If you’re a fan of puzzle games, deep sea creatures, and 3D platforming, I highly recommend Lumote: The Mastermote Chronicles. Just be sure to take breaks while playing so you don’t go blind from all the neon lights— or go crazy from all the blips and bloops that form this game’s aquatic language.
While your mileage may vary, and your perspective on the story can be widened through collecting more of the aforementioned diaries, I found that Submerged: Hidden Depths has nothing worth remembering even a few minutes after setting the controller down.
Once I made my final choices and watched the end cutscene after about 20 hours of play, I immediately wanted to start a new playthrough and see what happens when I make the opposite choices. And to me, that seems like the sign of a good game; if you disagree, I’ll put you under snakes.
My first playthrough took about 20 hours; the game crashed only once, and I only lost a few minutes of progress. The rebalancing offered by New Game+ and online co-op make it very tempting for me to start my next playthrough— although the bog-standard setting and milquetoast humor slightly dampen my enthusiasm. Still, this is an excellent retro action game with razor-sharp mechanics that I highly recommend.