Sunless Sea PC

1. miranda7

   Feb 8, 2015

   10

   Been playing games since the 80s, and first game I felt compelled to rate. For sure, it not for everyone, but for me it is stunning,Been playing games since the 80s, and first game I felt compelled to rate. For sure, it not for everyone, but for me it is stunning, Atmospheric, different, addictive. Love the fact that you are going to die at the start, but that helps your descendants (or rivals) to progress.… Expand

   • 15 of 25 users found this helpful
2. Docteur

   Feb 14, 2015

   10

   Excellent story, and even if the gameplay is slow-paced and based on simple travels, the atmosphere is here. I enjoy the calm game a lot moreExcellent story, and even if the gameplay is slow-paced and based on simple travels, the atmosphere is here. I enjoy the calm game a lot more than I maybe should, but every hour spent is fantastic.… Expand

   • 4 of 11 users found this helpful
4. weregamer

   Feb 11, 2015

   9

   Sunless Sea is perhaps the best "literate" game on the PC since Planescape: Torment. There is a light-handedness to the dark humor that keepsSunless Sea is perhaps the best "literate" game on the PC since Planescape: Torment. There is a light-handedness to the dark humor that keeps it from feeling silly or breaking the fourth wall.
   
   It is also among the most truly "roguelike" of the recent spate of games claiming that category; the game will kill you brutally the first few times you play, and you will meet many a death before you win, but each time you play you will learn more about how to succeed.
   
   Unlike the original Rogue, your character doesn't start over at exactly the zero point each time; each new incarnation can choose one set of things to inherit from its predecessor, and after you've achieved significant success you can write a will and stock a mansion with sellable curios to give your next character a further leg up.
   
   This last is perhaps the most brilliant thing, in a game design sense, about Sunless Sea. Permadeath is so painful that ameliorating it just this much, and adding the additional story elements of inheritance, makes all the difference between depression and eagerness to try again. That said, you can decide at any time to start saving and loading, implicitly removing permadeath. This will only affect your ability to gain the achievement for winning with permadeath turned on.
   
   I hesitate to give this game an unqualified 10 primarily because of annoyances about not living up to the UI flexibility expectations for a PC game, and secondarily because it will not be many players' cup of tea.
   
   The biggest of these annoyances is the complete lack of control over the text display in a game that's all about reading text. I run the game at my monitor's full resolution all the text is unreadably small; reducing the resolution makes the text readable but makes the log window (which is admittedly not the most important thing on the screen) too small to see much in.
   
   Overall, if you like games that reward paying attention to the text rather than scrolling past it in a hurry, this is probably your game of the year.… Expand

   • 7 of 13 users found this helpful
5. zappo

   Mar 2, 2015

   7

   I have spend now around 10hrs playing this game, and I'm ready to write a review. Let's start with a short summary:
   
   Seldom have I played aI have spend now around 10hrs playing this game, and I'm ready to write a review. Let's start with a short summary:
   
   Seldom have I played a game that gives me such mixed messages. Sublime text based story and a truly wonderful world battle with bad game mechanics and pure boredom. And while I wish I could fully advise to buy this game, I feel troubled by some pretty bad design choices.
   
   The good:
   
   This has been said before, the game world and the writing are simply great. The whole world, while really dark makes complete sense. Every port that you explore has new interesting stories to tell.
   
   The choices you have to make are meaningful, even if you succeed in challenges you often have to deal with negative effects that come sidelong. Like some artifact you get that is worth a lot but raises your Terror levels. The card systems is kind of artificial, but works really good. You always know what you need and what your chances are to succeed in a challenge.
   
   As a whole the setting is wonderful and you strife to learn more from this world, explorer the secrets of the deep Zea and deal with it's terrors.
   
   The neutral (People might find this good or bad according to personal taste):
   
   The game is really hard. Ressource management is brutal, most of your money is spend on fuel and food. Building up something extra takes a long time.
   
   You will die quite some time, and dying is really punishing in this game. In the beginning you loose everything and you will have to start all over again. If you find this troubling I advise you to turn off permanent death witch is an option. (But default is unforgiving mode, so be careful)
   Also ff you die there is no random content, except the position of islands. So you will have to go through everything you did again.
   
   Overall the pace of the game is really slow. Most of the time you will stare at your screen seeing your little steamer make it's way through an almost black screen. Of course this adds a lot to the feeling of the game, but if you are after fast paced action, you won't get it in this game.
   
   The bad
   
   There are way to little options for ships, equipment etc. After 10 hours I haven't bought a single thing! I have now 2.000 money to spare, which is not bad considering the time I spent and there simply isn't a single thing that would make sense to buy. I repeat that 10 hours in the game and I haven't bough a single upgrade because there is nothing to buy:
   - New gun -> you will avoid fights 90% of the time anyway
   - New engine -> makes you slightly faster but consumes more precious fuel
   - New ship -> WAY more expensive then 2.000 echo
   
   While we are at it: combat sucks. You will be stuck with a single gun forever because you can't buy another ship, so you have tactical options of 0. Also combat is really dangerous most of the time, so you will avoid it as best as possible.
   
   Trading also sucks. There simply isn't anything you can trade with the starter ship that has enough margin to cover fuel & food and getting a trading ship is really expensive.
   
   Also this is a roguelike game, but dying is the worst thing you can do. You will want to avoid dying in any way possible because it's so extremely punishing. The permadeath option makes about as much sense as for Monkey Island.
   
   The Verdict
   
   So where does that leave us? Incredible writing vs. crappy gameplay. I the writing good enough to take the pain? I would say yes, but turn of permadeath or you will never explore the wonders of the Zea and only do the same stuff over and over again (remember, the definition of madness...).
   
