Review: Submerged {PS4/Steam)

Submerged is a third-person combat-free game in which you explore a mysterious flooded city and discover the beauty of desolation in vast outdoor environments.

Pros:

• Stunning graphics. The game world you explore is a thing of beauty.
• Full 360 pad support on Steam.
• Re map buttons on PC for keyboard and controller.
• PC: Video options: AA,V-Sync,effects,graphic quality and more or just go with auto detect.
• Make a postcard option which is basically photo mode.
• No combat gameplay.
• You cannot die.
• Gameplay is about exploring a submerged town and grab supplies for your sickbrother.
• Travel around in a boat.
• Piano melody soundtrack.
• Telescope: Use it to see and mark points of interest on the map like mission drops,boat parts and collectibles. Handy feature where a arrow will come up in your view when you are close to a marker.
• Find old broken boats to add boost to your boat. Collect more to extend the life of the boost.
• Story is told through icons and illustrations.
• Map shows marked locations and even crosses out collected items and collectibles. The map discovery reveals itself as you travel the seas.
• Discover landmarks.
• Discover all types of fish and even swim with the dolphins!
• Day/night cycle with sun/wind and rain weather effects.
• Save and quit wherever and start right back where you saved.
• Easy trophy/achievement game.
• Play how you want. You can tackle the drops in any order, go exploring whenever you want.
• Unlock free roam for collectible hunting after game finishes.
• Steam achievements.
• Steam trading cards.
• 12 PlayStation trophies.
• Scale large buildings. Has a puzzle element to it all as you need to work out routes and collect all items on the way.

Cons:

• Cannot zoom in/out of the map.
• No guidance or help.
• Very repetitive gameplay. Go here collect that, Go back and do that 10 times.
• No in game help.
• Opening a drop always restarts you back at the start.
• Cannot skip cutscenes.
• Not all icons show on the map.compass bar at the top of the screen.
• Slow paced game play.
• Short game. Can be done in a few hours.
• PS4 has a lot of slowdown and stuttering.
• Initial load is quite long.
• Can glitch through walls and whales.
• No DS4 touch pad support.

So Submerged is a different type of game More of an experience than a flat out game. Think Journey as you don’t really do a lot but you stay for the story, You stay for the atmosphere. I like games like these as everyone has a different experience with everyone making up their own interpretation of the story. Dont get it twisted though the game part of Submerged is not very good at all. You spend hours just driving to a building, Scale it and get  the drop and rinse and repeat 10 times game done. The scaling of buildings can easily be described as…You know how climbing buildings in Assassins creed was fun in places as you find a way to the top? Well thats this whole game outside of the boat stuff. I thought I would hate this game at first as the drop collecting became boring but then the story gripped me, I got the collecting bug and went all over the town looking for boat parts, racing fish across the ocean and admiring the landmarks. Yes the game play parts will bore you but you will stay for the experience!