Even the Ocean

I think where this game shines most are the aesthetic and music giving a good melancholic vibe, and the levels that either make fine use of its mechanics, or occupy your mind with thoughts on solutions. I'll mainly be talking about the latter since the first two aren't my fields. The unfortunate part of the aspects I mentioned with the levels is that neither of them lasted long. I only found two levels that achieve one or the other. The first place I liked traversing utilized the obstacles that affect the balance between your horizontal and vertical speed pretty well, and way later in Ch. 4, the second would feature reflecting beams with mirrors and your shield (the background making the angles clear is a smart move, I will add). The rest of the areas seem to keep introducing new obstacles that didn't feel complimentary to what I already learned before, and would never be seen again until the next chapter, perhaps due to the format of having choice between levels to tackle first. This would cause a big gap where I felt stuck with basic level designs meant to let the player get accompanied with all the new stuff. One [i]could[/i] still introduce new things and ramp up their complexity within the same level, but I believe this game was meant to more relaxed so players can progress the story with relative ease. I don't agree with this priority in the context of a platformer, and while I can understand if this was the case, I also believe it's possible to appeal to both sides. This may be intended to be a game for those who have little to no experience with platformers, that's alright, but the approach isn't for me. The dialogue, which is a big part of Even The Ocean, was the most unbearable part for me. The game expects all players to be quickly interested in the big lore of its world while explaining objectives, leading to a lot of downtime before getting back to the action. It could be that it's just not straight-to-the point with all the info drops, but one thing's for sure, the 3-line dialoguebox doesn't help make it easier to read through. I could still follow the story just fine, it's just, a lot of the talking wasn't all that interesting, and I feel like the bits of wisdom thrown around was out-of-place and unjustified, making it almost come off as pretentious. In summary, I think this game suffers from a slow pace with few high points between the low's. The mechanics have potential as a couple levels would demonstrate to me, but I don't think it used it as much as it could've. However, with all that said, I wanna suggest that you don't give up on these developers. This may have just been a stepping stone for them to learn what makes games tick as engaging experiences; not every work is a masterpiece. If you're like me and want something more intense, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/234900/Anodyne/]Anodyne[/url] and especially the [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2393920/Angeline_Era/]demo for Angeline Era[/url] are what made me more interested in their works and design philosophies.