Baldo: The Guardian Owls
- August 26, 2021
- Naps Team
Baldo: The Guardian Owls falls short of the heights set by its inspiration, but it is still a respectable action RPG.
Get on Steam"Baldo: The Guardian Owls" is an action-adventure game with puzzle-solving elements. The player controls Baldo, a young boy chosen by destiny to gather the legendary elemental spirits and prevent an ancient prophecy from coming true. With its charming art style and immersive world-building, players will explore a vast open world, meet memorable characters, and uncover the mysteries of the land.
iPad
iPhone
Mac OS
Nintendo Switch
PC
Phone
Playstation 4
Playstation 5
Steam Deck
Windows
Xbox One
Xbox Series X|S
Mobile Platform
PlayStation
Xbox
Reviews
- The game has significantly improved since its launch, with major bugs fixed and enjoyable gameplay.
- It features a beautiful art style reminiscent of Studio Ghibli and offers a vast world filled with exploration and secrets.
- The puzzles and dungeons provide a challenging experience that fans of Zelda-like games will appreciate.
- The combat is clunky and often feels unfair, with many enemies capable of one-hit kills.
- Puzzles can be overly obscure and lack clear direction, leading to frustration and the need for external guides.
- The user interface and map design are poorly executed, making navigation and understanding objectives difficult.
- story74 mentions
- 23 % positive mentions
- 73 % neutral mentions
- 4 % negative mentions
The game's story is generally considered enjoyable and charming, with a solid flow and appealing art style, but it suffers from a lack of direction and hints for quests, leading to frustration among players. Many find the lengthy gameplay rewarding, yet the unfinished content and challenging puzzles can detract from the overall experience. While some side stories are anticipated to be better, they often do not meet expectations, and the game is noted for its difficulty, requiring significant problem-solving skills.
“It’s a very lengthy game and the developers are working on their last DLC to fully complete its story, which is mind-boggling that they’re still adding to it.”
“Everything is so finely curated, great art and soundtrack, nice storyline (which is huge), the combats are all different and the puzzles are all diverse and interesting.”
“The story is solid and flows well throughout.”
“But unfortunately, so much of the content and the story is partially finished and very frustrating.”
“The game's quests and puzzles are also frustrating due to the lack of any real direction to follow and no types of hints for puzzle solving.”
“The quests are anyone's guess since they rarely give any hints as to what to do, and the only way you can even get a hint is through the library option in Rodia town, which requires payment. Since getting money in this game can be tediously long, good luck with that.”
- graphics71 mentions
- 45 % positive mentions
- 51 % neutral mentions
- 4 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game have been widely praised for their beautiful, Ghibli-inspired art style, which many players find enchanting and reminiscent of classic titles like Zelda. However, the lack of graphical options and some technical shortcomings have drawn criticism, with players noting that while the visuals are stunning, they are somewhat limited by the game's porting quality. Overall, the art style is considered the standout feature, enhancing the game's charm despite its gameplay flaws.
“The art style is amazing and yes, it takes inspiration from Studio Ghibli.”
“Graphics are nice and feel really fantasy/movie-like; I keep wanting to take screenshots.”
“Baldo: The Guardian Owls is a beautiful looking Ghibli-esque adventure that draws you in with its wonderful art style and atmosphere.”
“But it has some shortcomings, such as no graphical configuration in the PC version, menus and gameplay a little stuck.”
“Graphics settings, resolution settings, keybinding settings, and any other quality of life settings required for a PC port are missing.”
“Also, everyone is complaining there are no graphical options; the game is a Switch port, it maxes out to the highest possible resolution and settings, and a potato can run it.”
- music45 mentions
- 78 % positive mentions
- 16 % neutral mentions
- 7 % negative mentions
The music in the game is widely praised for its quality and nostalgic feel, often described as one of the standout features alongside the art style and story. While some players note that the music can become repetitive, it is generally considered enjoyable and well-composed, enhancing the overall experience. However, issues with sound balancing, particularly with louder sound effects overshadowing the music, have been pointed out as a drawback.
“You play this game for the music, to explore the environment and to discover the secrets.”
“The music is great and feels nostalgic.”
“Beautiful game, fun as can be, amazing music, and just challenging enough to be enjoyable and engaging!”
“The sound effects were louder than the music, which is too bad because the music is good.”
“I truly want to love this game; the graphics are cute, the music catches the ear (Owl City!), exploration is great, and the puzzles are engaging. However, the last few dungeons are absolutely awful, with constant backtracking and a lack of clear goals, making it impossible to finish the game like that.”
“If you like The Legend of Zelda, you'll like this game. There's better music and better illustration style, but the same gameplay style, with the same advantages and disadvantages as The Legend of Zelda. The Switch version is very easy to crash and reads very slowly, which is a common problem with most Switch versions.”
