Oceanhorn is one of those indie franchises you usually pay little attention to throughout the years, but you always become immediately interested in a new entry once one is announced. The reason is simple: despite its origins in the mobile gaming sphere, the Oceanhorn franchise has garnered a reputation for being a simplified, but honest “clone franchise” of The Legend of Zelda. The first game in the series was a top-down take on The Wind Waker, whilst its ambitious sequel wanted to be the indie Breath of the Wild, a mere two years after the source of inspiration’s release.

So when I heard about Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon, I was curious to see what the dev team would cook up next. It’s not that I was fully expecting to see another cheaper clone take on Zelda, but given the previous track record, I was still curious to see the inspirations they’d take from, as well as whichever gameplay loop and art style they’d decide on. With Chronos Dungeon, we have a co-op focused dungeon crawling action RPG that actually doesn’t feel very Zelda-ish. And oddly enough, by trying to act more original, it also made it feel less inspired, and vastly less memorable.

Mow down hordes of enemies until you get bored.

Gone are the polygonal visuals and impactful art styles from the first two Oceanhorn games. Chronos Dungeon adopted a simpler, pixel-like art style, one that, whilst well-put and colorful, also makes it look like approximately seventeen dozen other indies available right now on PC and Switch. My first reaction was being reminded of a painfully forgettable Switch indie released back in 2017, Kamiko. That goes to show that the art style simply isn’t that original, even if, admittedly, Chronos Dungeon looks a lot more crisp. On the other hand, the game goes for a super cheap, Microsoft Word-esque UI font style that stands out like a sore thumb. If I can even be bothered to pay attention at a font in a game, that ain’t a good sign.

But what really matters is knowing what the game actually feels like when playing, and if it plays well. Regarding the former, it’s a bog standard action RPG with dungeon crawling and roguelike elements. Select between four different classes (each one with different stats and a unique skill tree), and keep venturing down the dungeon by defeating never-ending hoardes of enemies, as well as solving very minute puzzles. Most of them revolve around merely looking for a key in a different room. You can do this by yourself, or with friends. In the case of playing by yourself, you can actually swap between characters with the press of a button, which I found out to be awfully convenient, depending on the situation.

You can also swap between characters with the press of a button. Each character has a distinct skill tree.

Now, does it play well? Sort of. I guess there’s not a lot you can ruin in a top-down system where you can either perform a simple attack, charge it up for a stronger attack, or use a finite item. But there is a noticeable amount of input lag in the combat, one you can get used to after a while, but annoying nonetheless. But to be fair, what will probably bore you about Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon‘s gameplay loop is how utterly repetitive it is. Sure, a game with roguelite elements is going to feature a repetitive loop, but there’s just not a lot of depth in its dungeon crawling. It’s just going down level after level of a dungeon, occasionally fighting a boss, and collecting treasure. Rooms never become challenging in a smart manner, they just become crowded with an ever-increasing amount of enemies to kill.

Granted, the fact that Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon throws six dozen foes at you at once is a clear indication that the game is best enjoyed with more friends. As previously mentioned, it does feature co-op, but there is a pretty annoying catch: at least at the time of writing, there’s no online co-op functionality. Everything has to be done locally. As someone who grew up with a Nintendo 64, the thought of having some folks over to play a game in co-op is never a bad idea, but you have to take into account that this review was done on a PC (and also an Asus ROG Ally), which is not exactly the best place for you to play any sort of local multiplayer game. I can only hope online multiplayer will be added further down the line, or else this entire multiplayer premise will never be fully realized.

Whilst the UI and font usage are a bit lame, the voice acting is actually pretty good.

I want to reiterate that Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon is far from being considered a bad game, but this is also the first title in the franchise that felt devoid of an identity. Ironic, considering it’s the one that doesn’t try to be a carbon copy of an existing Zelda game. It’s just a halfway decent dungeon crawler / action RPG hybrid with average visuals, average controls, and an average gameplay loop. Even if it supports local co-op multiplayer, the fact it’s currently not available on consoles makes this feature feel somewhat pointless. If it ever comes out on additional platforms, and if you’re salivating for some classic Gauntlet-esque gameplay (albeit a lot less exciting), Chronos Dungeon can suffice for a while. But it’s still, without a doubt, my least favorite Oceanhorn game so far.

Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon is available now on PC and mobile.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB and Asus ROG Ally.

A copy of Oceanhorn: Chronos Dungeon was provided by the publisher.