The Alto franchise has been on since 2015 and if you followed the series, you would have heard of Alto’s Adventure. Alto Odyssey is a sequel to Alto’s Adventure and is available for Android and iOS devices. The game is simple and straightforward to play. You’re in control of Alto who is a sandboarder. You control this sandboarder who has stamina, across a beautiful desert. Many elements are available for you to use and they include ropes, balloons, and more.
You don’t have to do the acceleration yourself, but it is done automatically. You just need to make your character jump by tapping on the screen. For backflips, just hold the screen and your character will flip. Things could go wrong that it becomes game over for you. This happens when you fall off a clip or hit a rock and Alto would not be capable of sandboarding anymore.
The game has new additions of which air balloons are one of them. This element helps you bounce on so that you able to reach a longer distance. Other additions are water which enables you to bounce off and gather more speed while sliding and walls that you can perform skating on. As you go along in the game, you will encounter whirlwinds that will give you momentum so that you are pushed up in the air. These additions make the game more fun without making it complex.
However, you won’t see the man that chases you on horseback which was present in the previous game. You can still gather coins as you proceed in the game. These coins are what you would use to buy additional items, like a helmet to give you protection from crashes, wingsuit that will enable you to fly, collectible magnets that help you accumulate more coins. New characters can be unlocked too. There are no in-app purchases and all you’ll ever pay is the $4.99 you paid to be able to play the game.
Also included in the Odyssey package is Zen mode, which had to be added when it was publicly demanded. Zen mode means you can play without any score reading, and this enables you to play, free of distractions. The soundtrack is also different.
This review would be incomplete without pointing out the beautiful graphics of Alto’s Odyssey. The game is simple but it still matches this with breathtaking graphics that will surely draw you attention. Team Alto’s changes in the scenery are awesome and they didn’t just do this, they also incorporated a fresh and new gameplay mechanics that lets you interact with the environment. You don’t have the snow-capped mountains and runaways llamas. Instead, you have more tropical locals. The game is vivid with beautifully and colorfully rendered shifting landscapes. And it doesn’t consume much of your memory so it can run on an older or low-end device.
There’s the Biome component in the game which is can also be referred to as “levels”, and the game changes after you attain a new biome. Just like a biome is a type of ecological community, after reaching a new biome in Alto’s Odyssey, the environment changes a bit. And it does this from biome to biome. You begin the game by playing on a plain desert that you’ll find few stuff on but as time goes on, you’ll start to go to temples, canyons, and ruins. This is good because it will make the game a lot less monotonous.
In conclusion, Alto’s Odyssey is a great sequel to Alto Adventure which was solid too. Team Alto making improvements in the visuals, soundtrack, and mechanics makes it worth playing. Even if you’re not convinced, you should give it a shot because of the graphics.
