Mythic Ocean: Prologue

I think the reason for some of the negative reviews falls in the fact that Mythic Ocean isn't trying to teach a lesson so much as tell a story. The themes aren't meant to be groundbreaking, they're more so opening people's minds to possibilities. I love the sense of wonder that is put on display in the music and the exploration. The characters in the prologue are cute and I genuinely cared about their relationships with one another. It's a game about balance. I've never been a religious person, however I love the symbolism. For older folks, there may not be much insight to it but I can definitely see a 10-13 year old appreciating the message Mythic Ocean sends. Cooperation is key, not much good change is made without it. :)

[h1]Overview:[/h1] '[i]Mythic Ocean: Prologue[/i]' is a first person exploration game that is an introduction to the full game '[i]Mythic Ocean[/i]'. You play as someone who mysteriously finds themselves in a mysterious ocean filled with what appears to be gods all in their own world doing their own thing. They all reside in the same ocean and each of them take forms of various underwater critters and have their own unique personality. The story itself only goes so far before it ends since it isn't the full game. You won't be able to fully see what happens at the end and the story will abruptly cut off after you've unlocked enough lore in the game. It's actually a pretty neat prologue and gives good insight of what the full game has to offer. [h1]Gameplay:[/h1] '[i]Mythic Ocean: Prologue[/i]' is one of those games where you can't die, can't lose and can't fail. It functions almost like an interactive visual novel since the core aspect of the game involves talking to different characters you find throughout the ocean. You basically just swim around talking to silly fishes and other sea animals but more importantly the gods as the main focus of the story is trying to decide which god ultimately ends up being able to change the entire universe. Yeah, it's a pretty tall order as well as an extremely huge fate that you quickly find in your hands. The only catcher is that you can't exactly [i]choose[/i] which god ends up with the power to do this. The outcome completely depends on how you interact with each god and what types of dialogue choices you choose. Supposedly, the full game has multiple endings which all are dependant on the decisions you make throughout the game which is pretty cool but I haven't been able to experience it myself as I don't currently own the full title. Playing the prologue however perked up my interest in the game however and actually made me check out the full game's store page which basically means, the prologue was successful. Throughout the game are also collectable transcripts that the player can read to gain even more insight about the world of '[i]Mythic Ocean[/i]'. Trust me, there is a [i]lot[/i] of reading and aside from that, there really isn't much else to do in the game besides swim around. If you're not the type of person that enjoys reading text after text, you'll probably be bored of '[i]Mythic Ocean: Prologue[/i]' and the full game pretty quickly. But for me, I found the characters to be nicely fleshed out with personalities strong enough to not make them feel like mindless NPC's that exist for the sole purpose of existing. The side characters are also pretty funny and just simply conversing with them was enough for me to enjoy the title as it was. [h1]Controls:[/h1] Since all you really do is swim around and talk to people, there isn't much if at all to talk about in regards to controls. Swimming works nicely and swimming in a three dimensional field doesn't feel awkward like the way some games program swimming controls. There aren't any keybinds that tell you how to play the game as the control section in the settings menu only consists of sensitivity options as well as a unique "input lag" that allows for a more cinematic feel to the game. But with a game with such a simple gameplay premise, there's not a problem at all. [h1]Graphics:[/h1] Despite being locked at 60 frames per second, the game still looks beautiful and full of life with the ocean having constant god rays piercing the water from the sun above, lots of different wildlife swimming almost everywhere, plants that sway to the oceans calming (or not so calming) flow and bubbles and water dust just floating about minding their own business. The developers did essentially everything that needed to make an ocean feel like, well, an ocean and did a damn good job at it. The lighting is amazing and the overall world is vibrant and colorful above but somewhat unsettling but just as beautiful when exploring below in the deeper sections of the ocean. All in all, the visuals are extremely pleasing to the eyes and make me that much less scared of what the ocean's contents may be. [h1]Audio:[/h1] Just as amazing as the graphics and gameplay with fitting sound effects for the ocean ranging from joyful to downright eerie. Despite no voice acting being present, it doesn't hurt the game's characters in any way. Music is also amazing and goes well with the environments they play in. There are different soundtracks that play depending on where the player is as well. Meaning if you were moved from the bright sandy ocean floor to a dark and dingy sea cave, the music will transition smoothly and blend the music almost perfectly with the change in setting. It's seamless and very well done. [h1]Conclusion/TL;DR:[/h1] '[i]Mythic Ocean: Prologue[/i]' is a first person exploration game that focuses primarily on conversing with the characters in the game. It blends the concept of first person exploration with visual novel elements where the choices you make in the game ultimately affect the outcome of the ending. However, this is just a free prologue that gives an idea of what the full game is like and the ending is not obtainable as it will end after a certain amount of lore is discovered (to my knowledge). It's an amazing introduction to a narrative exploration game with in-depth characters all with unique personalities in a beautiful and lively ocean to explore. It gives more than enough time for the player to grasp what the game plays like and if you're into first person exploration as well as reading, '[i]Mythic Ocean: Prologue[/i]' is a great yet small example of it. Heck, it might even convince you to buy the full title.

