What is being stated in this thread should not even need to be said, it's common sense. Opinions are opinions, and that is the end of the story. There shouldn't be anything unfathomable about the...
Exemplary
What is being stated in this thread should not even need to be said, it's common sense. Opinions are opinions, and that is the end of the story. There shouldn't be anything unfathomable about the fact that others like things you do not. There's plenty of critically acclaimed media that I don't like, and vice versa. My reality and disliking something does not equate to an entire industry being at fault.
There's thousands of games on Steam but very few are actually good.
This is hyperbole to its highest degree. This all reads like a very rage-baity "Reddit"-esque post to me. Unnecessarily inflammatory. There's no discussion to be had here to be honest.
Came here to basically post this, but already said well. If reviews are overwhelmingly positive, and the OP doesn't like it, then the answer is the OP subjectively disagrees. Just part of being a...
Came here to basically post this, but already said well. If reviews are overwhelmingly positive, and the OP doesn't like it, then the answer is the OP subjectively disagrees. Just part of being a human.
Also, the post is just filled with needlessly inflammatory statements - "what's going on with the gaming industry" is people made a game for $18 that a lot of people really like, and you don't. I don't know what else there is to say, OP..
Opinion is subjective. My partner LOVES the game, I mean, can't put it down for hours, literally salivating to find out what happens next. It might not be your bag, but you might not be the same...
Opinion is subjective. My partner LOVES the game, I mean, can't put it down for hours, literally salivating to find out what happens next. It might not be your bag, but you might not be the same as the next person.
If you want to point fingers at something, I'd point them at the very idea that a single number can capture how good a game is, overall, for "all of us". If you think that, either as a reviewer or a reader, I think you're making a mistake. The best reviews are those where the reviewer's perspective and bias are a feature rather than a bug.
I also have a partner who is absolutely in love with this game. He played hours of it in Early Access and then waited till full release and is back to playing it after work every day. I'm not sure...
I also have a partner who is absolutely in love with this game. He played hours of it in Early Access and then waited till full release and is back to playing it after work every day.
I'm not sure what OPs problem with the 2d pixelation is but that's actually a draw for some people. I think the visuals look beautiful and relaxing myself. Eventually I'll get around to playing it too.
I found the story very contrived. Intro cutscene is main character receiving a call, speech is sims-like mumble, the only thing depicted is a picture of sushi and both characters smiling about it....
I found the story very contrived. Intro cutscene is main character receiving a call, speech is sims-like mumble, the only thing depicted is a picture of sushi and both characters smiling about it. Some invitation for sushi. After 5 minutes an earthquake suddenly happens and you need to raise money for the sushi bar.
Felt like a series of made up events to justify some basic storyline to harpoon more fish and serve more sushi.
Edited for clarity, of course it's my opinion. My genuine question is: Why do some people find it so captivating? How do they compare it to other similar 2D games? What's going on? In vast...
Edited for clarity, of course it's my opinion.
My genuine question is: Why do some people find it so captivating? How do they compare it to other similar 2D games? What's going on?
In vast majority of games I always find some correlation between what I observe and how others find it as well. Even if I don't like something, there's almost always some justification on why some people find it amazing etc. But in this one it's really hard to justify the "overwhelmingly positive" reviews.
Based on your other comments about the game, it just sounds like you don't like any part of the appeal of it. When someone else asked if there was a story, you described all its narrative...
Based on your other comments about the game, it just sounds like you don't like any part of the appeal of it. When someone else asked if there was a story, you described all its narrative mechanics as if they were problems and not just an approach.
If you come from the path of "This thing they did is wrong", you're not going to land up in "I understand why people like it." You've already dismissed what the appeal is and now the confusion is why people like this thing that's "wrong".
It's normal to feel out of the loop on something or to feel totally disinterested in or down on something highly regarded, or to feel like you're the only one seeing a flaw in it. I was that way with the earlier Halo games for example. But at some point you just have to figure that that's part of the tapestry of collective opinions.
Why is this hard?? People seem to be enjoying it. And their enjoyment makes it easy to justify the "Overwhelmingly positive" Reviews. I haven't played it but it seems like an overall relaxing game...
But in this one it's really hard to justify the "overwhelmingly positive" reviews.
Why is this hard??
People seem to be enjoying it. And their enjoyment makes it easy to justify the "Overwhelmingly positive" Reviews.
I haven't played it but it seems like an overall relaxing game with some exploration, bit of fishing and some restaurant management with a nice art style.
I personally would enjoy this better then any: point cursor at NPC/other player and click till their "health" is below 0 ;)
Genuinely hard to justify. 20 comments here and I haven't seen reason or rationale yet as to why people like it. The most relevant comment is "maybe you need to be high to enjoy the game", I...
