Where the Water Tastes Like Wine Reviews
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine could have had deep mythology building for 1930s Americana, but instead it offers only enough to get you intrigued before forcing you back into the grind-laden, story-gathering crawl the rest of the game is.
This game isn't worth a deal with a devil, but it could be worth it for you if there's a good deal. Just don't put up your soul as collateral.
As an interesting intellectual exploration of the role that word-of-mouth plays in storytelling, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine plays like a proof of concept that never graduated beyond an initial prototyping stage. Sure, it has plenty of narratives to uncover, but ultimately the repetitive, shallow mechanics prevent the experience from meeting its full potential. Despite the best efforts of the excellent visual presentation and voice acting, the net product is a hollow shell of what it could've been.
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is a breath of fresh air, a unique game with an outstanding narrative section and a tremendously beautiful artistic finish. It is not translated into Spanish and some of the mechanics do not work, but it manages to keep the player interested in continuing to collect stories without becoming boring.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine takes a bold step in trying to make a game based on a concept that is very unusual in this medium. That's something to praise but even though the game features an interesting plot and the stories are certainly worth reading, the gameplay experience does not feel adequate to what is on offer and way too often the game feels like it should have been done differently and with other mechanics.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
If you treat Where the Water Tastes Like Wine as a visual novel with added interaction, you'll find a unique premise surrounded with a host of interesting characters and stories. As a video game, however, it is too stripped back to feel substantial and remain engaging through its lengthy run time.
I do think Where The Water Tastes Like Wine is worth a gander, just don’t expect a swan song of a tale or gut punch metaphor about early America. Enjoy it for it what it immediately offers: a fun series of tiny vignettes and discoverable characters to unwind with. Forget the rest.
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is a simple game about traveling the USA while listening to and telling stories.
An inspired attempt at something new, like an Americana graphic novel read through at a snails pace. The lovely meditative quality to the gameplay eventually becomes somewhat frustrating because of repetition, the limitations of the concept and how much the player can interact with the characters and stories. Regardless of these shortcomings, anyone looking for some fresh ideas in their games should give it a try.
Overall, if you enjoy a very slow burn game that really seems better suited to being played for an hour or so a day, or just really want something with a huge focus on narrative, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine may scratch that itch. Those looking for a game with more varied gameplay probably won't find much to like here, however, as just walking around an admittedly bland map will likely come to bore you sooner rather than later. The game has value and I certainly enjoyed my time with it, but its Switch debut likely won't turn any more heads than its original release did.
There's no other game like Where The Water Tastes Like Wine, even if it does lose the plot when it celebrates the art of stories and the power that they possess.
Like its titular drink, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine has a distinct flavor that certain connoisseurs will really appreciate.
One of the things I love the most about indie games and devs are the risks you see being taken in the form of new experiences that challenge the status quo and expectations of what a game can be...
With a lovely art style and an entirely intriguing concept, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is unlike anything you’ll have played before. Its uniqueness makes it worthwhile, but some slow-moving elements, inconsequential mechanics and a few lacklustre stories mean it doesn’t stand out quite as much as it should.
There is space in gaming for narrative output like this, but they need to be carefully tailored to be games first and experiences second. You don't even want to know what this water tastes like.
That being said, you shouldn't go into this one looking to speedrun it. Like, well, a fine wine, this game is meant to be savored. Play half an hour a night, maybe an hour. The stories will still be there for you. Your friends might hop from town to town, but you'll always be able to find them. And if you're unlucky, or perhaps lucky, the Wolf will also find you.
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine contains charming stories, wonderful illustrations and voice-acting that fits the game’s slow-paced and relaxing nature. And this is where the budget ran out. I have to assume that after paying Sting, the writers, and the illustrators, there was no money left to design the over-world and flesh out the short stories. This leaves Where the Water Tastes Like Wine being half of a great game that requires you to wade through the weaker parts to get to the good content. It’s an eight to ten hour game when it would have been better as a four to five hour one.
A story packed adventure which spans across the USA, with some wonderfully written stories, a fantastic soundtrack, and some sublime voice acting. However, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is let down by a map that is too large often resulting in a lot of time spent walking, doing nothing.
There are some unfortunate glitches that really hurt the ability to enjoy the atmosphere the game is trying to create. This doesn’t change the fact though that it is still a game worth checking out.
A truly unique adventure, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is not that far from sweeter waters.