Ever Oasis (3DS) Review

An adventure across the desert. 

 

 Among the very last games to grace the Nintendo 3DS back in 2017, Ever Oasis came to us from Grezzo, the respected developer behind the recent The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening remake and Nintendo 3DS remasters of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. An RPG that has you building an oasis in a desert that's blighted by darkness, it's a forgotten gem that sadly released when the Nintendo Switch craze was still fresh. I've read lots of praise for the game online so I thought I'd finally give it a shot. Is it a fun time? Let's find out.

 In the vast desert, an evil force known as "Chaos" has claimed much of its bustling civilizations, leaving a desolate land behind. You play as a young "Seedling", who posses a special ability to create an oasis. With the help of a water spirit named Esna, you'll need to grow and nurture your oasis by attracting residents through setting up shops and fulfilling their requests to fight the growing threat of Chaos. The story wasn't the most thrilling but remained interesting enough to keep you playing. I did like some characters like Esna and some of the various residents you'll meet though.

Build an oasis from nothing while fighting the forces of Chaos.

 Ever Oasis is an Action-RPG where you play as your seedling as you battle monsters, take on quests, build your oasis, and explore dungeons. The core gameplay is familiar to the Zelda games with you solving puzzles in dungeons and fighting bosses, albeit more cutified. Combat has you using light and heavy attacks as well as dodging when fighting enemies. You unlock more attacks as you level up which makes combat still interesting. As you advance through the game, you can recruit up to three party members who can adventure with you in dungeons and caves. Each party member has a special skill that they use to progress in dungeons like mining ores, flipping up debris, and rolling into a ball, and gliding across platforms. As you defeat enemies, you gain levels which increases your attributes and you can craft items from fallen enemies to create new weapons and armor to equip.

While simple, the gameplay is fun with lots to explore.

 A huge chunk of the game is spent on exploration, with you often scavenging for items and searching for the next area. Side quests are mainly fetch quests, as you'll deliver items for your booths and were rarelt ever that interesting. The dungeons and caves that you'll explore are packed with puzzles to solve, hidden treasures to find, boss fights to beat, all of which were fun to do. Unfortunately, the game has you constantly backtracking between areas and your oasis since you need to swap party members to advance, which halts the flow of exploration. Thankfully, portals are abundant and frequent that it's not a game-breaker. 

Battle some tough-looking creatures.

 Finally, you'll be managing your oasis as you'll build shops such as a fruit stand, snack shop, and bakery to attract more residents so that you can level up your oasis. When you've attracted enough residents, you can level up the oasis, expanding it with more roads and spaces to build shops. Shops will generate money called "Dewadems" that you'll need to craft new weapons and gear, as well as develop roads and more shops for your oasis. There's also a garden to tend and you can grow crops for shops too. Keeping your residents happy will max the oasis gauge, which offers gameplay perks like increased health. As you bring more residents to your oasis, you can assign them the boring tasks of tending to the garden, scout for useful materials, and auto-stock your shops. You can even host festivals to drive sales and attract new residents as well. All in all, the adventure took around 23 hours to beat though replay-vale is low with you taking on more side-quests and tackling randomly generated dungeons.

Build and grow your oasis to bring in new faces!

 Ever Oasis is a good-looking game thanks to its colorful character designs with nice desert backgrounds to boot. It holds up well for a late 3DS game due its cartoony look and the 3D effect was solid too. Sadly, the game lacks any voice-acting-- which is a shame since it would've fleshed-out the characters more-- so you're stuck with reading though texts. The soundtrack was great, packing many Middle Eastern-inspired tracks with the combat and ending themes being notable.

The game is simply full of charm.

 Ever Oasis was an all-around fun time. I enjoyed the simple yet charming story, the engaging gameplay, and cheery presentation. Some shortcomings were the lack of deep customization for your oasis and the side-quests could've used more variety, so there's room for improvement if Grezzo and Nintendo ever intend on a sequel. Had it released on the Switch as well, it would've garnered lots of attention, but it still remains an overall solid experience that RPG and adventure fans should check-out.