Genuinely hard to justify. 20 comments here and I haven't seen reason or rationale yet as to why people like it. The most relevant comment is "maybe you need to be high to enjoy the game", I thought the same and it says a lot
I hope you appreciate how irritating it always is when one describes their own personal taste as some sort of objective reality. I too found the game boring, but the appeal of the Dave the Diver...
I hope you appreciate how irritating it always is when one describes their own personal taste as some sort of objective reality. I too found the game boring, but the appeal of the Dave the Diver that hard to grasp? It's not for me, but it's in a class of management-style game that many people love, it's been steadily improving in early access, great community engagement, etc. You know what I find boring? Those truck driving games. Does that mean I should bemoan the state of taste in the industry, cast aspersions on all the positive reviews, etc. just because I find it mind-numbingly boring? Not at all.
Just because a game with "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews doesn't mean you'll like it. Learn your tastes better and find for well-reviewed games within them, or be willing to take a chance on something a bit outside your norm (as I did w/ DtD). I've personally found nothing is more reliable for me than Steam user reviews given that they come from owners of the software. If that isn't working for you, find a content creator (reviewer, YouTuber, website, whatever) with similar tastes and rely on them. Hell, they may even have a curated Steam list for you!
This is the same for all forms of media. For example, TV. Tons of people were trashing the last season of Ted Lasso, but I absolutely loved it and thought it was a nice ending to the series. I’ve...
This is the same for all forms of media. For example, TV. Tons of people were trashing the last season of Ted Lasso, but I absolutely loved it and thought it was a nice ending to the series. I’ve seen people rant and rave about other series but yet, I couldn’t get into them. Just because something is well reviewed and loved by others doesn’t mean everyone will enjoy it. People need to realize it is their opinion of something and not the stone cold fact about it.
I've always taken "Overwhelmingly Positive" to not be about the gameplay itself, but to be that the game is worth looking at. I can probably find some enjoyment out of almost every Overwhelmingly...
Just because a game with "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews doesn't mean you'll like it.
I've always taken "Overwhelmingly Positive" to not be about the gameplay itself, but to be that the game is worth looking at. I can probably find some enjoyment out of almost every Overwhelmingly Positive game even if I end up not liking it that much, but I'll almost never get any enjoyment out of a game that is Overwhelmingly Negative.
It's a quick "at a glance" type of thing that let's me know if I should look deeper into it, maybe watch some trailers.
Yes, totally hard to grasp. We both found it boring, that says something. Many "management-style games" that I love, nothing to do with genre or 2d or pixel art. I didn't like Factorio much,...
the appeal of the Dave the Diver that hard to grasp?
Yes, totally hard to grasp. We both found it boring, that says something.
Many "management-style games" that I love, nothing to do with genre or 2d or pixel art. I didn't like Factorio much, another highly rated one with high accolades etc BUT I can totally understand why some people love Factorio.
It does say something, it just says less than you're trying to tell me/us/yourself that it does, and for some reason this bothers you. I try a lot of smaller games, I find many that I don't like...
Yes, totally hard to grasp. We both found it boring, that says something.
It does say something, it just says less than you're trying to tell me/us/yourself that it does, and for some reason this bothers you. I try a lot of smaller games, I find many that I don't like that much (few that I hate). But I like trying them.
You are faced with a reality where your lived experience isn't meshing with that reported by others, and you react by expending seemingly little effort (look how hard your heels are dug on in this) to understand why this is working for others. Instead you see some sort of baffling conspiracy to manipulate reviews on this small early access (until recently) indie game.
Apply Occam's Razor - it's not for you, but others genuinely like it (and likely many other games) for reasons not important to you.
I'd also say: I think the art direction is legitimately quite great.
Is this a satirical post? It almost reads as very subtle satire. Everything I've read about the game is that it starts out as you describe, a very basic gameplay loop that would likely bore folks...
Is this a satirical post? It almost reads as very subtle satire. Everything I've read about the game is that it starts out as you describe, a very basic gameplay loop that would likely bore folks after an hour or so. However the game begins to rapidly change shortly thereafter by introducing new mechanic after new mechanic with the narrative becoming increasingly more outlandish as you go...
Serious post, hardly any satire. It's the core pattern that is troubling - generic, bland, basic, homogeneous. No matter how many "mechanics" they add in fishing it's still boring, saw later parts...
Serious post, hardly any satire.
It's the core pattern that is troubling - generic, bland, basic, homogeneous. No matter how many "mechanics" they add in fishing it's still boring, saw later parts on youtube. The "outlandlish" parts are just contrived, like it tries to be "weird" or "psychedelic" or "surreal" but it hardly manages to.
Ah ok. In that case, I'll defer to many of the other comments referring to the subjectivity of personal taste. I haven't played it but was intrigued by the review. I may still do so, but it's not...
