Submerged Reviews
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 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.
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.
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 turned out pretty horrible, and while its concept sounded okay on paper, sadly, the execution is an unbelievable disaster. Ugly, extremely rough, buggy and boring; Submerged should be cast off and is not worth the asking price at all. Anyone who might be interested in a, atmospheric exploration game should just play the HD collection of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, or get Journey.
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.
Set in a drowned city, this game of exploration lacks the substance or conviction to hold your attention.
It's a reasonably short game for £14 – perhaps an afternoon's stuff to do first time through. But it's so unrelentingly lovely, and such a rare pleasure to be experienced without constant worry about being shot in the back of the head, or eaten by a wolf, or running out of time, or any of the other ways games so desperately want to concern us.
Basically, you'll either dig the lush tedium of this game or you won't.
About as exciting as watching the tide come in.
The game Submerged could have, and by all accounts wanted to be is still hidden here somewhere, but that hardly matters when it so fervently refuses to let you see it.