The game progresses through a day and night cycle, and there’s a genuine feeling of joy when people you’ve met while out exploring follow through on their promise of visiting, or all-new visitors come by out of the blue. It’s worth talking to the visitors to your oasis, too, as you’ll often hear rumours of other potential oasis recruits out in the main desert. This currency can then be re-invested into more Bloom Booths or upgrading your equipment.

In fairness, you do get a cut of the profit, known as Dewadems. Later in the game, you can delegate some of your responsibilities. The life of an oasis chief is very hands on in this world. The thing is, in the early hours of the game you’re responsible for keeping the Bloom Booths stocked with whatever they need, be it fruit and vegetables or materials to make scarves and the like. Keep them happy and they’ll open Bloom Booths, fancy shops that sell all manner of wares, and these in turn attract more visitors and shoppers. The oasis part of Ever Oasis plays rather like Animal Crossing in the sense you have visitors and residents you want to keep happy. Here then your adventure really begins by developing your own oasis from a population of zero (excluding yourself and your friendly water spirit friend who can’t leave) to a bustling hive famed throughout the land. It now falls upon you, as a Child of the Great Tree, to form a new oasis somewhere with the aid of a water spirit. Unfortunately, Chaos reaches your desert home and your elder brother is immediately lost to the menace, throwing your world into turmoil. The game reveals that a great threat to the world’s oases exists, known as Chaos, which transforms its inhabitants into monsters and generally ruins the rather tranquil mood.

He or she – there’s a basic character creator – is a cute-looking desert dweller living with their elder brother, a chief of a bustling oasis. The game begins with some scene setting out in the desert, introducing you to your main protagonist named Tethu. One minor complaint from the initial stages is that it starts a little slowly, with lots of cutscenes and exposition. There are city manager, dungeon crawler and action RPG elements all thrown together into a melting pot that makes for a diverse, if not occasionally a little convoluted, experience.įortunately, what really ties Ever Oasis together is its charming world and cast of characters that make you feel rewarded and motivated to continue playing. Ever Oasis feels like the amalgamation of countless other games that have come before, but not necessarily even from within the same genre. Needless to say, Ever Oasis feels inspired in part by those Legend of Zelda titles.īut the homages don’t really stop there. Developer Grezzo is all-too-familiar with the Nintendo 3DS, having been responsible for convertingboth Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask to the system.

Ever oasis 3ds metacritic