Ah ok. In that case, I'll defer to many of the other comments referring to the subjectivity of personal taste. I haven't played it but was intrigued by the review. I may still do so, but it's not high on my backlog.
The game continuously introduces new mechanics, and even if it didn't, this gameplay loop appeals to people who like exploring, collecting, looting, etc., which, judging from the # of games that...
Main game is a boring slow 2d underwater "harpooning fishes", mini game is "serving sushi" of the caught fishes
The game continuously introduces new mechanics, and even if it didn't, this gameplay loop appeals to people who like exploring, collecting, looting, etc., which, judging from the # of games that only focus on those features, there are quite a lot of them.
Art is very basic pixelated 2d, nothing unique.
Look closer. It's mostly 3D, and the 3D pixel art is gorgeous. 2D pixel cutscenes are lovingly animated and looks extremely modern - adds a lot to the experience.
30 years old SNES games
Pokémon releases the same damn game every year and people eat them up. Animal Crossing releases the same damn game and people eat them up. Zelda basically "enbiggened" breath of the wild and slapped on some new features (not saying that it's bad, I played through it once and will do so again), yet it's got overwhelmingly positive feedback. All three games have water-related gameplay, and they're probably all worse than Donkey Kong Country. What's your point? Games stick to what works, and DTD's underwater gameplay is serviceable for what they're trying to accomplish.
Uniquely great game
It's unique, imo, because it combines many "addictive" elements of other games into one game. Collecting? We've got a card system for those fish. Fishing? That's half the game. Playing number games? Go get staff to automate serving dishes and get those farms started. I'm only in the second chapter, and I heard they'll throw more shit at me. Personally stoked for it.
I don't see the point in being upset at the entire gaming industry because a game you don't like is popular. A lot of my favorite games are "oldschool" or ascii type graphics which is what i...
I don't see the point in being upset at the entire gaming industry because a game you don't like is popular. A lot of my favorite games are "oldschool" or ascii type graphics which is what i prefer. So do you think that every new game that comes out has to have the most realistic graphics possible and some revolutionary new mechanics?
I thought the implication was that there was some kind of cheating/vote manipulation happening, or at least the game was a cynical attempt to make some strange formula that got positive reviews...
I thought the implication was that there was some kind of cheating/vote manipulation happening, or at least the game was a cynical attempt to make some strange formula that got positive reviews even though the game isn't good.
I don't know if any of that's true, but that's how I interpreted the post.
It's on odd, arguably malicious accusation to make given that the OP admits to only playing 30 minutes and either pirated the game or played via a friend's copy. They don't sound like they were...
It's on odd, arguably malicious accusation to make given that the OP admits to only playing 30 minutes and either pirated the game or played via a friend's copy. They don't sound like they were approaching this because the premise interested them, simply because they werre wondering why big news outlets were praising an indie game from an unknown developer. Not the best way to approach games, IMO.
But sure, to answer that question it doesn't require an introspection on game reviews. Follow the devs. The devs are unknown but Korean. But the publisher is Nexon, one of the largest Korean publishers out there. You may know them for publishing Maplestory and subsequently ruining it's sequel, but to call Nexon the Maplestory devs is like calling EA the Madden devs.
So there you go. No smoking gun outside the fact that publishers do indeed sometimes work, especially for international reach.
It's an odd edit to make when you sensationalize your title and your conclusion (and I'm not going to bother entertaining the "were the developers high" comment): Like, this feels like your actual...
Post is made for genuine debate, no point in "redditesque rage clickbait" here
It's an odd edit to make when you sensationalize your title and your conclusion (and I'm not going to bother entertaining the "were the developers high" comment):
There's thousands of games on Steam but very few actually feel unique. Too much copying, too much homogeneity.
What's going on with the gaming industry?
Like, this feels like your actual thesis even if your personal review doesn't seem to warrant it. The 2D pixel art isn't the best ever but it's distinct and arguably charming. It's an interesting line between cute and grounded without feeling outright cutesy. I don't know why someone would call it homogeneous with the rest of steam games.
It's not the very first Underwater game, but there aren't a lot of games focused on underwater, be it today nor 30 years ago. Because to be honest it's hard to make good underwater controls. It's practically krpytonite to 90's/00's gamers, so if they can make it bearable that's a huge win.
On top of all that it seems to be trying to be it's own kind of casual crafting game. Again, not unique, but it is targeting a specific kind of audience. If you weren't wowed by games like Stardew Valley this won't sell you on the genre, but I instantly understand the kinds of people who'd love this game simply by viewing the trailer.
Much of this review seems to reveal more about the reader and their tastes than the game. I'd hope that even for critical reviews on Tildes that we don't end up feeling like those rants on Steam reviews. Reviews should try to inform the buyer if it's a good match, not serve as a blog spafe for someone's personal frustrations with the industry.
