It's March as I publish this, which means I'm down to my last couple of weeks of that free Game Pass PC sub. Let's make it count. BACKGROUND:
I didn't know this game existed until I saw it while browsing the Game Pass library. I then looked it up, saw that it had a nice art style, and learned it won a bunch of awards. That was enough to pique my interest. PLOT: The game is set in 1934, and sees Norah Everhart embark on a voyage to an island close to Tahiti in search of her husband Harry. Harry had gone to search for a cure for Norah's mysterious illness (the same illness that led to her mother's death), but he hasn't written back to Norah in over a month. Deeply concerned, Norah follows his lead after receiving an anonymous package that has Harry's last known whereabouts, and arrives on the island not long after. Once there, she explores the island to piece together what happened to her husband and his expedition, unravel the mysteries of the island, and discover how it all ties to her and her illness. The true nature of the island ends up being pretty interesting, leaning towards a lot of supernatural Lovecraftian element. However, this game is by no means a horror game. Some things are left unexplained or feel out of left field, and a few connecting threads kind of feel like a stretch at points, but I thought they built an inspired world that has surprising connections with Norah's main quest. Next, you have the mystery of what happened to Harry's expedition. As you play, Norah will find clues as to the events that transpired when Harry and his companions first explore the island. Without giving too much away, it's a tale wrought with tragedy, and the harrowing events tie in well with the supernatural goings-on within the island. What I think is the strongest element of the story is the connection between Norah and Harry. You spend the entire game with Norah and only know of Harry through the bits of lore you pick up on your journey, but through Norah's narration, it is well established how much the two love each other. The premise shows that pretty effectively already (husband goes on a dangerous journey to save his wife's life; wife follows husband into danger to find him), but everything from the little anecdotes Norah recalls to herself and the deep concern she shows when she starts learning about what happened to Harry on the island further reinforce that bond. The latter half (especially the very end) gets super emotional, and the game builds up to those moments effectively. I've gone on record multiple times to say that I'm not really one to go for romance stories, but I liked this particular love story a lot because it was able to convey Norah and Harry's bond without having to have the two together. As she is really the only character you interact with in the game, you'll get to know Norah the most. She's a pretty charming woman with a can-do attitude despite her illness, and she's got a bit of a sense of humor to boot. The only thing that could be perceived as annoying is her constant narration of things that are obvious, but I personally didn't mind it. You only get to know the other characters through Norah's lens, but she (and the game in general) does a decent job of establishing enough such that you have a real sense of what kind of people those other characters were. There are two endings in the game (which you decide at the very end). I obviously can't say what they are, but all I can say is I really loved one ending, and I didn't like the other one as much. I would have preferred if they had stuck with their guns and gone with the ending I liked, not just because I liked it, but it felt like a perfectly bittersweet note to end the game on. The other ending was bittersweet in a different way, but I didn't find it as satisfying. PRESENTATION: As mentioned, this game's art style grabbed my attention, and it is quite pretty. The 3D environments are vivid and colorful, leaning towards a somewhat cartoony look but still having a tinge of realism to its designs. The more supernatural elements have appropriately mystical designs, and they look quite alien next to the lush, natural landscapes that the island has to offer. Even the loading screens are pretty, as they feature painterly 2D art that depicts the setting of the current chapter. The music is equally beautiful, providing a good mix of both melodic and atmospheric tracks that go along well with exploration and big story moments. Norah's voice acting is also great, and there's some good sound design, too (the underwater segments in particular are well done). GAMEPLAY: Call of the Sea is a first person game where you explore the island and solve puzzles to progress. Most of the game boils down to getting to an area, taking a look around and interacting with everything, and using everything you've learned to solve any puzzles in order to open up the next thing. It's nothing particularly demanding. You'll be interacting with a lot of objects (and hearing what Norah has to say about them), and while some of them are interactables just for the sake of it, most of them do have some sort of purpose. It's through majority of these objects that you learn what happened to Harry's expedition, so if you care about the story, you want to get as much information as you can through these objects. Secondly, some of these objects are actually clues to the game's many puzzles, which means you'll have to keep track of a bunch of them in case they end up being part of a puzzle. Some objects and interactions within the game are recorded in Norah's journal, which is split into two parts. The Logs section is essentially the actual "journal" part of the journal, containing Norah's account and thoughts on what she's experienced so far, as well as her effort in piecing together everything that happened to Harry. The other part of the journal is called Notes, and these contain all information pertinent to puzzles. This is a pretty convenient feature that keeps track of things that may be part of the solution to many puzzles, eliminating the need to go back and forth to check certain objects. It almost feels like cheating given how incredibly helpful it is (I did my best to avoid using it for this reason), but if you're having trouble remembering specific parts of a puzzle, this is definitely worth using. Interestingly, individual entries in both the Logs and the Notes are technically collectibles, and some of them can be missed if you're just blazing past the game. If you care about completing the game 100%, there is thankfully a convenient chapter select that allows you to go back for anything you've missed. And if that isn't helpful enough, the game even tracks completion percentage. The puzzles themselves aren't that hard (I didn't think so, anyway), but there's a good variety of them, and I liked how many of them require you to explore as much of an area as possible to gather the necessary information needed to solve it. Some of them are pretty tricky, and require you to be particularly observant of your surroundings, but I don't think any of them require advanced neural net processing to solve. I'd say the only thing I don't like about this game is the movement. I get that Norah's sick, but from a gameplay perspective, I'm not sure making her walk speed painfully slow was the best idea. Even her "sprint" isn't that fast. It makes exploring an otherwise beautiful environment feel more tedious than it should, and I think that bumping up that movement speed a bit would do wonders. Same goes for swimming, which is a shame given that swimming actually controls nice otherwise. VERDICT: Call of the Sea was a delightful adventure puzzler, with captivating visuals, an enjoyable protagonist, a Lovecraft-inspired tale mixed with a love story that I actually like a lot, and decently engaging puzzles. I have my minor qualms about it, but overall, I really enjoyed this game. If you're looking for a somewhat short story-driven game that's more on the casual side, you should definitely consider this one. Steam link for the game below: Call of the Sea on Steam (steampowered.com) - end -
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Derryck
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