Official Review PlayStation 5 Updated

Submerged: Hidden Depths (PlayStation 5)
Official GBAtemp Review

Name: Submerged: Hidden Depths
Item: Submerged: Hidden Depths
Rating: 7
Author: KiiWii

Product Information:

Publisher: Uppercut Games
Developer: Uppercut Games
Genres: Adventure
Also For: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S

Game Features:

Single player

Local Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

Co-operative

Exploration and adventure--sign me up!

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Launched on Google Stadia in 2020, Submerged: Hidden Depths voyages onto consoles and PC very soon, and with a penchant for adventure and exploration, I really wanted to get to grips with this game and explore it in its entirety.

The premise is simple, you ferry around an open world, exploring the vast ocean on a quest to satiate an imposing black plant from strangling the world and throwing the otherwise beautiful world into chaos. It's an allegory for how we as humans abuse the world, a strong message that's been anthropomorphized into humanlike beasts that writhe around in distress until something is done about it. It very much reminded me of Moana in its firy evil vs lush tropical salve goodness.

You essentially play as two main protagonists, Miku or Tiku, who are a brother and sister duo that set out to restore balance and peace to the water-laden world they find themselves in. The crux of the matter is that Tiku has previously been touched by the black mass and her right arm is imbued with magical senses that carpet your path with swathes of flowers, re-animates trapped spirit memories for you to view, and kind of guide you towards finding each of the seeds. Miku, on the other hand, has nothing going on, not one thing that Tiku couldn't do herself so I don't honestly understand the reasoning for Miku being playable as he brings nothing to the table. It would have been cool if he could soar around, or dive underwater, or lift weights his sister couldn't, but alas he is kind of pointless.

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Controlling the characters is uncomplicated, with the controls pared back to just the analogue sticks to move or look, the Cross button to interact or collect, and R2 to power your ship, with L1 eventually offering faster speeds thanks to upgrades. That really is the entirety of the basic controls, which leaves you able to explore to your heart's content without any fear of forgetting the layout later on. You can also use Triangle to bring up your telescope, through which you can locate collectables and points of interest that you can later investigate and it is crucial to use to locate those hidden boat upgrades later on. I have to admit that blasting around in a fully upgraded yacht was incredibly fun to navigate the various locales, hunting down those all-important creatures and salvaging interesting objects, though the clearly inspired elements and even the musical build-up borrowed from Wind Waker fall flat entirely when you dredge up an item only for Miku to stare at it blankly as if he has no clue why he's also in this game, and the music to peter off into nothing more than a whimper at what should be the crescendo. The entire act becomes skippable after two or three, and there is absolutely no endorphin rush or inherent use to any of those items whatsoever, which is a shame.

Scattered throughout the map are ten seeds that need to be plucked from the abuse it is suffering, freed and offered back into nature to restore tranquillity and soothe the black mass' anguish. The seeds all appear to have been harvested for their power, and as such they are crudely wired up to probes and electrodes that are horrifically draining it of its energy for the use of menial things such as vacuum cleaners and hair dryers: yes it's a heavy message, but it's entirely true, we strip the world of natural resources for our ill-gotten gains and ease of life, causing global warming and the destruction of the natural world.

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Each seed is effectively trapped within a puzzle-like fortress that you need to scour and explore to find your way to the top, claim it back, and use pullies and winches to drop it off back at the root whereby that segment of the map is healed. All of the ten seeds are obtained the same way with each fortress being a landmark that has been reclaimed by the sea, with the exact same mechanics within to obtain the seed using the exact same methods. When I say puzzle, it's more of a trial, and when I say trial, it's more of a labour. Hunting around the various places yields pages that tell a story of woe and how the world has become this way, and with 56 of those to find there is quite some hunting to do. However, I found that they were all rather predictably laid out rather than randomly scattered or made remotely challenging to find. Sure, this game is as laid back as they come, with no time constraints, to looming fear, and certainly no dangerous elements to worry about, but in a way, this detracts from the gameplay as you have no worry about falling off a jetty, no fear of tiptoeing across thin beams, or bounding across wooden beams because there is nothing to do other than hold a direction and let the game play it out for you. In my opinion, a few quick-time events such as balancing akin to Tony Hawk's grinding, or perhaps some entering of button combos to nimbly pick your way across the rooftops would have made each interaction more engaging and more personal.

There are 20 creatures, 56 pages, 26 upgrades, 20 Relics, 10 landmarks, 10 lookouts, 9 flowers and 10 seeds to find as well as conch shells to pick up near each seed that unlocks new styles for your hair, clothes and boat, however none really do much other than fill out your journal. The upgrades, as mentioned before, only aid in speeding up your vessel with an L1 boost button, with each sequential upgrade being found adding to the boost bar. Beyond this none of the other collectables are redeemed towards anything, they're just for trophy popping posterity, and I think that's a little weak.