I really dislike this trend stating your subjective opinions as objective facts and decrying everything else that I’ve seen becoming more common, to me speaks of people being too heavily invested...
I really dislike this trend stating your subjective opinions as objective facts and decrying everything else that I’ve seen becoming more common, to me speaks of people being too heavily invested in sensationalized media discourse rather than actual media enjoyment.
For years I constantly heard how amazing the Witcher 3 was, the best story rpg of all time so of course I had to play it! I absolutely despised it, and dropped it after only a few hours as it’s one if the least enjoyable games I’ve ever played. So you know what I did? I went huh that’s a shame and moved onto playing something else.
This is not to say you can’t discuss a game at all and talk about what you didn’t like but don’t let yourself get caught up in the dramatic over sensationalized clickbait ’disscussion’. I used to fall into that trap but since moving away from it and focusing on what I do like I’ve enjoyed gaming a whole lot more. Remember it’s supposed to be media for enjoyment and entertainment.
Steam reviews are biased towards people who like playing the specific genre, because those are the people buying it. This is usually also true of ratings in general. There are a lot of popular...
Steam reviews are biased towards people who like playing the specific genre, because those are the people buying it. This is usually also true of ratings in general.
There are a lot of popular games I don't like, some "Overwhelmingly Positive" or with 9-10/10 ratings, because after I try them I realize I don't like the genre. Like most single-player RPG games, e.g. the Legend of Zelda, idk why but I just don't find it interesting. And then there are games like WarioWare DIY and Trackmania for DS which got mediocre or even bad reviews, but I loved playing them, because those were the genres I liked.
Also, I remember Minecraft got an 8.75 on Game Informer. The best-selling game of all time and it lost to TitanFall (9) and TitanFall 2 (9.5). I'm confident there are more egregious examples, but the bottom line is that every review is some person's preference, and different people have different preferences.
If I assume this post is coming from a place of a good faith argument, I think it's worth reminding OP of the binary aspect of Steam reviews / recommendation-based aggregate scores.. A game...
If I assume this post is coming from a place of a good faith argument, I think it's worth reminding OP of the binary aspect of Steam reviews / recommendation-based aggregate scores.. A game sitting at 95% positive reviews doesn't mean that the average score of each user playing it is 9.5/10. Rather, it means that 95% of the people playing the game would recommend that others pick it up as well. Each person may have (mentally, personally) given the game a score of an 8/10, 7/10, hell, even a 6/10 or lower, but they simply felt that, given the choice between recommending the game to others or not, they chose to recommend it. We also have to remember that if somebody is buying this game, they probably have a decent idea of what they're getting themselves into, which leads to the confirmation bias of more folks who are excited about the game buying and recommending it, which brings the score up even higher since, again, it's a binary yes/no type of review.
That said, I would agree with others that this post is leaning too hard into "I don't like this game; therefore, it is a bad game" sort of mentality, of which I am not a fan.
I know people IRL who seem to legitimately enjoy Dave the Diver, with their only complaint being that the QTE are too much of a jump scare and an unwanted distraction from the fishing. While I...
I know people IRL who seem to legitimately enjoy Dave the Diver, with their only complaint being that the QTE are too much of a jump scare and an unwanted distraction from the fishing. While I have not personally played this game and know almost nothing about it: My assumption based on your description (and knowing a little about my friends) is that this game may be best played while high.
This was my impression as well. May be fun while high... but sober? A struggle to play (I find dark souls to be some of the best games ever, top of the top).
this game may be best played while high.
This was my impression as well. May be fun while high... but sober? A struggle to play (I find dark souls to be some of the best games ever, top of the top).
Nah, you're just reducing incredible depth, breadth, art direction, music, darkness, mysticism, philosophy etc to "grey world poking NPCs". Not accurate.
Nah, you're just reducing incredible depth, breadth, art direction, music, darkness, mysticism, philosophy etc to "grey world poking NPCs". Not accurate.
It’s just like someone just read some medieval fantasy, barely understanding it and made original fiction out of it. I don’t see what the big fuss is about
It’s just like someone just read some medieval fantasy, barely understanding it and made original fiction out of it. I don’t see what the big fuss is about
This game has been intriguing me and I just didn't get it because I don't have the time to play, but I've watched it getting streamed quite a bit. I think the game has quite a lot to offer, first...
This game has been intriguing me and I just didn't get it because I don't have the time to play, but I've watched it getting streamed quite a bit.
I think the game has quite a lot to offer, first you're underwater farming for recourses, seconds you can farm ingredients on land and also create fish farms. You also manage a sushi bar with employers and have to train them on receipts and micromanage quite a bit with ingredients and such.
The underwater world offers a lot of progression with blocked off areas that you have to unlock through puzzling and leveling up your weapons. You're farming for fish and suddenly you're running from a demon chasing you through caves and you have to dodge objects.
