The first time I booted up this game, I knew exactly it was going to be the kind of game I must play while seafaring... and I did just that, playing this game on my Steam Deck while working aboard a cargo ship.

The game has a very pleasant tone and art direction. It strikes a great balance between minimalist, cartoony design and platforming, which helps you traverse the world of Wavetale.

You play as Sigrid, one of the few remaining humans after "The Great War," which left the world submerged in an ocean, leaving only a few stranded isles and pockets of land. If that wasn't bad enough, the world is plagued by "The Mess," which comes in the form of a moving black blob. While it doesn’t kill anything outright, it traps you in a certain memory. Anyway, Sigrid meets "The Shadow," a mythical being living under the sea. The Shadow bonds with Sigrid, explaining and allowing her to use the ability of "staying out of water," while also enabling her to maneuver at great speed and agility. This is where the gameplay comes in.

It’s not often I find a game with such good control and navigation like Wavetale. Your movement feels very fluid, both on land and in water. Especially when you’re on water, you can "slide" or "surf" around at great speed, charging jumps and diving to temporarily boost your speed. Just being able to surf through the waves in this world made me feel like my money was well spent.

The land platforming is also surprisingly fluid. You have double jumps, dashes, and the structure and obstacles are open enough to let you scale almost anywhere you could plant your feet or build momentum. All in all, you'll have a lot of fun traversing and platforming in this game.

For me, the main highlight of the game is the soundtrack. My favorite track is Iris's Lullaby—so short, so sweet, and the instruments used for the accompaniment are a nice touch, especially the horns. Overall, I really like what they’ve done here in terms of art style, gameplay, and soundtrack.

But this is where all good things come to an end...

The combat is bland, with just a light attack and heavy attack, and not much else. The currency (in the form of "sparks") is only good for purchasing cosmetics, which doesn’t do anything to improve your abilities. Additionally, world interactions are bare minimum. And for me, the worst part of all... the story.

It’s not that bad, really. The world has gone to sh!t, with a few humans left stranded on small pockets of land or man-made structures. Overall, it’s a good setup for a great adventure. The problem is the writing makes it feel the opposite.

As devastated as the world has become, there are still a lot of beautiful places, and some land is still left. Yet your grandma keeps being so depressed as if there’s nothing left, which is very contrasting with the game world. Everywhere you go, it feels like survivors have settled nicely and are living in good communion, but then you get lines like, "We’ll never get to eat apples again, so don’t think about it."

Also, the game has some obvious, annoying "content" that’s not well written into the narrative, which kind of kills the mood and ruins the first impression I had.

Overall, though, this is a good game to play on the Steam Deck. If you like platforming with a touch of visual exploration, this game is definitely for you. Just don’t expect too much from the story.

This game was awesome, the music, the art, the story, all felt very cozy

Would I recommend it, yes for sure. But i'd probably suggest picking it up on sale as it's only around 4 hours if you take your time.

Side quests also had no real purpose besides currency which you found in abundance throughout the world anyway.

Honestly I think this game would also work well without the combat as it's pretty simple and the story carries it anyway.

And it's not about ship-building, but rather about wave-surfing!

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3579765591

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3579767318

https://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3579765485