Oscuro: Blossom's Glow

The most beautiful thing to make me want to throw my Steam Deck across the room

Why

Why Not

Impressions

A beautiful little puzzle game aiming for a cozy, relaxing experience that lets itself down a bit with rage-inducing platforming.

You're a little girl minding her own business when a scary looking bug dude called the Oscuro comes along and steals the light that seems to make everything in this universe function. Since you and the bug are the only two sentient beings in existence, it's up to you to get the light back in plants where it belongs. You do this by travelling through a series of puzzles confined to rooms which (thankfully) spawn you back at the start of the room if you die. None of the puzzles are especially hard; they mostly make you think just enough to stay engaged though some are trickier.

The reason to be thankful for Celeste-style respawns is the decidedly not Celeste-style platforming. I can't quite put my finger on what makes it so objectionable, but there's definitely something. It feels kinda laggy, and I swear inputs just don't register occasionally. Maybe I'm used to games giving me a bit of leeway when jumping a little late off a ledge or something, but if this is what it feels like without that leeway I can see why everything else has it.

Instant respawns mostly mitigate this and allow you to enjoy the beautiful soundtrack and art without too much stress, though there are a few too many times where the solution is 'just wait', as well as some respawns which re-trigger overlong pans around the room where you can't move. It's also possible to soft-lock yourself in a few cases by not having an absorbed light handy, so try to ensure you do whenever possible.

I probably seem like I don't like the game given that I'm focusing so much on negatives, but I actually enjoyed it overall. It definitely has a distinct look, the soundtrack is nice and it's generally a relaxing, rewarding experience with the background of a show-don't-tell story. There are a lot of cool things to experience here despite the drawbacks, and I'm interested to see what else these devs can come up with (as long as they fix platforming -__-).