Then it's also packed with little and silly mini games.
I think it's a great premise. A farming game with puzzling, micromanagement, exploration, action sequences and mini games. It's unique and different and stands out from other farming games.
I'm a couple of hours in and one of my favorite Zen games and I can easily jump in for casual runs or go in for a sweaty deep dive. Like most people above have said, the game eases you into new...
I'm a couple of hours in and one of my favorite Zen games and I can easily jump in for casual runs or go in for a sweaty deep dive.
Like most people above have said, the game eases you into new systems, mini games and environments and a dive become a massive expedition. I have gotten impatient for systems I can tell are there and swearing at the inventory limit that's never big enough but I can see how that could mess up balance elsewhere.
You also quickly dial into an interesting meta game. You start gearing up to pull in 3 star hauls but can't defend yourself properly. Making catches to level up dishes for max return. Hiring people to procure ingredients for the high value meals. And then VIPs and events send you scrambling into uncomfortable situations or changing priorities.
So as a gameplay package. I can say that it is competently put together for it's intended audience.
I can see how the characters, animations and story can rub some people the wrong way. And some of the mini games or QTEs can be a little off putting. And how the graphics can seem dated. But again, that comes down to the audience and taste.
I know the game had an active early access community and the word of mouth is somthing that sold me on it. It's probably a hard sell for playing an overweight, middle age dude diving for fish for the sushi restaurant he started with his weird buddies.
But with the question of what's happening to the industry. I think it's simply growing apathy from older, enthusiast players. The treatment of players and franchises has killed a lot of enthusiasm for many of these people. So it's hard to get excited for the next big technological marvel when it'll arrive with a bad launch build or monetized to hell and back. Hell, even relatively good games like Diablo 4, Apex and Destiney have a sense of anxiety that the devs or publisher will completely kill the experience with one bad decision. So there's been a lot of interest in retro and emulated games for people to relive the good old days. There's also the surge of boomer shooters, remakes and retro-esq because there was a lot of fun to be found in those games. So when a good, complete game comes around I think players just want to celebrate it.
I hadn't heard of this game. After looking it up, I can see the appeal. Looks interesting with a variety of gameplay, light-hearted tone. I'll keep an eye on it and pick it up if it goes on sale....
I hadn't heard of this game. After looking it up, I can see the appeal. Looks interesting with a variety of gameplay, light-hearted tone. I'll keep an eye on it and pick it up if it goes on sale.
To be honest, the tone of the original post just seems quite dismissive. It's a game that people like, what's the big deal?
What is being stated in this thread should not even need to be said, it's common sense. Opinions are opinions, and that is the end of the story. There shouldn't be anything unfathomable about the fact that others like things you do not. There's plenty of critically acclaimed media that I don't like, and vice versa. My reality and disliking something does not equate to an entire industry being at fault.
This is hyperbole to its highest degree. This all reads like a very rage-baity "Reddit"-esque post to me. Unnecessarily inflammatory. There's no discussion to be had here to be honest.
Came here to basically post this, but already said well. If reviews are overwhelmingly positive, and the OP doesn't like it, then the answer is the OP subjectively disagrees. Just part of being a human.
Also, the post is just filled with needlessly inflammatory statements - "what's going on with the gaming industry" is people made a game for $18 that a lot of people really like, and you don't. I don't know what else there is to say, OP..
Opinion is subjective. My partner LOVES the game, I mean, can't put it down for hours, literally salivating to find out what happens next. It might not be your bag, but you might not be the same as the next person.
If you want to point fingers at something, I'd point them at the very idea that a single number can capture how good a game is, overall, for "all of us". If you think that, either as a reviewer or a reader, I think you're making a mistake. The best reviews are those where the reviewer's perspective and bias are a feature rather than a bug.
I also have a partner who is absolutely in love with this game. He played hours of it in Early Access and then waited till full release and is back to playing it after work every day.
I'm not sure what OPs problem with the 2d pixelation is but that's actually a draw for some people. I think the visuals look beautiful and relaxing myself. Eventually I'll get around to playing it too.
Is there a story? Or just something new exploration/mechanics-wise all the time?
I found the story very contrived. Intro cutscene is main character receiving a call, speech is sims-like mumble, the only thing depicted is a picture of sushi and both characters smiling about it. Some invitation for sushi. After 5 minutes an earthquake suddenly happens and you need to raise money for the sushi bar.
Felt like a series of made up events to justify some basic storyline to harpoon more fish and serve more sushi.
Edited for clarity, of course it's my opinion.
My genuine question is: Why do some people find it so captivating? How do they compare it to other similar 2D games? What's going on?
In vast majority of games I always find some correlation between what I observe and how others find it as well. Even if I don't like something, there's almost always some justification on why some people find it amazing etc. But in this one it's really hard to justify the "overwhelmingly positive" reviews.
