Game Review: Sea of Solitude

As far as indie experiences go, I admire the message Sea of Solitude set out to deliver. I'm a big advocate for anything that tries to spotlight the effects of mental health in a way that feels honest and insightful and I feel this game does a admirable job on that front.  

Developed by German video game developer Jo-Mei Games and published under EA's Originals program; Sea of Solitude is a 3rd person adventure game which centres around a young woman called Kay who finds herself  lost in city submerged in endless ocean.  Her internal emotions have become so strong and relentless that they have corrupted Kay and the world around her. Kay finds herself transformed into a monster and her internal anxieties and feelings have manifested into their own monsters too. It's up to Kay to traverse the world of her own making and confront her own demons to find a means of coming to terms with her own insecurities.  As far as premises go I think the narrative of Sea of Solitude is it's strongest element. Like I noted earlier, I'm a big advocate for mental health and highlighting the impact it can have of people that is not always easy to see from an external perspective. What Sea of Solitude does it it tries to convey those negative feelings in a clever, visual manner. Seeing Kay battle numerous layers of trauma throughout the course of the game feels like a truly personal journey for her and you can easily identify and empathise with her plights as you navigate the games several well paced levels. The contrast of how Kay's real-life anxieties bleed into the world in the form of these monsters is such a clever storytelling device as it not only gives you a objective to overcome practically from a gameplay perspective but it in turn reflects the immense challenge Kay takes to overcome these issues internally within her own mental thought process

Part of what accommodates the narratives earnest intentions is it's visual style too. This world is full of colour and beauty and it's most akin to a water colour painting in my eyes. The design of the submerged city feels distinctly unique and despite the budgetary limitations it's really impressive how much of a visual experience this game manages to be.  As this game core aim is to reflect mental health in a very visual way, it's nice to see the world constantly shift visually to help accommodate the theme and tone of the moments you find yourself in. In moments of extreme emotion, the ocean will be dark and violent. When the game wants you to relish in the calm and peaceful moments, the ocean levels out and shows you the beautiful city landscape to explore and appreciate. The environments are just one side of the games visuals, the other element is the monsters themselves. As they represent the manifestation of Kay's emotional struggles, they have the darkest and at times most frightening designs and serve as a very nice contrast to the vivid and calm environmental design. It's a very clever choice as representing these terrors in a scary and vivid manner helps to further reinforce the terror and intimidation mental health problems can have on anyone that may be hard to visualise physically. 

While the narrative and visuals stand out as some of the games most positive elements I sadly cannot say the same for the gameplay. I feel this game struggles to offer much of a smooth experience when it comes to in-game navigation and "combat". What I imagine was a deliberate choice, the game shy's away from having any level of combat within it's levels. Instead the gameplay focuses more so on sneaking and avoiding danger. I appreciate this may be to try showcase that to fight our anxieties it's better to think smart and approach from a more passive perspective. This however makes the game's overall engagement notably subdued and it's hard not to feel the limitation behind the gameplay on a regular basis. Navigating the world doesn't feel nearly as smooth either, the control mechanics behind Kay feel janky and stiff and I feel a bit more work could have been done to improve the control scheme of the game.  I also want to note the game suffers from what I feel is poor optimisation in regards to it's port on the Nintendo Switch. The framerate suffers notably both docked and undocked and the visuals do tend to flicker and glitch out the further out you are from them.

I think Sea of Solitude is a brilliantly flawed game. I love the ambition on show here and how the game tries and succeeds in reflecting mental health in very vivid and visual light  As this is a first time indie debut, I can appreciate there will be flaws and it's a shame the flaws do weigh down the engagement notably from a gameplay perspective. Despite the flawed gameplay though I think Sea of Solitude is an honest and wonderful portrayal of mental health and I wish there were more attempts to try showcase it in the medium.