Saltsea Chronicles

A beautiful game with a distinctive art style, incredible writing, and heartbreaking moments. I cried at least a few times late-game from some of the consequences of my choices and smiled a lot and laughed too. I do think the ending I got was a bit abrupt and odd but overall this was a really great experience!

Saltsea Chronicles has a fascinating story, with beautifully written characters and great art. An insightful look on how an anarchist society deals with its problems, together with great narrative. I love it so much, truly a lovely game. I love Iris, they're so cute! And Kittick too, as well as their relationship! I love how many queer people are in this world, and how naturally they're presented. The communities we get to know are well written, and Spoils is really fun too. There are fresh mechanics for choosing your path through the story, with a great save system allowing for forking without needing a full replay. I hope we get to see the crews next steps someday! The folks Die Gute Fabrik deserves all love and support in the world, I hope they can get back together. I'm always left wishing I could live in their worlds. They're very different games, but I'll do this one comparison: When compared to Mutazione, Saltsea Chronicles features way more and longer dialogues. While this does get a lot better after the first chapter, the previous game from the devs feels more balanced in this regard, giving you more natural-feeling dialogues and time to chill in between with gardens…

A superb narrative game where I really connected with the characters and world. I really love the art style here. There is not much in the way of "traditional" gameplay but if you are looking for an great story with compelling characters this is the perfect game to scratch that itch!

Saltsea Chronicles is a visual novel about heavy themes told through common experiences of love and friendships, worries and regrets. With that, it shares a lot with Mutazione, the studio previous outing. However, it feels much grander in scope, and that's all down to the change of theme. The narrative here is not on the effect of colonialism on an indigenous tribe anymore but is a tale of communities and rebuilding in a post-capitalist world. Everything follows. A full archipelago to explore, instead of a village. A crew to manage, instead of a single protagonist. Even the visual style is now zoomed out, giving the painterly art style much more room to breathe, to play with shapes and colours, free to be abstract. It's a game that stuck with me all year because of these cohesive design choices as much as for the wonderful cast of characters. It even has an in-theme trick-taking card game, what's not to love?

Okay, this is one where I had to get used to the aesthetic, but once I did get used to it, it felt natural, homey, familiar, like these multi-colored folk were my friends. Keep in mind that despite the bright colors and clear shapes, this goes dark places freely and often, but you're always making choices with your crew of fractious, complicated buddies. Lots of complex conflicts - the game always feels strangely gentle, but not straightforward. I usually love games that are essentially navigating lore, descriptions, and conversations - that's all this game is. So much text! a lot of branching! I hope to replay it and see how different it gets.

Saltsea has a much more episodic format than Mutazione. I was initially skeptical because I liked playing one character and building relationships over time, as you do in Mutazione, but Saltsea won me over. The writing is good, the characters are good, the emotional beats land. The art style is distinctive but a bit sparse. You can jump between chapters, but there's no way to automatically advance dialogue, so it's difficult to see every plot thread. (This might be as intended?) Card games aren't really my speed, and I found them an unwanted distraction when I had the chance to play during the storyline, but what I played of it was fun.