Sea of Solitude Reviews
Sea of Solitude is an interactive story that has bits of a game peppered into it. Like gamey meat, it's not for everyone. Some players may want more to do than run around looking for seagulls and messages in bottles in between story moments and the occasional "fight" sequence. The story (which we have not spoiled here) is likely to resonate with many people, but for some it won't be enough to overcome a lack of fun gameplay to take players in between exposition. It is a worthy attempt, but just falls a bit short.
Sea of Solitude dives into a broad range of mental issues and treats them carefully enough to be both educational and emotional. It's just a pity that the bland gameplay drowns out some of its best parts.
A beautiful adventure without cryptic metaphors, but it suffers from mediocre gameplay and poor voice acting.
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Sea of Solitude is a gorgeous adventure that knows its way around mental illness, but doesn't make great use of the medium to tell its story.
Even if you’re fascinated by the story though, the tedium of actually playing Sea of Solitude will diminish its impact.
Looking through my review notes felt like I was reading the journal of an increasingly depressed individual. There's amazing praise at first but that quickly turns to frustration, irritation, and even anger at times. With that said, I'd recommend Sea of Solitude for the school chapter alone. The entire adventure is also only a few hours long so thankfully, it won't overstay its welcome.
Sea of Solitude is a boldly personal game that has a lot going for it, notably its fantastic art style and score. Kay's story toward understanding her fraught relationships can be genuinely moving at times, but more often it comes across as scattered and heavy-handed. Add to that its clumsy, far-too-traditional gameplay, and Sea of Solitude feels like an interesting idea poorly executed.
Its repetitive tasks are like the usual arbitrary gates to reach a cutscene in a mediocre video game.
Sea of Solitude left an impact on me that I won't soon forget. From its heartbreaking story to it's powerful and striking visuals. Sea of Solitude is another good example of a game bringing awareness to mental health issues.
Sea of Solitude isn't a bad game, but it's one that could've been far more profound if it handled its delicate subject matter with more care. There's an engaging story to be told, but all of its compelling narrative ideas are constantly undermined by its cringe-inducing voice acting and bad dialogue. Meanwhile, gameplay suffers from a general lack of things to do or discover in its beautiful world, leaving players with a sense of fatigue as the game wears on.
Addressing more personal mental issues is novel in gaming and that much is admirable but trying isn’t always enough. Storytelling matters as much as — if not more than — the story you’re trying to tell and the game’s clumsy script and amateurish performances demonstrate how one side can spoil the other.
Sea of Solitude offers up a lot to love, with its rich aesthetics and well-intentioned design, but it fails to make a lasting impression with its gameplay or story.
Despite some shortcomings in the narrative, Sea of Solitude champions its storytelling. It lands solidly on its own two feet, for the most part, and presents a fairly cathartic look at loneliness and depression.
A brief, frequently beautiful meditation on mental illness that can be overly blunt in its messaging.
A clearly personal story told in a bland repetitive 3D platformer with padded gameplay, terrible voice acting, and no subtlety.
There is a lot of potential for some innovative and memorable puzzles here, but the games heavy focus on its emotional narrative detracts from it being, well, a game.
Sea of Solitude is a little too short for its own good. However, with the combined effect of EA's status and the creativity of Jo-Mei Games, it stands out for its breathtaking narrative regardless of its somewhat lacking gameplay.
It’s not necessarily a game I ‘enjoyed’ or I ‘disliked’. It’s an experience I partly shared in. In some of its moments, a connection was formed. It even became somewhat therapeutic for me too.
Sea of Solitude is an emotional journey with the bones of a truly gripping story of self-reflection and relativley satisfying climax, marred by its often ham-fisted writing and lack of subtlety. Even with gameplay variety as a sacrifice, the story itself does lack some nuance but tackles heavy topics headstrong in ways few games have done before.