DIVE or DIE - Children of Rain

very well done game, water version of darkest dungeon with more free gameplay. very good cosmic/lovecraftian ideas i haven't seen anywhere before (an area of the water polluted by some mysterious creature that won't stop bleeding is so unique and interesting). 10/10

TL;DR: The game is poorly balanced, while the narrator and art generate a lovecraftian atmosphere, the game rewards agressive gameplay more similar to a hack and slash. The good The diving feels smooth The design is nice (the village personally feels very close to darkest dungeon's hamlet) The voice acting is on point No gamebreaking bugs on release is remarkable The bad (mostly balance issues) From the very beginning the game tells you there is a set amount of time to finish the game (and the loading tips inform you that you shouldn't delay with you altar offerings prolong the end), you can disable this but the game explains that the intended design is to explore while under time pressure. This creates a sense of urgency that some could find unappealing, but for the purpose of the atmosphere it's good, the problem lies that you will very soon realize, you can increase the timer faster than it goes out. The only way to progress in the game is to lean heavily into eldritch stuff, like it's normal. The first time i tried beating the game with no sacrifices, but i soon realized that I had to in order to get the upgrade for the workshop that enables you to craft the upgrades to finish the game. The previous point is where things get silly, every single eldritch thing you can craft or do in the village is a buff, new recruits? straight to slaughter, nobody bats an eye. You wear a suit made out of living flesh? Completely normal. You are using a cthulu powered jet ski? your sanity increases. The game rewards you for being a full on cultist with absolutely no downiside. Some things are very poorly explained or not at all, like the difference between fishing 3 and 4, or a piece of nonlethal ammunition that has a description that makes it sound like you would use it to block a hole to prevent a chase A lot of mechanics are either there just as a filler or you'll unlock them when they no longer matter (or finish the game before unlocking them). For example, in a normal run when you finish the game your villagers will be between lv 5 and 8, the library heals them for 0,5 to 1 per level (let's say around 6 healed), through food buffs your villagers will heal 30% each day, this would be around 30 to 60 each day. Having a good population is counterintuitive. Base recruits suck, you only get one a day, and leveling them up takes forever. By the time you get your first recruits (lv4) from exploring, your villager will still be lv 2 or 3 at most. So you'll banish everybody, this happens again when you unlock later expeditions and the recruits from those are lvl 9 while your town is 6 at best. The game autosaves at the village, the learning curve for what manning each building is very steep, and you can only change the villager's job once per day, autosave in the village punishes you for not properly understanding the importance of each building. The gun's magazine is so limiting that you'll find yourself playing "riddick goes diving sim" While I found the lore and creatures good, the story itself is quite lackluster, jack being immediately presented as holding a "drumstick" is more spoiler than foreshadowing.