I noted before that the water is at times a stunning shade of blue, but I feel I can’t stress that enough: Sea of Solitude really is gorgeous. The monster/character design (for all of the characters are monsters) is phenomenal, and the graphical style is extremely pleasing. In this day and age, when detailed graphics are easier than ever to achieve due to the processing power of modern hardware, games must rely on aesthetic choices to stand out from the crowd. The larger aspects of the game’s visual design are even better than the small ones. Little things, certainly, but enriching things. Objects beneath the waterline will look distorted. When she’s walking around she leaves little footprints behind her. When lightning flashes she will flinch at the ensuing thunder, and when she is cold or scared she will tremble slightly if she’s standing still. Kay very much feels like a living creature in the way she reacts to the environment around her. There are other small details that really help make the game scattered throughout. Sometimes it’s nice to just take in the sights. In these segments, Sea of Solitude is properly spooky. Even the audio cues that play when the monster is chasing you are evocative of the Jaws theme, but not in a way that feels corny or cliché because of how earnestly it’s being played. Entering the water while the monster is around prompts her to swim towards Kay’s location, giving a feeling like the player is swimming with sharks. At times the titular sea is calm and a frankly stunning shade of blue, leaving the player to explore at their leisure at others it is turbulent and stormy, aiding in the sense of danger that is created by the game’s recurring monster who relentlessly circles Kay and tries to devour her. Never at the same time, mind you it fluctuates between the two in a way that feels natural and makes sense to the progression of the story and is never jarring. As paradoxical as it may seem the overall mood is equal parts tense and serene. While the gameplay may not be groundbreaking, I did very much enjoy the game’s mood. My desire to find out what would happen next kept me engaged the whole time.
The game’s short runtime helps to this end, and despite my earlier grousing about the story, I did enjoy that as well. The gameplay is nothing especially original – fairly standard adventure game fare involving running, jumping, swimming and exploring – but there’s nothing wrong with it (aside from the boat controls being ever so slightly clunky) and the level design is good enough that exploring kept my attention long enough to get through everything. To that end, Sea of Solitude is adequate. In the interest of not giving away too much about the game, that’s as much as I’m going to discuss the story.īut all games are more than their story, no matter how much focus might be placed on the narrative. The story is a sensitive treatment of mental health issues that never stigmatizes having a mental illness despite what its premise of monstrosity might lead one to believe. In most cases, I wouldn’t mind the difference between expectation and reality, but it really does feel like the trailer was going for a certain vibe that the final product didn’t fulfill.Īll that said, the game’s content is well done for what it is, and if it hadn’t been for my own preconceived notions I wouldn’t have taken issue with it. From the trailer, I got the sense that the game would be post-apocalyptic in scale, which I was here for, but the game itself is more of a “reflection of the protagonist’s troubled mind” situation. To an extent, this impression is what we got, but while the trailer leans more towards the fantastical the game itself leans more towards the metaphorical. The reveal trailer is wonderfully spooky and gives off the impression of an adventure game with a horror bent. For those who’ve never heard of Sea of Solitude, it is a game set in a flooded world where loneliness causes humans to undergo a physical metamorphosis into enormous monsters, a process which the protagonist Kay seems to be in the early stages of based on the reveal trailer she doesn’t look fully human, but she’s still human-sized. The premise the game sold itself on when it was revealed at E3 2018 hooked me instantly. I’ll say this about Sea of Solitude just to get it out of the way: while I liked it and I think it’s a well-made game, I can’t help but be somewhat disappointed by it. Sea of Solitude Jo-Mei Games Adventure Playstation 4