Owlboy

Owlboy is a pixel-art platformer about a mute owl boy named Otus, who struggles to hold his own in a world of floating islands while constantly falling short of what those around him expect. The main thing that sets it apart from most games in the genre is movement: Otus can fly almost anytime and without restriction, so the game doesn't take place on platforms but in the air. The environments are shaped accordingly, with caves and temples built vertically, full of shafts, draughts and narrow passages, and the player moves through them more like through open water than across solid ground.

Combat is handled cleverly. Otus himself has essentially no attack of his own; instead he can pick up one of his companions and use their weapon, whether a gunner with a ranged shot or a character able to break through solid surfaces. Switching between companions mid-flight is the basis of both combat and puzzles, since each one opens up different paths. The game constantly combines exploration, simple puzzles and firefights against pirates threatening the islands. The structure is fairly linear and story-driven rather than open, which actually suits it, since it lets the game focus on its narrative.

Visually it's one of the most striking pixel-art games ever made. Development took nearly ten years, and it shows in the sheer number of hand-animated details, the colour gradients of the sky and the large panoramas built from several layers of background. On Switch the game runs without a hitch, and handheld mode really highlights the care put into the scenery. The music works with orchestral and chamber motifs and carries most of the emotional weight in key scenes, since the game barely uses spoken dialogue at all. The story of feeling inadequate and searching for one's own place among others is unexpectedly melancholic, and it ends more powerfully than the setting of floating islands might suggest. Critics received the game warmly, and it's still cited today as an example of just how far pixel art can be pushed.