This exists in stark contrast to the horror show that lurks just below the surface when things take a turn.
Sea of solitude review full#
It’s vibrant and full of colour and being able to see into the deeper water, clear and undisturbed, creates a sense of comfort and ease. During calmer moments, the game’s world is beautiful. In terms of looks, Sea of Solitude is a literal tale of two cities. There are seagulls to shoo and bottled messages to collect, which could potentially pad out your experience, though it’s hard to argue that it offers anything substantial. (I did beat the game in under three hours, though I had to play the first half twice thanks to my save dissipating into the cloud.) The game doesn’t ever really mount a challenge what’ll likely be a sub-four-hour playthrough. Each so-called boss encounter is made up of one specific mechanic you’re taught in the few prior chapters, though it’s always something very simple. There’s another instance later in the game when Kay is trying to extend help to someone only to be halted time and time again by walls of ice, a physical hurdle and a representation of the defence mechanisms of those who struggle at times.īeyond cleansing the Venice-like submerged city that Kay’s journey takes place in, there isn’t a whole lot to Sea of Solitude beyond sailing from story beat to story beat. One of the few core loops in the game sees Kay banish corruption throughout the map, an act that sees her absorb the burdens of others which she carries in a small rucksack on her back. Jo-Mei slathers on the symbolism in Sea of Solitude. Despite some rather bad writing and line delivery throughout courtesy of the actors involved, it’s hard not to be moved by Sea of Solitude in how it tackles and deftly handles its narrative. As though guided through an out-of-body experience by Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Past, Kay gets a new perspective on a number of encounters in her life where she failed to provide the shoulder to lean on or ear to bend.
Sea of solitude review series#
In four rather succinct chapters, Sea of Solitude explores a series of relationships in Kay’s life that have been impacted by issues that bubbled under the surface unbeknownst to her. There’s a lot of hard topics that Sea of Solitude dresses up as metaphors, though it isn’t long before they’re stripped back, exposed and worked through during Kay’s emotional voyage. Cornelia Geppert’s real-life relationship breakdown and how she dealt with it at the time influences a lot of what is put to screen, though that isn’t to say the big issues Sea of Solitude tackles aren’t ones everyone wrestles with at one time or another. Sea of Solitude is considered by its creator to be her most personal and creative project yet. It’s becoming easier as time goes on to discuss these once taboo topics and it helps that a creative in an interactive medium can have the bravery to publicly lick their wounds in the hopes that someone might be helped along the way. Sea of Solitude’s themes challenge players in a way its core mechanics fail to throughout its extremely brief runtime. In a game that handles sensitive subject matter with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, its unflinching representations of depression, which manifests as a literal black dog in Jo-Mei’s adventure debut, and other afflictions evoke discomfort.
If I had to describe Sea of Solitude in a word, the first that comes to mind is ‘raw’.
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