Call of the Sea

This was a nice adventure game, with a very beautiful art and engaging voice acting. The story was well-written and the protagonist was one you would care for. Puzzles are mostly decent, though sometimes they were somewhat unnecessarily cryptic. Voice acting is excellent, particularly Cissy Jones. I didn’t have any performance issues on PC, and I don’t have a lot of complaints about UI or design. There were some times when the diary didn’t show up (only during underwater scenes), which should be a bug. The only bigger complaint I have is that the game is on the short side - you can complete it in a single afternoon. I understand this was done by a very small team, and to be fair, the story doesn’t appear to be lacking. Still, I feel many will find it short for games that are published nowadays. Anyway, I recommend the game, as it is a breath of fresh air. If you want to support a small independent developer, you shouldn’t hesitate and get this.

You play a sick woman trying to cure her illness. When the story begin you are looking for your husband in a charming island. But you rapidly feel that something is wrong. This game take the narration of bioshock through records, letters, pictures and murals and mix it with puzzle phase. In ordre to progress and go deeper into the island you will have to solve more and more complex one. Doing so you will learn more about the island, your husband and also yourself. Therefore the gameplay is very limited, you walk and click on interaction point, read your journal to solve puzzles and progress. The graphics are beautiful. There is something very peacefull to walk in this island (well at the beginning mostly). The story is darker than it's seems and there is cleary an Inspiration from famous english autor that i won't name here. The plot is above average for sure and the voice acting is great. Some BlackSpot : your character, Norah, is a slowwalker. That's coherent with the story because she's sick and can't go running everywhere but it's frustrating in the long run. I experienced a lot of crashes on chapter 3, but it's get better and i think it's because i don't have the good config (GeForce GTX 1050, i5- 7300HQ and 6GB ram) If you like riddles games, mysterious story and narration driven game you should buy it. Took my 7 hours to finish.

This "walking sim" AKA story-based puzzle adventure doesn't redefine the genre or anything, but it is an excellent example of the genre done right. Visually, it is stunning. Period. Just beautiful to look at. I have a screen cap as my phone background, lol. The puzzles are right in the sweet spot for me, not too easy, not illogical, pixel hunt-y, or loaded with moon logic either. I didn't need a walkthrough and didn't get frustrated. The audio is excellent too. The voice actress, Cissy Jones, is great (some may recognize her from Firewatch, another excellent walking sim). The music is minimal but swells as needed to add emotion and awe to pivotal points in the game. The ambience/sound fx are well done too. Nothing sounds off or harsh. The story is nothing new if you've read a lot of wierd fiction along the lines of HP Lovecraft and other writers of the 1920's-1930's, but it's told well. What I really like here is that CotS doesn't try to be a modern horror game, or a modern Cthulhu Mythos game. There's no green filter over everything, no jump scares, and no unnecessary tentacles. It's an uncanny tale, for sure, but it's much more like an actual short story written by a Weird Tales Magazine contributor than most 'Lovecraftian' games. Overall, a great 8-10 hour experience if you like this sort of thing. I have an i7 10700/RTX 3060ti and ran this at 1440p with max settings. It was buttery smooth with no stutters, crashes, screen tearing, or framerate issues. It is hardware intesive, which is a shame, as that will keep a lot of people from playing it.

In many ways it was a game made for me: I love lovecraftian elements, archaeology, mythic history, and puzzles. As such, I personally adore this game, one that will probably stay with me for a long time. It is fundamentally a walking simulator, by which I mean the puzzles are mostly very easy (with the exception of 3 or 4) but in all cases I could solve them without help, so dont get if you are looking for a hardcore puzzle game. The visuals are stunningly beautiful, although I did get framerate drops at times. The story is great (a lovecraftian game that is less about the horror element, and much more about mystery and discovery). The ending had me in tears, but it felt balanced. The characters are great (some find the constant talk by the protag annoying, but I had no problems with it) and are what make the ending so powerful.

The game does look gorgeous for the most part and it's really nice to have a female protagonist for once, but everything else left me wanting. The story is fine, though most of the emotional beats are not really built up sufficiently to warrant more than a "huh" when any reveals happen, there is no connection to any of the characters and it is structured in a way that you can pretty much from the stat tell what's going on in the broad strokes. The puzzles seem only there because "these kinds of games have to have puzzles". None of them brought anything to the storytelling or seemed in any way plausible. There was an endless number of things along the way that made me go "this is wrong" or "this is stupid". All in all, there is a kernel of excellence here, that could become something in the next game made by the developers, but this one didn't quite make it.