need to know
what is that? Spearfishing and restaurant management adventures
to pay: $20.00/£16.99
developer: Mint Rocket
the publisher: Nexon
review date: RTX 2080, Intel i7-9700K, 16GB RAM
Multiplayer? no
Link: vapor
How it all started: Oh, this sounds like a cute and simple little fishing and restaurant management game. I’m sure it will be great on my Steam deck.
Progress: Oh man, this is definitely the best game of 2023. I’m always up until 2am to play, and 30 hours later there are still fun and creative new systems thrown at me that make me happy every time I play. I was amazed and completely fascinated.
And yes it is teeth Perfect for my steam deck.
In the 2D pixel adventure Dave the Diver, you divide your time between spearfishing in colorful waters and using the fish you catch at your own sushi restaurant. The first is easy. Each day, he spends mornings and afternoons swimming in his scuba gear, monitoring his oxygen supply, harpooning and reeling in fish, gathering resources for crafting and materials such as seaweed from coral reefs. Diving is fun and, for the most part, a cold and soothing experience, with colorful fish leaping here and there and kelp gently swaying in the ocean currents. However, that relaxed atmosphere can suddenly turn into frenzied panic as sawsharks try to cut you in half or half. Pelican eels will try to swallow you whole before you escape to the surface with their prized prey.
At night, you’ll put together a menu for the mysterious sushi chef Bancho, who will cook meals, and you’ll serve crowds in frenetic Diner Dash-style mini-games. Use your earnings to renovate your restaurant or upgrade your diving gear. As your restaurant grows in popularity on social media, you can have your Bancho research new recipes that require new ingredients. This will give you a new goal for the next day’s dive. The fishing and restaurant parts of the game interact perfectly, but things aren’t long and simple.
starfish valley
Almost every time I sat down to play Dave the Diver, a new feature or activity was thrown at me. Night fishing opens the door to new species of quest, turning once-pleasant seas into something spooky. Also, new gear like tranquilizers and submarines give you new ways to catch fish. A restaurant staff management system allows you to hire and train employees to help you, thus increasing the number of customers you can serve and the speed of service.
There are farms for breeding fish so you don’t have to rely entirely on daily diving, farms for growing rice and vegetables for new recipes, and eventually different types of seaweed. There is even an underwater farm for growing. As soon as you get used to one system, the game throws the new one over the top. Dave the Diver has a comfortable life, but it’s constantly growing to incorporate new pieces and pieces.
A strange woman came up to me on a raft and persuaded me to enter a mysterious underwater vortex to take revenge on the great white shark.
That’s just a few features sprinkled in the fishing and sushi portion of the game. the way More about Dave the Diver, full of little distracting surprises that pop up periodically during the 35 hours it took to complete the main story. Periodically, I’d go out all day to catch fish, but suddenly I’d find myself chasing a cat through the woods in a stealth sequence, or solving an elaborate switch-and-mirror puzzle in-game. I ended up in places I never expected to go, such as when I was roped in. An ancient underwater temple.
A normal night at a restaurant is turned upside down when another chef challenges Bancho to a cooking showdown. I had to spend several days gathering certain ingredients. And the most exciting thing was actually cooking. myself Bring change to an all-new fast-paced mini-game series. And then there was the day when a strange woman came up to me on a raft and persuaded me to enter a mysterious underwater vortex to take revenge on a great white shark.
That’s the great thing about Dave the Diver. Easy to sit down he just has a day of diving and has no idea where he’s going. You might suddenly find yourself caught up in a speedboat chase, photographing evidence of an undersea society, or finding yourself in the middle of an unexpected boss battle with a ferocious jellyfish the size of a bus. There are also moments when you control other characters besides Dave. And one great sequence takes control of both Dave and another character at the same time, quickly turning it into a co-op (but single-player) puzzle-solving adventure.
It also amazes me how often Dave the Diver takes fun little ideas like seahorse racing and squeezes out all the possibilities. In addition to racing seahorses, you can also collect seahorses of different types and ranks, add them to your roster, or use them together in relay races, so at first it’s just a cute button-mashing mini-game What looked like turns into a seahorse. Racing Manager 2023.
nothing but the net
Tying it all together are nearly 200 adorable and detailed animated sea creatures and facial expressions, whether they’re filling the screen in cutscenes or just moving around as tiny little numbers on your monitor. Stunning pixel art with expressive characters.
Very charming and full of good atmosphere.
I don’t know if I can really describe Dave the Diver as “wholesome” because I spent a good amount of time killing sharks and squids with depth charges, grenade launchers and Japanese swords. Plus, he’s one of the characters you’ll meet is a weapon maniac who loves hugging pillows (he’s the one who got me the grenade launcher). But it is very charming and full of good vibes.
It felt like a real adventure when I beat the final boss in 35 hours, and the ending was gentle but genuinely struck a chord with me. Naturally, the game was still far from finished for me. Even the credits sequence offers a great new game to learn and play, allowing you to keep diving and serving sushi even after the main his quest is complete.
Dave the Diver is truly a masterpiece, the biggest surprise of 2023 and definitely my favorite game of the year so far.