Tanrıları tanıyın! Bu ön izleme, seçimlerinizin evrenin kaderini şekillendirdiği, anlatısal bir keşif oyunu olan Mythic Ocean'ın dünyasına ilk bakışınızı sunacak.

"Mythic Ocean: Prologue" is not a game, it's an advertisement for a product called "Mythic Ocean", itself a hybrid visual novel and low poly ocean adventure game... but that's besides the point. It's inappropriate to discuss the game "Mythic Ocean", because this is not that game.. it's an advertisement for it. You're forced to sign a highly questionable yet legally unenforceable End User License Agreement... for such a relatively low effort, low quality product, this comes across more as a delusion of grandeur than anything else. This agreement includes questionable requirements that may attempt to revoke consumer law protections that gamers expect to have, which is also highly problematic. Developers must learn they are here to serve gamers, not control them. I had my cat walk over the keyboard while the EULA was displaying, which fixed that problem for me. Why does an advertisement need a EULA????? This is only free in the same way that adverts on Youtube and banner ads in your browser are. This is a game demo that's been dumped on Steam to advertise another Steam store page in the hopes of raking in some cash. Just because advertisements are free, doesn't mean they're worth your time. It's important to understand there's a formal process to create a demo/page for a game which hasn't been followed here: https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/store/application/demos While it might seem like an inocuous mistake, publishing demos and advertisements as if they are full games is misleading and in some ways harmful. This advertisement is taking up marketing space and visibility that would be better made available to a developer that's done the right thing and created a full game. Instead, that visibility is given over to a demo/advert that's been published incorrectly and is polluting the marketplace. It's unclear if this mistake was made through incompetence or a deliberate intent to mislead gamers. Often developers may choose to incorrectly publish demo/advertisements as separate games as a cheap way to bypass paying Valve for marketing presence on the Steam front page, which may seem clever to them, but it's harmful behaviour and it's not good for gamers. Even though this is "free", it failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 13 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away. Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it? Nope. This isn't worth downloading. While this didn't cost me any money up front, I still feel ripped off.

If you want grapchics at the cost of keybord contrils, this game is for you. If you want to actually use the arrow keys on your kyboard and get fed up with being forced to use WASD, or have mobility problems that render the aforementioned controls a hazard, don't spend your money on this. To teh game makers, please enable the use of arrow keys. Not everyone has joystick controls, or wants to use WASD. having the option for arrows, whether or not people use them, is a very important option.

I appreciate a good political game. Mythic Ocean: Prologue is overtly political, and boldly takes a position against totalitarianism. There are some other political positions which sneak in, but I hope and assume they're unintentional given the way they're presented. The problem isn't so much the politics, but rather that the politics are all that the game has to offer. A bit of a tangent but one thing I absolutely loved about Celeste was that they changed the speech noises to convey emotion. I'm not saying that Mystic Ocean should've done exactly that, but with virtually nothing at all the dialogue is boring. Lutra is kinda fun but that's it. TLDR: This game didn't emotionally, intellectually, or physically engage me.