Under The Waves

I bought this while it was on sale, having only the most rudimentary idea of what it was about. After finishing it, I would most definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a chill (in both senses of the word) game that is both beautiful and thought-provoking. There are two storylines playing out; one regarding the company you're working for and their deeds, the other a personal journey of dealing with past trauma (trying to be as vague as possible to not spoil anything). TL:DR: Get it especially when it's on sale!

Very "mid". The game is most story-oriented, but the slow and very annoying, repetitive gameplay still takes a lot of time. You can't pick things up without exiting your submersible and the controls are clunky. The storyline does not tie up many of the loose ends, the only one that it does tie up is the protagonist's trauma. Speaking of trauma - I found it hard to empathise with the main characters for several reasons. First being the lack of facial animation, proper lipsync (in 2025 game really?) or any kind of buildup. You are thrown into the storyline with the premise of the character having suffered a loss that leaves him in a semi-delirious state and that is all you ever know about him. None of his actual personality is revealed, save for his wife trying to talk sense into him over the phone. Only way to emphathise with the guy with this kind of premise is having suffered a similar trauma yourself, which hopefully nobody would ever have to, so a game could not have been written with that expectation. Overall, as I got it on sale, I will still recommend the game mostly for the unique setting and the phenomenal music. And the seal. Honestly the seal is the only thing I actually felt any emotion for in this game - because he got properly introduced, and had us interact with it for a good portion of the game, it brings us trash to collect and is just cute. Unlike [spoiler]the protagonist's dead daughter that we only ever know from his hallucinations.[/spoiler]