Submerged Reviews
Submerged left me thinking, wondering, curious. That's what sticks with me, I want to go back at my own leisure and explore the world, find those secrets, and complete that world's story.
Submerged just ends up being a disappointment. Great ideas in the storytelling and presentation are lost with a poor connection to characters and truly lacking gameplay. All the great intentions in the world don't mean anything if they don't convey into a fun game experience. Go play Journey instead.
Submerged is underwhelming. It squanders a promising opening, and its slight mechanics will no doubt give ammo to those who question the validity of exploration titles.
Basically, you'll either dig the lush tedium of this game or you won't.
Submerged isn't a lengthy game or a game of innovative ideas and sophisticated gameplay, but it is a rich and haunting experience that uses exploration to tell its story. Its minimalist approach won't be for everyone, but connect and this could be one of the most memorable games you play this year.
Submerged is a game you could easily cruise through in just a couple of hours, but the narrative rewards were enough to keep me searching the city for additional clues despite action that eventually became tedious. There are solid ideas at play here, sure, but the lack of challenge or any substantial meat on its bones make Submerged flounder where it should soar.
It's easy to get lost inside Submerged's desolate seascapes. Its desire for pacifism and drive for hope are worthy talents, but it's the call to adventure—to indulge and explore marine tranquility and conquering vegetation—that you'll keep with you, if only for a little while.
On a surface level, it looks like it ticks all the boxes for this new-wave of exploration games – that are rapidly gaining popularity with developers and gamers alike – but at a deeper conceptual and technical level is falls far short of it sources of reference.
Submerged is very pretty, but there isn't much to keep you playing and it's not worth the price tag.
Submerged won't be a game for everyone, in the same way that the likes of Gone Home and Dear Esther aren't for everyone, but that doesn't make it any less remarkable. But if you can hear the music that this game is playing - and I'd urge you to give it an earnest go - you'll find something that may just take your breath away.
Submerged can only be described as a huge disappointment that squandered its potential thanks to some terrible design decisions and being let out the door far too early. Its story is laughable at best, we couldn't muster up any care for the main character Miku and gameplay itself becomes a drag very quickly. The controls are dreadful and the core mechanic within gameplay, the climbing, is clunky and unresponsive. While the soundtrack is fantastic, it isn't enough to make us ignore the glaring problems the game has in terms of performance.
Submerged is...Well, it exists. It wants to stand beside games like Journey, yet missed the mark so much on why Journey worked. It puts you in a world and expects you to be amazed, but never delivers any reason to become attached or really, a world pretty enough to just become absorbed into visually. Float on.
There might have been a good idea at the heart of Submerged, but its execution is such a catastrophe that it's practically impossible to find it. Any emotional impact outside of pure anger that this short, repetitive title may have had is completely lost due to a number of technical issues and flat-out design flaws.
About as exciting as watching the tide come in.
Submerged could have been interesting. It could have offered a nice challenge, a good setting, a good story, but it did none of these things. Submerged ended up being so samey and monotonous that it isn't really worth playing through when you realize the first half hour is what the entire game is.
Submerged doesn't want to see you fail, but it doesn't trust you to succeed without its help, either. It bears repeating: Children aren't morons. Submerged knows this, but it still treats its players like they're just kids.
Submerged is not a broken game. It functions and provides an intriguing little story over its three hour timespan. However, there's no sense of joy to actually playing. Why isn't there even a feeling of awe when exploring this flooded cityscape? It's incredibly strange how this game managed to flounder so badly but it seems the key factor is uncompelling (and sometimes aggravating) gameplay. Even the most diehard collectible hunters will find it tough to slog through the slow ascent up samey buildings multiple times to grab a new drawing. Submerged had a fabulous idea but its execution simply couldn't stand up to the concept.
Submerged's beautiful setting and sunken post-apocalyptic world were not enough to offset the absence of combat and challenge.
'Submerged' is a special kind of game. I won't go so far as to say that it is fun for all of its tiny runtime, nor will I say that it's a half-baked mess of pretentious ideas. I did like that it offers a break from the zeitgeist of contemporary gaming in which bombastic, explosive shooters, faux-edgy action titles, and painfully difficult roguelikes seem to be all the rage. It's not for everyone, but go in with an open mind and you may find something interesting underneath the surface.
Submerged tries to go for the same vibe as Journey but falls short. The game world is interesting, but the brief stay in it is tiresome since you're only given one environment. The climbing mechanics are so easy that the courses don't provide any challenge, so the only tough part is in finding the supply drop locations. It doesn't help that the main story isn't very intriguing, and neither is the story of the city, especially since you figure it out faster via the cut scenes than from the illustrations you pick up. There's no need to rush and check out Submerged right away.