A cute metroidvania plagued by amateur design mistakes.

I like this game. But I must warn you, it is jank. It is amateurish. It is just an odd mess of a game. But still fun enough and not broken. Just basic. The achievements are very easy as well.

It's story is cute. The cutscenes are like these hand drawn slides. It's very endearing and charming. A simple story but still a nice one. There are some really cool set pieces.

The game itself is pretty. The problem is that you cannot tell what in part of the foreground or background at times. It can be too busy. It can hide things in ways that are frustrating.

Combat is very basic. And you do it a lot. Play this on the easiest difficulty for your sanity. The game just enemy spams you. It's not hard, just tedious. And they will follow you forever.

The floaty and water physics are okay. The dash/speed up mode is stamina based. It's annoying and not super useful. You momentum carries and it can be very annoying. Certain other mechanics require your momentum to do. It can be unreliable.

Do you like collecting things? There's a lot to collect. And after a certain point, it's no longer worth your time because you are fully upgraded. The treasures can be fun or too obscure. Upgrades are sometimes useful. You will easily be able to get all the upgrades.

Traversing the map is mostly fine. It's not a huge game. It is big enough to be annoying to travel across constantly though. There are simply not enough warp points. a lot of the time you either gotta choose between going a long way to warp or going a long way without warping. Sometimes it is not worth going to the warp.

There are only 2 real bosses. The first is a bit annoying as it's hard to see what to grab. The hitboxes suck too. But it's still pretty simple. Play this game on the easiest difficulty due to the terrible hitboxes.

The final boss is simple enemy spam and grabbing so things. It was a welcomed easy boss. It was fun. Prior to that there is a section of one hit kill enemies that have terrible hitboxes on their moves and can grab you from across the planet. That kinda ruin the experience a bit.

One last complaint is just how jank the game is. Near the end there is a mechanic that doesn't work well at all. It's infuriating. Like one of the worst mechanics I've seen in awhile. But, it doesn't last long.

Anyways this is a good game. It's fine. Middle of the road. Good to waste a bit of your time.

Song of the Deep is a charming adventure/action/Metroidvania game for all ages. It features an oceanic and mythological theme, with sea creatures of Celtic folklore, and some sci-fi ones. You play as a young girl named Merryn, who is on a quest to search for her missing father, although I will not spoil anything about the story here.

Song of the Deep, in my opinion, is a beautiful game. Its soundtrack and beautiful environments were breathtaking, for me, and I feel that this game was a labor of love for the makers. It captures the unknown of the ocean very well; capturing its beauty and its fearsomeness. The gameplay is fun, and the game's map is huge and expansive, with so much variation in its environments. Although certain puzzles can be tricky, in my experience, this game was an absolute pleasure to play, The game also has so many treasures and items that you can collect, which I enjoyed

Song of the Deep is truly a very lovely game, and it's a game that I would recommend to those who love a wholesome story and those who love oceanic themes. The artistry of this game and the gameplay alike are both quite a pleasure. If you enjoy the game's story, Brian Hastings published a book about Song of the Deep as well, and I would highly recommend reading it too. It's really sweet, and I think people of all ages can enjoy it. It's made for kids, but that doesn't bother me at all since I prefer light-hearted stories. ^^

Another Metroid-like down, and another one fairly enjoyed. It's better than okay, but it's not amazing or anything. It ain't no Axiom Verge, I'll tell ya that much! :P . I played through on normal mode, and it took me about 8 hours to 98% the collectibles with all achievements (which are very easy to get).

You move in a 360 degree submarine, a bit like capsized. You slowly go around the map, getting moneys for upgrades, health and missle-mana upgrades, and new powers. The narrative is simple but sweet, but nothing special. The graphics are all 2.5D and quite pretty, but there are some very noticeable framerate dips in some areas which are very annoying. The fact that you're just floating around and not actually platforming takes a lot of the nuance and skill away from the combat that something like a name-brand Metroidvania or Axiom Verge has. It's ultimately one of the game's biggest downsides, in my opinion.

Verdict: Recommended... but. It's not the best Metroidvania out there atm. If you haven't played Axiom Verge, then there's really no reason to go for this first (unless you don't want to spoil yourself first ;P). It's good, but not great.

100% of trophies earned; 100% of items (49/49) and treasures (209/209) collected. My second 2D 'Metroidvania' for the month and again one with an unusual take on the formula, this time coming from the underwater setting and the more freeform movement that that results in. There's a charming backstory and some nicely-done in-game art to compliment the gameplay. Combat is fairly simple but generally well-balanced, with satisfying controls and enough variation in enemies to remain interesting throughout the game's 10-hour playtime. Item pickups, a 'Metroidvania' staple, often require solving some form of simple puzzle - with only a couple of exceptions, these add to the satisfaction of tracking them down, while having them marked automatically on the in-game map limits the potential frustration that could otherwise come from going after the last few.