Open Season | a Review
originally published on 19/04/2021;
Hello everyone, I am the majestic deer, G.E.M.Simov, a magnificent specimen of nature’s proclivity for creating perfection in its own right, and I’ve come to tell you about Open Season for the PSP.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it. Also, I am a gameplay designer and a writer so I got the credentials to talk shit.
Gameplay
This is a third person action adventure puzzle platformer. It has those features in itself, but, most of all - it is a licensed movie game that’s full of BUGS, as one can expect. This game has a map system, and a quest system. Interestingly enough, those two systems are much like Skyrim - they show the player everything, and the player is being led to the location where they need to go, and everything they might need to see is highlighted. It really holds the player’s hand.
The very first level, with the very first demonstration of a mechanic, is beyond broken. The player, having just gained control of Boog, the bear, must throw their companion, Elliot, the Deer, over a fence, so that Elliot can get an item. Well, the system that is responsible for this involves aiming, but the aiming only goes along the X and Y axis, meaning the player cannot actually correct their aim to go up or down.
The crux? The location where Elliot needs to be thrown is with a higher elevation than the one where Boog is situated. Alright, I said to myself, I’ll somehow get to throw the deer in there, he’ll do his thing once that happens, right? Right? Well, he did not. Another bug, or feature, is that, when Elliot is thrown somewhere, he will immediately try to run back to Boog. Nevermind the fact that the item that is needed is right next to him ,he WILL run back to Boog - even if that means running, endlessly, into a wall, because there is no other way to reach the bear.
This seemed to be a very strange roadblock - right at the ACTUAL start of the game, before I had even been shown any mechanics at all - and yet, as it turns out, it is just bad design and horrible player direction. The area, that Boog was meant to throw Elliot in, had a sign depicting a deer on it.
As it turns out, the way to do this properly, is to throw Elliot at the sign. Not only does the sign, when aimed at from a certain angle and distance, get locked onto, but also, when Elliot lands on the ground, the player now has control over him. This was not mentioned anywhere, even though there had been a short cutscene featuring Elliot telling Boog to throw him, as well as a text prompt appearing on the lower side of the screen to inform the player how to throw.
This is already a red flag - off of the FIRST mechanical interaction, no less! But, afterwards, things seemed to get a bit better. There were still hiccups - such as being unable to go back to an area, after entering a new one, before completely cleaning out the currently occupied (recently entered) one, or the fact that some pick-ups cannot be picked up without entering a new area and having to deal with the aforementioned inconvenience.
Another thing that does not sit well with yours truly… The areas change without an indication that they have changed. Of course, they change AFTER something happens, but there is no sound queue, no visual queue, no prompt - nothing to tell the player that there are now, say, enemies in an area that previously had no enemies. In a game that highlights everything, I’d say this is an oversight, and a bad design choice.
There’s a hub area, but the branches of that hub area (exits leading to other areas) are all locked, except one, which is the one the player’s current mission is directing them towards. There are also some obstacles in the hub area, which can be dealt with through the use of mechanics utilized in other areas, but, for some reason, those mechanics cannot be utilized.
That issue, however, becomes even worse, because there are some areas that can only be accessed through other areas, which get locked off after the player leaves them, and there’s an NPC telling them that “They don’t want to go there”. Newsflash, I WANT to go there, but hey, I guess the game knows best. Player freedom, what’s that?
Part of this problem is also tied to the fact that, upon completing a mission objective, control is taken away from the player and they are teleported (quite literally) to the location where the NPC that gave them the quest is. That then takes away their opportunity to explore the area of the mission, because it’s no longer accessible.
Back on the topic of player freedom - this game DOES NOT want to let the player do ANYTHING by themselves. There is a mini-game section that features Boog and Elliot riding a minecart, and the player needs to input commands to avoid obstacles. Instead of the game just presenting the means to avoid those obstacles, and then letting the player do their own thing, the game puts up a prompt before EVERY obstacle. It’s like a QuickTime Event, but dressed in a manner so that it isn’t a QuickTime Event. On top of that, it’s long and draws on. This is partially an issue of the game’s Presentation, so keep that in mind, but the fact is that the whole game seems to have been designed in a manner that, much like a cart, limits the opportunity of the rider to move in any other direction than the one decreed by the rails.