Based on your other comments about the game, it just sounds like you don't like any part of the appeal of it. When someone else asked if there was a story, you described all its narrative mechanics as if they were problems and not just an approach.
If you come from the path of "This thing they did is wrong", you're not going to land up in "I understand why people like it." You've already dismissed what the appeal is and now the confusion is why people like this thing that's "wrong".
It's normal to feel out of the loop on something or to feel totally disinterested in or down on something highly regarded, or to feel like you're the only one seeing a flaw in it. I was that way with the earlier Halo games for example. But at some point you just have to figure that that's part of the tapestry of collective opinions.
I could force myself to play it for 20 hours, I'll still have the same opinion
And you're allowed to have it.
Just as people are allowed to just genuinely enjoy what ever game they want. (and there is nothing wrong with this)
Why is this hard??
People seem to be enjoying it. And their enjoyment makes it easy to justify the "Overwhelmingly positive" Reviews.
I haven't played it but it seems like an overall relaxing game with some exploration, bit of fishing and some restaurant management with a nice art style.
I personally would enjoy this better then any: point cursor at NPC/other player and click till their "health" is below 0 ;)
Genuinely hard to justify. 20 comments here and I haven't seen reason or rationale yet as to why people like it. The most relevant comment is "maybe you need to be high to enjoy the game", I thought the same and it says a lot
Nah, you're just reducing incredible depth, art direction, music and game play to "you need to be high".
Not accurate. ;)
You're trolling
I could say the same about this topic
I hope you appreciate how irritating it always is when one describes their own personal taste as some sort of objective reality. I too found the game boring, but the appeal of the Dave the Diver that hard to grasp? It's not for me, but it's in a class of management-style game that many people love, it's been steadily improving in early access, great community engagement, etc. You know what I find boring? Those truck driving games. Does that mean I should bemoan the state of taste in the industry, cast aspersions on all the positive reviews, etc. just because I find it mind-numbingly boring? Not at all.
Just because a game with "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews doesn't mean you'll like it. Learn your tastes better and find for well-reviewed games within them, or be willing to take a chance on something a bit outside your norm (as I did w/ DtD). I've personally found nothing is more reliable for me than Steam user reviews given that they come from owners of the software. If that isn't working for you, find a content creator (reviewer, YouTuber, website, whatever) with similar tastes and rely on them. Hell, they may even have a curated Steam list for you!
This is the same for all forms of media. For example, TV. Tons of people were trashing the last season of Ted Lasso, but I absolutely loved it and thought it was a nice ending to the series. I’ve seen people rant and rave about other series but yet, I couldn’t get into them. Just because something is well reviewed and loved by others doesn’t mean everyone will enjoy it. People need to realize it is their opinion of something and not the stone cold fact about it.
I've always taken "Overwhelmingly Positive" to not be about the gameplay itself, but to be that the game is worth looking at. I can probably find some enjoyment out of almost every Overwhelmingly Positive game even if I end up not liking it that much, but I'll almost never get any enjoyment out of a game that is Overwhelmingly Negative.
It's a quick "at a glance" type of thing that let's me know if I should look deeper into it, maybe watch some trailers.
Yes, totally hard to grasp. We both found it boring, that says something.
Many "management-style games" that I love, nothing to do with genre or 2d or pixel art. I didn't like Factorio much, another highly rated one with high accolades etc BUT I can totally understand why some people love Factorio.
It does say something, it just says less than you're trying to tell me/us/yourself that it does, and for some reason this bothers you. I try a lot of smaller games, I find many that I don't like that much (few that I hate). But I like trying them.
You are faced with a reality where your lived experience isn't meshing with that reported by others, and you react by expending seemingly little effort (look how hard your heels are dug on in this) to understand why this is working for others. Instead you see some sort of baffling conspiracy to manipulate reviews on this small early access (until recently) indie game.
Apply Occam's Razor - it's not for you, but others genuinely like it (and likely many other games) for reasons not important to you.
I'd also say: I think the art direction is legitimately quite great.
Is this a satirical post? It almost reads as very subtle satire. Everything I've read about the game is that it starts out as you describe, a very basic gameplay loop that would likely bore folks after an hour or so. However the game begins to rapidly change shortly thereafter by introducing new mechanic after new mechanic with the narrative becoming increasingly more outlandish as you go...
Serious post, hardly any satire.
It's the core pattern that is troubling - generic, bland, basic, homogeneous. No matter how many "mechanics" they add in fishing it's still boring, saw later parts on youtube. The "outlandlish" parts are just contrived, like it tries to be "weird" or "psychedelic" or "surreal" but it hardly manages to.
