Ancients of Ooga Review

If you are familiar with J. Kenworthy Entertainment and NinjaBee’s previous XBLA game Cloning Clyde, you may have a sense of deja vu when you meet the Ooganis. Ancients of Ooga also features puzzle solving, object interaction, and the ability to possess other characters. Have they taken these elements and improved on them?

The game starts with a prologue chapter that introduces you to the story. The Oogani tribes were tricked into eating too many narcotic slugs by a race of evil creatures called the Booli. The end result of this was many Ooganis being enslaved and their tribes’ leader killed. Your task as the Great Spirit is to free and gain the friendship of the seven tribes then revive their leaders to revolt against the Boolis.

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Ancients of Ooga falls into the platform/puzzle game genre. The game is played in a 2.5D world with traditional side scrolling level exploration that is enhanced by allowing you to move deeper into the screen and back out. You have the ability to take full control of other Ooganis that you free on a level. Each tribe features a special power that is unique to them and include being able to traverse hazards without being harmed, breathe fire, swim and dive bomb. The levels are typically designed to make use of the available Ooganis and will often require you swap between the great spirit and a Oogani to bypass an otherwise impassable area such as a lava pit.

To gain the friendship of the tribes you will be asked to perform some tasks which are split over each level of the chapter. Each chapter follows the same basic structure; find the tribe, gain their trust, do some tasks for them and then revive their leader. Once the leader is revived you gain control of him along with his extra special powers such as freezing time which looks great as everything slows down in a matrix style effect.

The puzzles are not overly taxing to work out and provided you pay attention when talking to the tribes and regularly use the in-game task list you should never have any major issues  performing the required tasks. Tasks generally require you to collect an item and return it to a location so they are fairly straightforward.

The Oogani are unable to perform some tasks with items in their hands, so a useful ability which all share is that multiple items and other Oogani can be placed into your mouth, thus freeing up their hands and being able to climb ladders for example. When the items are needed you can charmingly puke them back up and use them. This is useful for example when transporting multiple items to sacrifice at altars which unlock another area. Some items can also be fully swallowed and have benefits for the player such as being able to levitate to otherwise impossible to reach platforms and breathe fire to burn the ropes off enslaved Ooganis.

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There is quite a bit of game to get through before you reach your goal with a generous 55 levels that will take an average of 12 hours to complete, even more if you are a completionist and want to go for the 100%. The problem is that by the time you get to the third chapter, everything starts to feel very familiar as you are repeating the same similar tasks for each tribe. There are some variety to the tasks and puzzles especially in the later levels, largely thanks to the tribes differing powers and they do help to keep things interesting but I felt that overall they were just too repetitive.

Presentation is done well with easy to navigate menus and information pop ups to guide you, the stories in between the initial levels are told well and help set the tone the game. The in-game map and tasks list are great features and benefit the game so you never get fully stuck or lost on what to do. Graphically the game is good with detailed atmospheric backgrounds and scenery which change throughout the game to represent the tribes. There are however occasional slow downs when there is a lot happening on screen and it is especially noticeable when playing the two player co-op mode.

Music is provided with tribal drum sounding tunes, they do the job of setting the scene and are not too intrusive as background music. Sound effects are used well with burps, squelches, clucking chickens and punches which are often fun to listen to. Controls work mostly well, you may have occasional issues when attacking the Boolis because they are not on the same depth of the platform as you and this can lead to some cheap deaths.

Ancients of Ooga costs 800 :MSPoints: and there is a lot of gameplay so you’re getting great value for the price. The puzzles are fairly basic and thanks to the forgiving nature of deaths which usually respawn you near to where you died, the game is played at a more relaxed pace which allows you enjoy some of the funny moments of the game. The repetitiveness of each chapters do make you feel like you are replaying some levels over and over and while it brings the experience down a little, it’s very much worth taking a look.

More information as well as the demo and full game downloads can be found on the Marketplace.

Thank you to both J. Kenworthy Entertainment and NinjaBee Games for providing a review code for this title.