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I may have a lot to whinge about with this title in terms of content, but I certainly cannot complain about the beautiful environmental art, the weather, the ebb and flow of the undulating waves and the utterly incredible views this game offers. It took me around 4 hours to finish the story and an additional 2-3 hours to find the remaining upgrades and story pages, so I was at a loss as to what I should do with it now it's over, and alas there is nothing left to do. No mini-games to replay, no roleplaying elements to explore, and no boss-like battles to overcome.

One other bone of contention I wanted to address was that of issues I experienced during play. The great news is that overall there were no major game-breaking bugs or issues that I experienced, however a couple of times I got hooked up on geometry and had to fast travel out of the area and come back in to retry, a few times the only actual essential items that are the boulders and seeds failed to load in while I was doing the various clambering about, and so, I had to save my game, quit, close game, restart and reload save in order for them to come back into play. At one point in two locations, I actually scratched my head and assumed I needed to perhaps progress further and unlock my brother as a second character so I could perhaps use him as a dead weight to hold down switches, but ironically not, it was just the game failing to load in a critical item here and there.

Finally and most glaringly for myself, is the ongoing issue of screen space reflections. This game is water-centric, reflection-focussed, ripple-aware: yet on multiple occasions, the immersion of escaping into this world was pulled from under me by silly little details that surely of all the things this game doesn't do, this should be done perfectly? Let me just say that the waves and motion, sky, weather and lighting is incredibly well-observed and depicted, but this one mechanic, which is critical to the majority of the screen time, is not up to par?

I understand that if the geometry isn't on screen it can't be reflected properly, but then why not use ray tracing or another method to reflect what cannot be seen or, at the very least, get the edges right? Oddly it's not the case everywhere in-game, and it's not every object that seems to break around the edges and flair up in blue (I'm sure Far Cry 6 also blooms in blue around edges of puddles and such), but it really grinds my gears that this is a fundamental element for this type of game and yet its done as well as game that use this technique for background detail puddles.

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Submerged: Hidden Depths is fun for a while, but it is entirely too casual for me. There is no challenge and therefore no exhilaration, sure the story is evocative and unnervingly eco-aware, but it is an utterly gorgeous jaunt across astonishing scenery, with adaptive weather and a day-night cycles that really make you stop and stare thanks to postcard photo mode. If you want something simple, relaxing, and completely devoid of stress, this is for you. However, if you crave a little challenge, some dialogue and more than one useful character, Hidden Depths is rather shallow in its execution and ironically holds no hidden depth.

Verdict

What We Liked ...

Beautifully tranquil environments
Evocative storyline

What We Didn't Like ...

Not much going on beyond the collect-a-thon
Repetitive puzzles

Gameplay

With a dash of Wind Waker, a drop of Ecco the Dolphin and a splash of any other nautical game you please, Hidden Depths is easy to play, and nothing will even nearly tax your mind or stress you out.

Presentation

Visually stunning and with a strong post-apocalyptic-aquatic art style, Submerge: Hidden Depths is wondrous to behold.

Lasting Appeal

The "puzzles" are repetitious, the collectables really lead to nothing more than cosmetics, and there is only one boat upgrade that makes you blast about quicker. After just 6-7 hours I had found everything and seen everything there was to offer.

out of 10

Overall

While enjoyably relaxing and full of wondrous exploration, Hidden Depths manages to shrug off its strap-line sub-name and contains very little depth in content.

Reactions: NoobletCheese, HinaNaru Cutie, Mama Looigi and 2 others

Prans
Mar 10, 2022

visuals look cool but it seems like such a missed opportunity to have a couch co-op version to make use of the 2 characters!

Reactions: ChiefReginod, KiiWii, AlexMCS and 1 other person

Jiehfeng
Mar 10, 2022

Great, now you've gone and done it. Those gifs you uploaded are going to crash the whole gbatemp server. :hateit:

Reactions: KiiWii

may look beautiful, but if it's honestly a boring dull game then rate it a 5/10 not a 7/10 at this point..

anyway, I really assumed based off the trailer they presented to us - kind of a trailer of what to do in the game at Sony that it would be like grow the indie sandbox open world game that has farming, questing, and you can even stinking mine ; lovely game that I adore very much, so once i saw this games trailer - right off the bat it reminded me of it...until I saw the review...and yeah very much disappointed.....I hope the developers learn from this and make an interesting game, it could've been a farming or something simulation? heck make it action, beat monsters in this mythical world, - just make it stand out but they didn't do that..instead..just sounds dull to me..sigh..its a pretty game though ♡♡

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