The combat in this game - which, sadly, exists, and is mandatory - is bad. Supposedly, the player stuns enemies when they hit them, but the swinging animation for Boog’s attacks is so slow that the stun ends and the enemies start walking about. Then, if an enemy shoots the player, the player takes the damage - there’s no means of avoiding it, other than not letting the enemy shoot, or ending up too far away so that the enemy doesn’t consider the player to be in their vicinity, and so doesn’t try to attack them.
It becomes so glaringly ridiculous at some points that enemies will attack the player WHILE being attacked and then stunlock the player until the player is dead, because Boog drops Elliot after taking damage, but the only way to attack is by holding onto Elliot, so the Hunters who just pummel Boog mercilessly and make it impossible for him to hold onto Elliot for long enough to get an attack off are just really hard to deal with, and not because their design is challenging, but because their design is bad, or, at the very least, flawed.
I mentioned that already, but I NEED to reiterate. This game is BUGGY. Want to pick up that berry bush so as to heal yourself? No, can’t do it. Want to finish that mission? No, can’t do it. Want to walk through here? No, can’t do it. A small number of examples for a very large problem.
There is a thing that this game does relatively well. Collectibles. Ignoring the fact that the issues listed above CAN lock the player out of some collectibles, the way collectibles are done is not bad at all, and there is quite a pleasant experience bound to roaming about and picking them all up.
In addition, there’s a very good progression system, centered around Boog’s roar. He’s a bear, and he can roar - but, at the start of the game, before he’s become wild, he doesn’t roar well at all - in fact, his roar doesn’t do anything. The more missions Boog completes, the wilder he becomes, and his roar becomes more potent. By the end of the game Boog can just roar and instantly kill any enemies nearby - and that’s pretty liberating and refreshing, considering that the alternative is wailing at them for 5 seconds.
And, lastly, the worst thing - the characters are fucking slow. Moving around doesn’t feel good, nor is it fluent and pleasant to do. This game? It’s just not good, as a whole, though. 1/3
Presentation
Due to the fact that the movie (this game is based on) is an animation that’s highly stylized, the game has managed to retain a good appearance even after the many years which have passed. At the time this game was new, it probably looked very good, and I can’t say it doesn’t look nice.
However, the scorching brightness of this piece of media sent me into a spiral of PTSD, and I envisioned the massive, colorful spheres of LocoRoco, and the terror of that sent me reeling. Then, fortunately, the horrible music of Open Season brought me back.
Somehow, this game has botched it beyond belief, when it comes to music. Not a single track sounds good, and then the fighting track is the same, its repetitive, it begins whenever an enemy so much as breathes in an area and keeps going and going. It becomes grating incredibly quickly, and, due to the fact that it is the only battle track, and there’s a lot of fighting, it really becomes a chore to listen to.
Then, here’s an issue I never thought I’d have with a game - the FONT is BAD! Half the letters are hard to read and look like others (worst offender would be ‘E’, which looks like ‘I’). And, considering the fact there’s no voice acting when it comes to the directions the player receives, reading is important in this game. But it’s not treated as such.
The voice acting, what little there is, is a mixed back. There’s a narrator who tells the player the story so far, before the game begins, and then provides an epilogue when the game ends, and that person has done a good job. However, everyone else just doesn’t work well.
Actually, I could be wrong. But the fact that Elliot says something every 2 or 3 seconds is absolutely indicative of how annoying it becomes to hear him. It’s horrible, because he has three or four lines, at most, and they just keep going and going and going, and there’s no way to shut him up. It’s not a funny gag, it’s actually just bothering the player and making the experience worse for them.
In addition to all that, remember what I mentioned from the Gameplay section of this review. This game doesn’t do a good job with its tutorial. However, the Instruction Manual is pretty good… Though that doesn’t save this game. 2/3
Story
The story is… Weak. It somewhat follows along the movie’s plot, which wasn’t all that bad, but it wasn’t too good, either. The fact of the matter is that this game has a bunch of characters that don’t really have much character, and then a pair of characters who should, supposedly, have character, but then those don’t have character, either.
There’s no pacing, there’s no sense to anything, it’s just… It’s just mediocre, at best. There’s instances of characters doing things that they shouldn’t be doing, or that they have no reason to do, there’s examples of characters being incredibly fickle - it’s bad. 1/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? Do you even need to ask? The answer, of course, is NO. 0/1
Conclusion
4/10. I can see why people would play this game and find a measure of enjoyment in it. They played it as children, for it was directed exactly at that - children. I wouldn’t recommend playing it, because it is below average.
I yeet it in the collection of mediocrity, to wallow in the dust of the other mediocre games I’ve played. What a shame.