Ah ok. In that case, I'll defer to many of the other comments referring to the subjectivity of personal taste. I haven't played it but was intrigued by the review. I may still do so, but it's not high on my backlog.
The game continuously introduces new mechanics, and even if it didn't, this gameplay loop appeals to people who like exploring, collecting, looting, etc., which, judging from the # of games that only focus on those features, there are quite a lot of them.
Look closer. It's mostly 3D, and the 3D pixel art is gorgeous. 2D pixel cutscenes are lovingly animated and looks extremely modern - adds a lot to the experience.
Pokémon releases the same damn game every year and people eat them up. Animal Crossing releases the same damn game and people eat them up. Zelda basically "enbiggened" breath of the wild and slapped on some new features (not saying that it's bad, I played through it once and will do so again), yet it's got overwhelmingly positive feedback. All three games have water-related gameplay, and they're probably all worse than Donkey Kong Country. What's your point? Games stick to what works, and DTD's underwater gameplay is serviceable for what they're trying to accomplish.
It's unique, imo, because it combines many "addictive" elements of other games into one game. Collecting? We've got a card system for those fish. Fishing? That's half the game. Playing number games? Go get staff to automate serving dishes and get those farms started. I'm only in the second chapter, and I heard they'll throw more shit at me. Personally stoked for it.
I don't see the point in being upset at the entire gaming industry because a game you don't like is popular. A lot of my favorite games are "oldschool" or ascii type graphics which is what i prefer. So do you think that every new game that comes out has to have the most realistic graphics possible and some revolutionary new mechanics?
I thought the implication was that there was some kind of cheating/vote manipulation happening, or at least the game was a cynical attempt to make some strange formula that got positive reviews even though the game isn't good.
I don't know if any of that's true, but that's how I interpreted the post.
It's on odd, arguably malicious accusation to make given that the OP admits to only playing 30 minutes and either pirated the game or played via a friend's copy. They don't sound like they were approaching this because the premise interested them, simply because they werre wondering why big news outlets were praising an indie game from an unknown developer. Not the best way to approach games, IMO.
But sure, to answer that question it doesn't require an introspection on game reviews. Follow the devs. The devs are unknown but Korean. But the publisher is Nexon, one of the largest Korean publishers out there. You may know them for publishing Maplestory
and subsequently ruining it's sequel, but to call Nexon the Maplestory devs is like calling EA the Madden devs.So there you go. No smoking gun outside the fact that publishers do indeed sometimes work, especially for international reach.
It's an odd edit to make when you sensationalize your title and your conclusion (and I'm not going to bother entertaining the "were the developers high" comment):
Like, this feels like your actual thesis even if your personal review doesn't seem to warrant it. The 2D pixel art isn't the best ever but it's distinct and arguably charming. It's an interesting line between cute and grounded without feeling outright cutesy. I don't know why someone would call it homogeneous with the rest of steam games.
It's not the very first Underwater game, but there aren't a lot of games focused on underwater, be it today nor 30 years ago. Because to be honest it's hard to make good underwater controls. It's practically krpytonite to 90's/00's gamers, so if they can make it bearable that's a huge win.
On top of all that it seems to be trying to be it's own kind of casual crafting game. Again, not unique, but it is targeting a specific kind of audience. If you weren't wowed by games like Stardew Valley this won't sell you on the genre, but I instantly understand the kinds of people who'd love this game simply by viewing the trailer.
Much of this review seems to reveal more about the reader and their tastes than the game. I'd hope that even for critical reviews on Tildes that we don't end up feeling like those rants on Steam reviews. Reviews should try to inform the buyer if it's a good match, not serve as a blog spafe for someone's personal frustrations with the industry.
I really dislike this trend stating your subjective opinions as objective facts and decrying everything else that I’ve seen becoming more common, to me speaks of people being too heavily invested in sensationalized media discourse rather than actual media enjoyment.
For years I constantly heard how amazing the Witcher 3 was, the best story rpg of all time so of course I had to play it! I absolutely despised it, and dropped it after only a few hours as it’s one if the least enjoyable games I’ve ever played. So you know what I did? I went huh that’s a shame and moved onto playing something else.
This is not to say you can’t discuss a game at all and talk about what you didn’t like but don’t let yourself get caught up in the dramatic over sensationalized clickbait ’disscussion’. I used to fall into that trap but since moving away from it and focusing on what I do like I’ve enjoyed gaming a whole lot more. Remember it’s supposed to be media for enjoyment and entertainment.
Steam reviews are biased towards people who like playing the specific genre, because those are the people buying it. This is usually also true of ratings in general.
There are a lot of popular games I don't like, some "Overwhelmingly Positive" or with 9-10/10 ratings, because after I try them I realize I don't like the genre. Like most single-player RPG games, e.g. the Legend of Zelda, idk why but I just don't find it interesting. And then there are games like WarioWare DIY and Trackmania for DS which got mediocre or even bad reviews, but I loved playing them, because those were the genres I liked.
