Okay so I feel like I’m a good chuck of the way into the game and feel like talking about it. I was lured in by the description of it being a chill diving and sushi restaurant management game. However, it is so so so much more than that. I have to be honest, I almost think it is to much more, there are just systems added on, one after the other. Certain out-of-water area’s seem less polished than others making me wonder if the developers bolted it on late in development?
Note, I did not follow early access, nor have looked into any sort of development history of the game. I wanted to go in blind to be surprised by it.
What are all your thoughts? Anyone else dive in (haha) blind like me, or have you been invested from the very start and know the road it’s taken to get to 1.0? What do you think of the game at it’s present state? The game locks a good amount of mechanics behind story, so try to be mindful of spoilers for folks as much as it’s possible.
I’m like 6 hours in and I’ve lost a little motivation but that’s more me being slightly depressed than anything. Currently the only out of water area accessible is the sushi bar. YMMV I’m sure you can play it faster if you choose.
It’s a solid 9/10 for me, the button mashing/stick waggling with some harpoon tips is just annoying for the vibe of the game but I can get over that. Also feels like I might break an Xbox joystick for the first time in my life.
The gameplay loop is really satisfying it can be a little intimidating in some parts but if you screw anything up it just takes an extra (in game) day to get back where you were. AFAIK the game doesn’t really have a failure state overall, just suboptimal outcomes.
Feels a lot like Motherlode (also highly recommend the version of Motherlode on Steam with the updated graphics) but more chill, though it can get intense when you have some nice loot you worked hard to get and Dave nearly runs out of oxygen (you can only bring one item back if that happens)
Perfect for the steam deck BTW, usually a dive is 10-15min max and a shift at the restaurant isn’t very long so you can pick up and put down the game at logical stopping points without a big time investment, though you’ll probably want to play it longer.