In this turbulent time, you really want to get distracted, go where the warm sun, gentle waves and the soothing whisper of the wind are. For example, in the game Submerged: Hidden Depths, which invites you to explore a charming flooded world. Whether it is possible to "drown" in this game from an online game developer Friv2Online - we tell in the review.
Submerged: Hidden Depths is a game about the journey of a brother and sister who were expelled from their home due to the curse (and gift at the same time) of a girl, a force that makes the world around literally blossom. She will help the heroine cope with the devastating black misfortune, but at the same time, the brother is concerned about the possible impact of the gift on its owner.
The script will probably hook impressionable players, but in fact, it does not tell anything new, and the characters' experiences fail to touch any strings of the soul. Where the greater value of the project lies in the exploration of a beautiful area, which is a half-flooded ruins of the city, islands, between which the heroes move by boat.
Getting out of the central hub, they study the area through a telescope, noticing interesting locations, and then swim towards them. There you can find useful upgrades and skins for vehicles, climb the tower that reveals part of the map, and find pieces of history that shed light on what is happening. The key task is to get special seeds and use them to restore entire regions that have been consumed by misfortune.
The game allows you to freely travel over a fairly large area, and areas with seeds can be visited in any order. If you wish, you can leave the main goal and enjoy the views - in Submerged: Hidden Depths there are beautiful landscapes and simply magical sunsets. In some places, the budget of the game is visible, and the developers have not been able to cope with unpleasant statters, but you forget about this when you climb to the top of the tower, from which you can see a good half of the game world.
However, if we talk about the gameplay, then the contemplation of landscapes is, in fact, the only thing you have to do here. There are no battles in Submerged: Hidden Depths, and the local parkour is nothing compared to Prince of Persia or Assassin's Creed: characters automatically climb and climb on surfaces, cannot fall or get hurt in any way. Pathfinding puzzles are very simple, and I even want to call the friv game "railway" - the sections with the exploration of the islands are so linear in it.
In addition, the title is not very long. If you ignore the gathering and other activities, and go to the key goal, you will reach the final in more than three hours. Take up collecting - and double this time, but already by the second hour of the passage, you will probably begin to rewind the monotonous animations that are played when performing routine actions, such as catching garbage from the ocean.
To some extent, Submerged: Hidden Depths helped me get away from my problems and relax a bit, floating around a beautiful area and doing miracles at the hands of the main characters. However, I can’t call the friv game outstanding - it’s an unprincipled walking simulator, in which there is no challenge. For escapism sessions, it will fit, but don't count on anything more.