Great concept, good design, decent execution - until the story lets it down. Oxenfree is a game that relies heavily on the novelty of its structure, and the structure does carry a lot. Dialogue choices are made in real time, and if you don't act quickly, your silence also influences the game's multiple endings. Innovative, right?
What lets this game down is its lack of follow-through. What begins as a really cool, freaky concept (there's some stuff in that cave and it sure is strange) turns into a multi-layered scavenger hunt that's just resolved too quickly and too conventionally for my taste. There are some endings that needed more in-game time to justify the reward, or the cost.
There's nothing "wrong" with this game, it just needed a little more depth. At its worst, it's annoying to have to backtrack your way through areas you've explored before at the speed the game lets you progress. It's definitely worth playing and it pushes the boundaries of what you can do in the medium, which is always worth a lot to me.