it should. It was an interesting mechanic, and smart mechanic but the randomness added a bit of frustration to it. [/spoiler] Thanks to the devs for this great game!