   This game has been compared to Faster then Light (FTL) a lot. But let me say this to you straight away: It's NOTHING like that. FTL is a game stripped down to it's core gameplay. With incredibly deep and tactical fights, fast gameplay and a different outcome every time you start new. The combination of ships, weapons, crew members, augmentations etc. are endless in FTL and you get stuff pretty fast. On the other hand the story is spare and you will just get to make a handful of decisions along the way.
   
   That is about the complete opposite of Sunless Sea. Story driven, slow, very spare random elements, a complete lack of equipment and very flat sometimes really boring gameplay. To break it down for you: In FTL hardly every nothing happens in Sunless Sea you don't do anything at least 60% of the time.
   
   Would buy again? Yes, but a very close one.… Expand

   • 7 of 7 users found this helpful
6. Foxman8472

   Feb 17, 2015

   5

   I'm not sure what to make of this game. It's roguelike, but has a lot of grind. It's based on exploration, but resource management makesI'm not sure what to make of this game. It's roguelike, but has a lot of grind. It's based on exploration, but resource management makes exploration incredibly costly. It's got trade, but it's poorly implemented. It has combat, but it's minimalist. Resource management is very hard and that limits one's adventurous desires to just strolling around the neighborhood, killing bats under constantly dwindling supplies, dragging to the inevitable loss at the hands of starvation or lack of fuel.
   
   What are we playing for? The story is a mess. I know that it's an already fleshed out universe from Fallen London, but the text is somewhat cryptic, the design is not the most user friendly, and the tutorial is absent - so it's hard to delve in gameplay-wise, and I need that to happen in order to enjoy the storyline. It's got no info of where to go, what to start with, and you're just thrown in like that. And you die, and you lose (almost) everything, and then you die again.
   
   Under that hard, unwelcoming shell, there might be some sweet pulp; However, it's this shell that's off-putting. If one does not get a foothold in the world, gain something to push him forward or have any event happen that can get him directly involved. It's not that the game is bad, but it's poorly balanced. If there's a hook, it's hidden too deep and most people won't grab it. Shame, it did a lot of things right...… Expand

   • 10 of 12 users found this helpful
7. Azuth

   Jun 9, 2015

   5

   Interesting idea, wonderfully written stories with a lot of choices to be made and a world that initially seems interesting to travel in. TheInteresting idea, wonderfully written stories with a lot of choices to be made and a world that initially seems interesting to travel in. The problem is that after a while (and a couple of captain deaths) the game starts to feel really repetitive and slow. You more or less repeat the things you did with the last captain hopping to progress a bit more. Trade is also limited and upgrades few and far apart. All in all this is better appreciated as a piece of art rather than a game.… Expand

   • 1 of 2 users found this helpful
8. LaughingProphet

   Feb 22, 2015

   0

   If you are thinking of buying this game, I have a better idea. Pack some food and get in your car. Spend the price of the game on gas. DriveIf you are thinking of buying this game, I have a better idea. Pack some food and get in your car. Spend the price of the game on gas. Drive somewhere you've never been. Get out, look around. Enjoy the day. Have a picnic. When the sun goes down, try to get home without running out of gas. You've just had a better time than playing Sunless Sea. (If you don't have a car, put the money in a coffee can marked "Savings for a Car." You will still have a similar experience.)
   
   This game is truly a waste of time and money. Sunless Sea tries to be a lot of tantalizing things, but does just about all of them poorly. Combat is atrocious, exploration is tedious and unrewarding, movement is inexcusably slow, the "story" seems to be an assemblage of set pieces with no interconnection or apparent coherence.
   
   My first biggest problem on a game level is a fundamental one. I don't understand why this game calls itself a roguelike, or features permadeath. Since it is supposedly story-driven, if you are expected to frequently die then you just sit through the same story elements every time after every restart. I would opine that the fact that you have the option to turn the roguelike aspect off indicates that it was an early concept that became obsolete during development. I do have more cynical ideas about why it exists, though.
   
   My next biggest problem is the speed of the game. Your ship is inexcusably slow, even with upgraded engines. Maybe later ships are better, but the price of these ships is so steep I never got a chance to try one (the reward-to-cost balance is an issue of its own). Regardless, to somehow make enough money to buy better ships and equipment, you will waste hours watching your little boat inch its way sluggishly across the pretty but mostly non-interactive environment. A simple fix would have been a fast-forward button, featured in many similar games. I suspect that the choice not to include such a boon, however, was in deference to maintaining the atmospheric quality of the game. I could see the difficulty in progressing as being in deference to the atmosphere of the game. The pointlessness of everything you do as being in deference to the atmosphere.
   
   These unenjoyable aspects foisted upon the player bring me to the core problem with this game; The creators' artistic vision is allowed to interfere with the player's good time. Every element that would make Sunless Sea a competent game seems to have suffered in favor of story and atmosphere. That could be excused, to a limited extent, if the story were well put together. By the game's nature of exploration and horribly ill-conceived roguelike elements, however, there is little hope for a linear plot. It feels like a series of set pieces strung together ad hoc because it is, out of necessity. If instead of making a game the creators had created a short animated film with a coherent story set in this universe, it might have actually been good. This game is not, and should not exist.
   
   I was actually excited when I first heard about Sunless Sea. I loved sea-trading games like Port Royale but wished they had better developed worlds, I loved FTL, which some crooked critic compared it to, and sure, steampunk, I'd love to see that done well in a game other than Bioshock for once. Review scores for it were really high. But Sunless Sea is not a game. Every time I tried to give it another chance I quit playing with an unpleasant taste in my mouth, wishing I had my time and money back. Everything in this game is done better elsewhere. The art is pretty, though in no way does it justify a game.… Expand

   • 9 of 20 users found this helpful

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