Onirism Review

 Onirism is a third-person shooter action-adventure developed by Crimson Tales and published by Shoreline Games. Released on Early Access back in 2019, it is now considered complete and ready for the masses. I don't remember why I asked for this game to be reviewed, but in the back of my mind, the words Kingdom Hearts and Ratchet & Clank are vaguely ringing a bell when I see it. I also noticed there’s a bundle with Serious Sam 4. Well, whatever it is, I’m happy to check out what it's offering after over six years of development.

In Onirism, you play as Carol as she explores the world of Crearia to find her lost plushie, Bunbun. Simple, right? Well, it is! Although there is some giant megacorporation ruining everyone’s lives, Carol’s goal is always on Bunbun, and she makes that journey fun by… being who she is.

For a kid looking for a lost toy, she sure acts like a bloodthirsty, sarcastic, action hero-type adult. It’s to the point where I am mildly concerned about the type of environment she grew up in. There are moments where you’re reminded she is eight years old, but she is kind of a badbutt most of the time, quipping and laughing in glee as she riddles her enemies with Nerf balls. It's amusing, and although she can be a little rough, I found her personality endearing.

Unfortunately, she has a slight case of Bubsy in that she is prone to talking more than deemed appropriate, usually when encountering enemies, taking damage, and getting a kill. She has several quips for various situations that, unfortunately, repeat too soon. And, credit to the VA, but Carol’s pitch is a little too high to sound natural. I still liked her, but I can see people not enjoying her voice for long periods of time. The rest of the characters are good too, if not the most complex in terms of writing.

Though, I have to give special mention to the soundtrack; there is a good variety of music that surprised me. One moment is a peaceful adventure song that fits the art style of the game, then when a fight starts, suddenly I’m listening to a song that was ripped out of Mick Gordon’s DOOM soundtrack. It's sort of insane and cool. However, there were audio issues throughout the game that sort of put a damper on things. The music doesn't loop properly — it keeps playing the fight songs despite no enemies being around — the audio can glitch so that it stops playing, and I think there are some missing voicelines. It's not egregiously bad, but it will take you out of it.

As for Crearia itself, I found it rather pretty. All 20 levels look different from one another, with unique challenges and sights to see. One level can be more like an open-world, riding around in either a motorcycle (with guns) or a unicorn (who shoots lasers), while another is more linear as you blast through anything in your way. I quite liked the variety on display, but at times I felt lost. The objective marker on the map can disappear or not be used at all, forcing you to wander around and stumble upon the way forward. It can be enjoyable to do, but sometimes I found myself a little frustrated figuring out if this was the right direction or if I had to do some other objective before I move on.

With the presentation out of the way, what about the gameplay? Carol is quite the nimble kid, able to sprint, jump, dive, slide, wall jump, and roll around the place with only her decently big stamina limiting her (which can be upgraded). Not only that, throughout her adventure, she can unlock new abilities like air dash and double jump. The movement feels very good and fluid. While I did occasionally find myself falling off platforms out of my control, it didn't happen too often to be annoying. That being said, if you do fall into a bottomless pit, I hope wherever you jumped from is flat because you can end up in a loop where you respawn and fall until you lose all your HP.

But Crearia isn't an entirely peaceful land. There are many who will stop at nothing to prevent Carol from getting Bunbun back. Luckily, she has access to a bunch of different toys to play with, obtained through defeated enemies, hidden chests, or through the shop. An umbrella, water guns, foam blasters, magic wands, shotguns, bazookas, bows, dual pistols, and more! Although you can only carry eight weapons (including an infinite ammo hairdryer), any you pick up on the field is added to your Toybox so you can change your loadout freely. However, you only need to keep track of four ammo types: soapy water, energy, foam darts, and fireworks. 

Each weapon feels good to shoot and has a niche, so that you’ll always be swapping weapons to tackle different scenarios, and there will be a weapon made just for you because of how many there are. It's like a Ratchet & Clank–level arsenal of toys. With the combination of movement mechanics and insane weapons, this leads to an intense gameplay loop, going from tricky platforming to deadly arenas. Even on the equivalent of the standard difficulty, you’ll find yourself struggling not to die. Checkpoints can be sparse in some areas, where dying will make you lose several minutes of progress. There's no autosave either, so anything you picked up, like weapons and upgrades, needs to be obtained again, as well as replaying cutscenes, but at least that can be skipped.

Despite all the fun things Carol can do, I ran into problems actually performing these actions. The controls felt a little loose and, for some reason, I couldn't change the sensitivity. I got used to it, but I think the menus are pretty wonky. That's not the worst of it, as I ran into several problems while playing on my controller. At times, buttons just stopped working all of a sudden. Also, despite having button prompts for controllers, the tutorials will show mouse and keyboard controls instead. I prefer playing third-person games with a gamepad in hand, but it seems like it wasn't given the proper care.

However, it isn’t all about crazy weapons and gunfights. Sometimes you just want to look pretty, and that’s where the shop comes in. You can customise Carol’s look however you wish with new clothes, hair dyes, and hairstyles. There’s quite a lot to choose from, with some wild choices. Heck, with the right costume and hair, Carol can look like the protagonist of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, and that is really funny.

If that’s not enough game for you, well there are other ways to play Onirism. There is local and online multiplayer, however at the time of review, online multiplayer wasn't available. Still, there are a bunch of modes you can play aside from the main Adventure campaign (which you can play in co-op), all of which make you think you're playing a different game altogether. Tales is a zombie horde mode similar to Call of Duty’s, Hunt is all about upgrading your abilities and racking up points, and Playground features all the multiplayer shooter modes you’d expect: Deathmatch, Oddball, King of the Hill, etc. They’re decently fun to play when you need a break and hopefully when the online is working, it will have decent netcode.

And I did find myself taking breaks. Like, it’s a really fun game, but it has some serious issues that needed to be addressed before it was released from Early Access. None of the guns has their damage stat display correctly, so they all look like they deal no damage. I found the tutorials lacking as they didn't teach me all the mechanics. For example, it took me six hours to realise that you can guard. That would've been nice to learn earlier. Finally, it can get glitchy when it comes to some areas. At least it ran at a consistent 60 FPS, but it also had the occasional stutter and pop-in. Not only that, the load times are a little bit too long for my liking, and I have it installed on my SSD.

Onirism is what I call a very good 7/10 game. It has a lot of good mechanics and fun gameplay that will keep you busy for its entire playthrough, but has inherent flaws that don’t really push it any further in my eyes. If you have nostalgia for PlayStation 2 games, then it should be right up your alley, but be prepared for some jank and frustration. Maybe wait for a few patches to come out.