great visuals, great voice acting (cissy jones, delilah from firewatch), great functionality for the most part (and only at first glance, see below), there's chapter select and even manual saving anytime on top of random autosaves. only 3 slots for some baffling reason, the autosave indicator is practically unnoticable and it doesn't save on exit on its own, so far from perfect. and I still have to give it a thumbs down mostly because it's possible that textures are only displayed properly on the 'epic' graphics setting, making the game unplayable otherwise, as numbers on dials and other critical information is simply not visible. only having a global gfx quality setting is bad enough and inexcusable when it literally breaks the game.

also, how about making sure resolution options and such actually work? especially if lowering it might be necessary to have a playable 'epic' experience with visible clues, or increasing fov might be necessary to avoid motion sickness. as it stands, if you have any dpi scaling enabled (bigger text in windows, etc.), the game uses that instead of its own settings. genius. performance really tanks starting with chapter 3, guess by then they gave up on what little optimization happened.

settings are resolutions, windowed mode, v-sync, field of view, brightness, separate volumes, rebindable controls, invert axis (only y for some reason), mouse and controller sensitivity, controller vibration and spoken and subtitles languages. under accessibility they offer toggles for a crosshair, easily readable journal font, barely noticable, so almost useless hotspot indicator (only shows a small icon when you're near something, very easy to miss stuff), smooth camera rotation, head bobbing, flashing lights, closed captions and motion blur.

nothing for the always annoying and unnecessary vignettes, and the similarly always annoying and unnecessary splash screen can only be bypassed by pressing enter, clicking or other keys don't work. an always run setting would've been necessary too, instead of having to sit on the sprint button for hours. or make that the walking speed. also, better journal navigation. moving your hands from wasd to arrows is bad (why can't both work if the game is paused while the book is open?), just like clicking small left/right arrows in the corners. achievements also stopped unlocking after my first session but I don't care about that. crashing a few times in chapter 6 was more of a concern and cause for frustration.

as for the story, a lady is looking for her husband on a forlorn tropical island where the hubby and his buddies were looking for a cure for the wife's ailment, then inevitebly ♥♥♥♥ (or in this case, black ooze) hit the fan. most of it is unraveled via letters and photos, plus norah's narration, commenting on current goings-on as well as memories. looking at documents is also finicky, as you have to click 'read' every time to avoid deciphering somebody's handwriting, and even if you don't mind, zooming in first is advised. why they didn't default to always showing the non-handwritten one on the side (or at least when the journal font setting is toggled) and a zoom setting that fills the screen more is one of the game's many mysteries that shouldn't exist.

you can pick up items but no inventory, they get used automatically. puzzles are a mixed bag at best. not too taxing for the most part (if you don't miss clues, that is), except the end of chapter 3, the constellations in chapter 6, and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ simon says in chapter 4. can't have a puzzle game without it, lest the world comes to an end. turning on close captions basically shows the solution, so there's that. there are a bunch of timing-based puzzles in chapter 5 too, and of course no puzzle skip if you'd like to bypass something. that chapter is the worst anyway, nobody likes underwater levels.

exploration is iffy as well, hindered not only by performance and the useless hotspot indicator (I know, an indicator is the opposite of exploration but as I said, it's still easy to miss things), but also by controls and movement in general. slow walking speed, not much better sprinting and it's sometimes disabled anyway, tedious ladders, and multiple times it seemed a place was inaccessible, then worked from a slightly different angle, even though it was pretty much the same level or surface or whatever. and while a few shortcuts can be opened, there's still a lot of back and forth as you're trying to figure out in which order to do things. and the cherry on the ♥♥♥♥ cake: unskippable credits. you can bring up the menu and leave, but then no post-credits scene for you. and since there are 2 endings, you have to watch the whole thing twice (or just youtube it).

so yeah, another case of 'close at first but further and further as you keep playing, definitely no cigar, this is a mess', made even worse because the devs have been aware of critical issues for years but never fixed them. glad I didn't buy anything else from them and now I never will.

Call of the Sea was a pleasant surprise. The visuals are beautiful, and the story grows more emotional and intriguing as it unfolds. With no combat, it focuses on exploration and clever puzzles that feel rewarding. There's a hint of Lovecraft, but it's more mystery than horror. A short, well-crafted game that's definitely worth playing.

The game is beautiful, but ultimately the story and the puzzles left me kind of untouched and wanting something more.