The Sea Eternal

Despite the fact that there are only two stat bars (independent/respectable and bold/patient), the stats system and way of determining which is dominant seems overly complex for such a short game. At times, it seems like the game purposely stacks the deck against you in terms of which stat you’re gaining in and which you need for some important upcoming story choices. Say, you’ve been patient for the most part of the game, but this one or two choices force you straight into the bold direction and what do you need for some upcoming choices? That’s right, a high patience percentage. It’s just needlessly frustrating, especially when you’re trying to explore all the options the game has to offer, but you have to restart again and again because you’re lacking the correct stats again when they were just fine two sentences ago. By the way, let me just mention that I’ve played several Choice of… games before and normally playing around with the stats can vary from tedious to fun depending on the game, but this is the first time I’ve been so frustrated by the stat system in any of these games. It's like the game won't allow you to do anything it doesn't want you to do, as if it's only givi…

I tried to like this game, I really did. I like so many of the other CoG games that have been released that I picked this one up day one. Now I really wish I hadn't. This game is less a game and feels more like an agenda is being pushed. I was forced to say or agree with things that the way I'd played my character didn't, and felt somewhat railroaded into some choices that I had to make. This is not good writing in a game engine that is all about 'choice' (something that is in its very name!) I'm long past the ability to refund this preachy game, but I will *definitely* be taking the fact that this game was published into consideration when buying CoG games in the future!

Quite honestly, I found this story lacking in several areas. Poor character development and a rushed story left much to be desired. The ending didn't really leave me with any sense of acomplishment. I will say though that the story was well written, with few errors. Overall, I'd give this a 6/10, but I wouldn't recommend it.

It's difficult for me to say whether The Sea Eternal is a 'game' in the traditional sense or not. Unlike a visual novel, there are no graphics or music or sound effects, so if you expect a sensory spectacle, this is not for you. The gameplay loop, if you want to call it that, is reduced to reading, making a choice, and turning the page. The choices lead your character into certain diections, for example, "independent" versus "respected", and your stance with various characters. There are also achievements for several stepping stones in the story. If all this sounds like a game to you, I can definitely recommend it. As you can see from my Steam name, I'm a big fan of merpeople (mermaids and mermen) and transformations, so the content was definitely up my alley. The writing is beautiful and incredibly immersive, there are strong themes of identity and and the price of immortality, and strong world building. It should also be mentioned that there is a strong current of LGBTQA+ friendliness, featuring at least one trans character and several characters of unusual and even uncertain gender. If this kind of content offends you for some mysterious reason, then The Sea Eternal is not for …

I'd love to recommend this game, but I honestly can't. There are some good things about it - the setting is interesting, the writing is elegant and descriptive and it packs a lot in, but where it suffers is both in terms of the pacing and indeed the extent to which there's three or four stories all struggling to breathe in such a short period. Accepting that one can go too far the other way, the speed at which you're thrust into the game means it's very hard to really care about your protagonist, especially when most of their past decisions have been made for them, and by the time you're beginning to form a personality for them, the game is already over and you've got to start again - my first playthrough maybe took 40 minutes and my second took a lot less once I'd waded through the unskippable establishing plot points. Equally, the issue is that because there are so many different threads to be pulled, you maybe have time to pull one of them every playthrough, and equally it's not clear what sort of playthrough you have to do in order to get them apart from by trial and error, especially when most of the non-status quo endings are hidden behind a very specific set of checks…

While I think I would recommend this game, it also confuses me to a great degree. I am still confused by a plethora of choices and unsure how many achievements are meant to be found (and therefore how those endings or story pathways are able to be seen). Theoretically very interesting, though, I do love how you learn more about the story every time you play through it, you learn more about the world and the characters. It's really fascinating how you slowly uncover the big picture story behind everything in that way. I still feel like I don't know everything and I've been through it like 6 or 7 times!