I'm of two minds with this game. The game is beautiful - easily one of the best-looking examples of pixel art in modern gaming. It's also decently fun, with secrets to discover, boss fights to win, and new abilities to unlock.

The game, however, lacks a certain amount of polish - not in the graphics, but in how it plays. It's not a whole lot of fun to have your tense boss fight interrupted by having to click through dialogue in the middle of it (with control taken away from you and, when returned without a lot of indicators that it's back, you have to scramble). There are sections of platforming-type puzzles that were a bit of a chore and a bore to get through - and it felt a little like they were put in to serve the story, which was fairly mediocre and frankly seemed to get in the way of the game. The controls in the last part, where you have some difficult platform maneuvers, felt unresponsive.

I finished it, which is a high compliment in my book - I have no trouble dropping terrible, boring games if they're not finished...so it's not awful. I don't want the slick graphics to give potential buyers the idea that the game is better than it is, though, and so I'm giving this a thumbs-down. It's fun, but there are many other platformers (e.g., Braid, Aquaria, Mark of the Ninja, Fez) that are a lot better. If you don't have any of those, hold off on Owlboy until you do and return to this one once you've exhausted other, better options.