- gameplay37 mentions
- 22 % positive mentions
- 54 % neutral mentions
- 24 % negative mentions
The gameplay of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players highlighting frustrating mechanics, poorly designed puzzles, and clunky controls that detract from the overall experience. While some appreciate the game's length and challenging nature, drawing comparisons to the Legend of Zelda, others criticize its lack of quality-of-life improvements and optimization issues. Overall, the beautiful art style and engaging story are often overshadowed by the gameplay's shortcomings.
“The gameplay has improved a lot.”
“This game will scratch that Zelda itch you have as it borrows mechanics from it.”
“The puzzles are good and the gameplay is challenging.”
“Annoying dungeons with puzzles that have arbitrary requirements, frustrating game mechanics, terrible resource balancing, and so much more does not balance out the beautiful art style, fun story, and enjoyable music.”
“The curse of the Ghibli-style game continues - great visuals, mediocre to awful gameplay.”
“Core gameplay is excruciating on almost every level, awful map, clunky UI, combat is far too tough and even basic traversal will see you die countless times, obtuse solutions to puzzles and dungeons make progress insanely difficult without help from external sources, still lots of bugs to be found, even after the latest patch.”
- optimization22 mentions
- 27 % positive mentions
- 45 % neutral mentions
- 27 % negative mentions
The optimization of the game has received mixed reviews, with some players reporting smooth performance and stable frame rates, particularly on high-end hardware, while others have encountered significant performance issues and bugs, especially on lower-end setups. Despite some users experiencing a locked 30fps, others have successfully unlocked higher frame rates, leading to a divided opinion on the game's overall optimization quality.
“The performance is great (you can unlock the 30fps/hz lock by forcing higher fps in the NVIDIA control panel).”
“Personally, I've experienced no performance problems or bugs and I'm having a great time playing the game.”
“I have not had the problem with performance as others have said, though the game does seem to be locked to 30 fps at this stage, but this has been rock solid for me.”
“I stayed away from it until recently due to its bad mechanics and optimization.”
“This is from me as a non-Switch player; it also has a lot of performance issues.”
“- performance leaves a lot to be desired.”
- stability8 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
Overall, the game has improved significantly since launch, with major bugs fixed and stable performance on lower-end systems. However, users still report occasional glitches, crashes, and long load times, suggesting that some stability issues persist. Players are advised to make backups due to potential character attribute and item resets.
“All of the major bugs from launch were fixed, so the game itself works and runs great now.”
“The game runs great on low-end systems, proving its stability across various hardware.”
“Despite some minor issues with resolution and UI scaling, the overall performance is impressive.”
“Unfortunately, still a bit buggy in places with a few puzzles sometimes glitching out and character attributes/items resetting. Make backups!”
“Only cons are the game is a bit buggy, as it does crash a lot, and the load times can get quite long.”
- grinding5 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game frustrating due to a lack of clear direction and hints for quests, leading to hours of tedious exploration and slow-paced puzzles. The need to pay for hints exacerbates the issue, as earning in-game currency is a slow process, making progress feel unnecessarily prolonged and unenjoyable. Overall, the combination of sluggish movement, clunky controls, and poorly designed quests contributes to a negative grinding experience.
“The quests are anyone's guess since they rarely give any hints as to what to do, and the only way you can even get a hint is through the library option in Rodia town. You have to pay for those hints, and since getting money in this game can be tediously long, good luck with that.”
“No sense of direction on where to go can lead to hours of pointless exploration, which isn't fun, and is filled with tedious slow walking puzzles.”
“[Sluggish movement; frustratingly designed puzzles; clunky controls; terrible combat; tedious exploration; useless map; poor UI.]”
- atmosphere2 mentions
- 150 % positive mentions
- -50 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
"Baldo: The Guardian Owls" is praised for its exquisite, Ghibli-inspired art style that creates a captivating atmosphere, immersing players in a beautifully crafted world filled with clever puzzles and dungeons. However, the gameplay can be challenging and bewildering, which may detract from the overall experience.
“Baldo: The Guardian Owls is a beautiful-looking Ghibli-esque adventure that draws you in with its wonderful art style and atmosphere.”
“The exquisite art style and wonderfully atmospheric world create an immersive experience.”
“The game features some clever puzzles and dungeons that complement its captivating atmosphere.”
Critic Reviews
‘Cause darling I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream
Went wrong somewhere along the line. The original idea might have promise, but in practice it has failed. Threatens to be interesting sometimes, but rarely.
35%Baldo: The Guardian Owls Review – Buckling Hard
Baldo: The Guardian Owls looks great, but major issues with everything from combat to puzzles to exploration and more ensure that it's consistently a chore to play.
40%Baldo: The Guardian Owls Review – A Ghibli Adventure That Isn’t Very Good
Baldo: The Guardian Owls falls short of the heights set by its inspiration, but it is still a respectable action RPG.
50%
