Rewind three years and I’d have told you that you were downright crazy, mad, institutionalization-worthy had you told me that one day (soon!) we’d be playing games on our phones that were as good looking, with meaningful depth, and as cheap as a basic mobile phone game. Since then I’ve seen the steady progression of games and I believe a new pinnacle has been reached with Oceanhorn , a delightful 3D game inspired by Nintendo’s legendary Zelda: Wind Waker series.

Here’s the official description:

Development of Oceanhorn began from our love towards old console adventure games, where instead of looting dungeons and grinding XP you explored the world and solved puzzles and followed dusty maps to find treasures from the remains of old temples and castles. We want to deliver that experience, where instead of taking care of boring chores you can have an adventure of your lifetime on a fantasy land.

Oceanhorn is an ancient sea monster that terrorizes the World of Uncharted Seas. The game puts you in the boots of a nameless hero who, in order to save his sister, must slay this monster for good. In this game, the world is open for exploration by foot or by boat, but beware – the sea monster can attack at any time and ill-prepared travelers will meet their early demise.

I’m still not completely sold on the idea of iOS or touch smartphone controls as I think they’re inherently going to be less accurate than a physical button, but aside from that I’m very impressed with the promise of Oceanhorn and that singular screenshot above is more than drool-worthy.

There’s no release date just yet for Oceanhorn, unfortunately, but the devs have confirmed that the game will be universal across all iOS devices. So you won’t have to buy it and rebuy it if you own an iPhone and an iPad, presumably.

Check out the official dev blog below and tell us what you think in the comments!

[Oceanhorn]