Also, I remember Minecraft got an 8.75 on Game Informer. The best-selling game of all time and it lost to TitanFall (9) and TitanFall 2 (9.5). I'm confident there are more egregious examples, but the bottom line is that every review is some person's preference, and different people have different preferences.
If I assume this post is coming from a place of a good faith argument, I think it's worth reminding OP of the binary aspect of Steam reviews / recommendation-based aggregate scores.. A game sitting at 95% positive reviews doesn't mean that the average score of each user playing it is 9.5/10. Rather, it means that 95% of the people playing the game would recommend that others pick it up as well. Each person may have (mentally, personally) given the game a score of an 8/10, 7/10, hell, even a 6/10 or lower, but they simply felt that, given the choice between recommending the game to others or not, they chose to recommend it. We also have to remember that if somebody is buying this game, they probably have a decent idea of what they're getting themselves into, which leads to the confirmation bias of more folks who are excited about the game buying and recommending it, which brings the score up even higher since, again, it's a binary yes/no type of review.
That said, I would agree with others that this post is leaning too hard into "I don't like this game; therefore, it is a bad game" sort of mentality, of which I am not a fan.
I know people IRL who seem to legitimately enjoy Dave the Diver, with their only complaint being that the QTE are too much of a jump scare and an unwanted distraction from the fishing. While I have not personally played this game and know almost nothing about it: My assumption based on your description (and knowing a little about my friends) is that this game may be best played while high.
This was my impression as well. May be fun while high... but sober? A struggle to play (I find dark souls to be some of the best games ever, top of the top).
Why actually? Dark souls is just lots of brown & grey areas where you poke an NPC till they stop poking you back.
Doesn't seem interesting at all ;)
Nah, you're just reducing incredible depth, breadth, art direction, music, darkness, mysticism, philosophy etc to "grey world poking NPCs". Not accurate.
Pot calling the kettle black ;)
It’s just like someone just read some medieval fantasy, barely understanding it and made original fiction out of it. I don’t see what the big fuss is about
This game has been intriguing me and I just didn't get it because I don't have the time to play, but I've watched it getting streamed quite a bit.
I think the game has quite a lot to offer, first you're underwater farming for recourses, seconds you can farm ingredients on land and also create fish farms. You also manage a sushi bar with employers and have to train them on receipts and micromanage quite a bit with ingredients and such.
The underwater world offers a lot of progression with blocked off areas that you have to unlock through puzzling and leveling up your weapons. You're farming for fish and suddenly you're running from a demon chasing you through caves and you have to dodge objects.
Then it's also packed with little and silly mini games.
I think it's a great premise. A farming game with puzzling, micromanagement, exploration, action sequences and mini games. It's unique and different and stands out from other farming games.
I'm a couple of hours in and one of my favorite Zen games and I can easily jump in for casual runs or go in for a sweaty deep dive.
Like most people above have said, the game eases you into new systems, mini games and environments and a dive become a massive expedition. I have gotten impatient for systems I can tell are there and swearing at the inventory limit that's never big enough but I can see how that could mess up balance elsewhere.
You also quickly dial into an interesting meta game. You start gearing up to pull in 3 star hauls but can't defend yourself properly. Making catches to level up dishes for max return. Hiring people to procure ingredients for the high value meals. And then VIPs and events send you scrambling into uncomfortable situations or changing priorities.
So as a gameplay package. I can say that it is competently put together for it's intended audience.
I can see how the characters, animations and story can rub some people the wrong way. And some of the mini games or QTEs can be a little off putting. And how the graphics can seem dated. But again, that comes down to the audience and taste.
I know the game had an active early access community and the word of mouth is somthing that sold me on it. It's probably a hard sell for playing an overweight, middle age dude diving for fish for the sushi restaurant he started with his weird buddies.
But with the question of what's happening to the industry. I think it's simply growing apathy from older, enthusiast players. The treatment of players and franchises has killed a lot of enthusiasm for many of these people. So it's hard to get excited for the next big technological marvel when it'll arrive with a bad launch build or monetized to hell and back. Hell, even relatively good games like Diablo 4, Apex and Destiney have a sense of anxiety that the devs or publisher will completely kill the experience with one bad decision. So there's been a lot of interest in retro and emulated games for people to relive the good old days. There's also the surge of boomer shooters, remakes and retro-esq because there was a lot of fun to be found in those games. So when a good, complete game comes around I think players just want to celebrate it.
I hadn't heard of this game. After looking it up, I can see the appeal. Looks interesting with a variety of gameplay, light-hearted tone. I'll keep an eye on it and pick it up if it goes on sale.
To be honest, the tone of the original post just seems quite dismissive. It's a game that people like, what's the big deal?