SUNLESS SEA

Sunless Sea is a truly unique game of story driven exploration. It resembles more of an interactive book than a game which makes it stand out in the media scape. With its alluring world and odd storytelling it is genuinely unmatched in its emanation of mystery. Combined with the ominous and in-parts thrilling soundtrack, Sunless Sea will make for a gripping experience, always making you wonder where the story's demarcations will lead. No other game will deliver such a weird and haunting tale which the player can carve on his own. My goal with this review is to share my feelings beyond articulation that this game evokes in me.

An odd survival game that tries to focus on storytelling, but it plays out more like a farming game. It's a nice and casual time killer that's good in it's own way, though I'd put this on the lower end of my recommended games. Haven't won yet, but I got a decently powerful ship and found out how to consistently gain profits. There's a lot of varied stories to find and explore, with some that will change as you play longer, and they're entertaining in their own ways. However, they also end up detracting your focus from your main victory condition, which is something you choose based on your created character(s). You have crewmates to help your ship run, but separately, you also have characters with portraits to take on other ship roles, and only the latter have storylines to progress, not your other unnamed crewmates. I don't know if boat crews are like this in real life, but for me, there's a strange and illogical disconnect that comes about from these oddities, which prevents me from getting invested in anything that's going on. There are many things going on and many things to learn, and they're pretty intriguing, but I can't take any of them seriously. Considering that the game's setting isn't entirely bound to realism, it could've really done with a smaller cast of characters with more focus and interweaving relationships. The game starts on a difficulty mode that prevents manual saves, though due to how long it took to progress, I was not interested in having new runs if I ever finish my current one, so I ended up enabling manual saves to view different dialogue for some of the wilder choices. My first few ventures into the sea was where the game shined best for me due to my utter lack of knowledge, but after a while, a lot of game mechanics felt numerically linear in nature, and given this predictability, I found it difficult to feel immersed. I do feel this is a game that would benefit from not having enemy health bars, so that I would instead remember enemies and gauge their threat based on their behaviour, stealthiness, and unknown abilities. It also does bother me that the concept of most 'secrets' in this game are more like currencies than unique mysteries to care about. That being said, none of my statements are inherently bad, so if you want a casual seafaring experience in London's supernatural depths with many hours of playtime, you might really like this game.

Be aware there is a lot of reading involved. It's like reading a choose your own adventure story with real-time ship navigation. It's not for everybody but if you like the Fallen London franchise and seek more Zee this is a nice challenging game.

a low key mega banger

First time playing, found out you can sell sunlight. Make lots of money, but accidentally stay too long outside. Character overdoses himself on vitamin D before I can make it to port. 10/10 SUNSUNSUNSUNSUNSUNSUNSUNSUNSUNSUN

I like this game because of how weird and unique it is.

Edit below rant: The game is great, fantastic atmosphere, great visuals and story. Although the mechanic of losing your progress nearly all of it at either your own fault or random chance can be fun and add an extra layer of risk. It is maddening to spend hours and finally make some progress to only ask whats this island about? Then gain 50 terror after an incredible run, and even with a 33% chance and i did reload to last save and tried not to die to mutiny. Even with my 33% chance which should have been 3 times max it took 15 reloads and i still never got a chance. It took all of my enthusiasm for the game away and wasted hours of my time when I just wanted to enjoy a atmospheric game before i go to work. Instead im left upset and with nothing to show for progress. Good game but don't get unless you've some form of masochism. Edit im not observant or too stubborn just use mercy mode and appreciate the game and its horrifying beauty.

I like the story based nature of the game. There is enough intrigue to keep me engaged.