![]() The challenges themselves are often clever and drive home the gut-punch of each level's tragedy, but they tend to linger too long. The controls are very simple - Kay can run, jump and shoot a flare that shows her where to go or light up dark areas - which is fine for getting around but is a very limited toolset for combat or puzzle-solving, which the game employs as challenges to back up its metaphors. Sea of Solitude gives you a beautiful world and an intriguing story but the gameplay fails to evolve enough to make this a compelling adventure. While Sea of Solitude’s mental health allegories are engrossing and many of its set pieces as brilliant to look at as they are cathartic to complete, the game’s biggest issues are with its mechanics. The bright and vibrant aesthetic of Sea of Solitude instantly turns into a barren nightmare as Kay faces hardships on her journey. On stage, she was laughing, smiling, and tearing up all at once. One of my favorite moments from E3 2018 was watching Jo-Mei Games CEO Cornelia Geppert debut Sea of Solitudes first ever trailer. Thankfully, those stressful moments balance perfectly with the game’s lighter, more tender moments. One of my favorite moments from E3 2018 was watching Jo-Mei Games CEO Cornelia Geppert debut Sea of Solitudes first ever trailer. The English narration is delivered with a heavy European accent that I suspect robs some moments of their full impact versus the developer's native German, but it gets the point across. The moments spent in the water are truly hair-raising and tense, as the energy and tone shifts from Kay being relatively safe, albeit in the stormy environment, to vulnerable and desperate. A game that by the cover, the graphic designer and what we can see from the narrative preview, thrills.Playing, really the graphics part with different concepts is interesting, but the narrative. ![]() There are some breathtaking moments, and a few heartbreaking ones too, as the game moves from exploration against orchestral music and pretty vocals to happy or horrible snippets of Kay's relationships with her family, represented variously as lonely monsters of their own. Sea of Solitude is a deeply personal story about one person’s struggle with mental illness, bullying, and floundering relationships told via a 3D platformer about a monster girl in a boat. But unfortunately the voice-acting is often poor and many of the actors aren’t up to the task before them, which means the atmosphere suffers as a result.Sea of Solitude is an aural and visual treat with a lot to say, let down by some of its gameplay and narrative delivery. The dialogue is generally very good, and feels both authentic and unpretentious, with the game being sensible enough to realise it needs to sprinkle in a few jokes to avoid accusations of navel gazing. The game is perfectly happy to highlight when she’s in the wrong and the ambiguous resolution feels very honest and realistic. As you get to know Kay you learn more about her foibles and troubled history, including her relationship with her brother and the background to her break-up. The story only lasts around four hours and yet it still manages to seem very dragged out, with some tedious stealth sections and platforming that is clearly trying to emulate the work of Team Ico but is never as interesting or imaginative.Īnd yet the narrative aspect of the game does work very well. There’s essentially no punishment for death but that almost feels like a negative given that the gameplay itself is so simplistic and unengaging. Sea Of Solitude (PS4) – the world’s not as dark as it seems
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