There’s a new contender for the best indie game of 2023, with a peculiar new underwater adventure that has some of the best 2D visuals ever seen.
Between Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom and Starfield, 2023 is hopefully headed for an epic game of the year confrontation but we’d be very surprised if Dave The Diver didn’t also pop up in various end of year lists. It’s appeared out of nowhere, from indie developer MINTROCKET, and sports some very eye-catching pixel art animation. It would be worthy of note purely for its visuals, no matter what the gameplay and story was like, but thankfully they’re equally as interesting.
What exactly Dave The Diver is, is not easy to say as it’s so filled with mini-games, based on so many different genres and themes, that it manages to be almost everything at some point, from stealth game to business simulator. The core of the experience though is a 2D diving simulator, where you control the portly Dave as he explores underwater, looking for treasure and fish for his sushi restaurant.
It just so happens that Dave lives next to a mysterious ‘Blue Hole’ and so his explorations uncover more than just ordinary fish and minerals, as you discover secrets of the ocean depths of which James Cameron could only dream of.
Dave The Diver is a little difficult to review because we don’t want to spoil all the many surprises, none of which you’d guess at during the first hour or so of gameplay. At that stage it seems to be a fairly straightforward, if unusually pretty, indie game, as you go scuba-diving amongst the reefs and then help prepare the food for your restaurant afterwards.
Ideally you want to keep the fish as fresh as possible, so while you can riddle them with bullets from a distance that doesn’t leave much to eat. A harpoon is better but nets and tranquilizer darts even more so, as you begin to explore ever deeper and come across fish and other aquatic animals of increasingly implausible size and fantastical designs.
None of this is a triviality though and the combat, while purely 2D, not only requires real skill but is impressively open-ended in how you choose to take on the various creatures, with a clear risk vs. reward connection between more difficult-to-use weapons providing more valuable loot.
Running the restaurant is not just a case of preparing meals, as that whole element is a surprisingly involved business management simulator, where you hire and schedule staff, deal with customers, design recipes, check what ingredients you need for specific dishes, and make use of unique ingredients.
This plays into a wider role-playing element where you can upgrade your diving equipment using the resources you get from diving; this helps you to increase the depth to which you can dive, your oxygen capacity, inventory space, and in buying and upgrading weapons. Fish aren’t the only thing you’re faming though, as there’s also a whole sub-game where you have to run a farm, like a mini Stardew Valley, with crops and livestock to maintain.
The game is filled with unexpected asides like this, from silly seahorse racing games to surprisingly lengthy virtual novel sections, rhythm action games, underwater photography, a virtual Tamagotchi, and much more.
As the gameplay opens up so too does the story, as you get to know the game’s wide range of bizarre secondary characters, from Bancho your rather unhinged chief to the anime-obsessed weapons expert Duff. Both seem like fairly basic caricatures at first but the more of their backstory and personality is revealed the more you begin to empathise with them and the other peculiar characters.
The layout of the Blue Hole changes every day and there are various one-off missions and challenges to complete, that usually involve going after specific fish or resources – or which end up in a boss battle. That’s still really only half the game though, as you get more involved in the exploration of the sea depths and all the stuff we’re not going to spoil you about down there (the trailer does give some of it away, so be cautious).
This is where the game becomes more of an action adventure, although the various puzzles are very simple and while that may be purposeful the rest of the game doesn’t worry about throwing completely different game mechanics at you from out of the blue, so it’s a bit of a shame that the exploration feels a little undercooked as a result.
Many of the mini-games are purposefully lightweight, but there’s just so many of them, and they’re all so different, that with the possible exception of the farming it’s almost impossible for anything to overstay its welcome.
The incredible visuals go a long way to smoothing over any rough edges (including a few bugs), as the pixel art truly is gorgeous, with the sea creatures in particular being some of the most beautifully animated creations we’ve seen in a very long time. The soundtrack is excellent too, in what is overall one of the best presented games of the year.
At well over 12 hours in length, Dave The Diver also represents superb value for money and while there doesn’t seem to be any console versions announced yet we can only hope that’s coming soon, so the game can enjoy as wide an audience as possible and everyone can dive into what is one of the year’s most dazzling indie gems.
Dave The Diver review summary
In Short: A wonderfully strange and imaginative indie adventure that delights in terms of its visuals, storytelling, and enjoyably unpredictable gameplay.
Pros: Gorgeous 2D visuals and a bewildering array of different gameplay elements, almost all of which are highly enjoyable. Core exploration and combat works very well, and the characters are very likable.
Cons: Some of the mini-games, and the farming element, lack depth and can get a bit repetitious. Some minor bugs and the puzzle-solving sequences feel undercooked.
Score: 8/10
Formats: PC
Price: £16.99
Publisher: MINTROCKET
Developer: MINTROCKET
Release Date: 28th June 2023
Age Rating: N/A
Email [email protected], leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.
Follow Metro Gaming on Twitter and email us at [email protected]
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.
Sign up to all the exclusive gaming content, latest releases before they’re seen on the site.
Source: Read Full Article
