Even today, there are few places on this planet more terrifying than the ocean. As proven by Subnautica, SOMA and Zelda (because who doesn’t still fear the Water Temple?), the very idea of something awaiting below the waves is chilling. As a result Narcosis, takes this to an absolute extreme, trapping you at the bottom of the ocean in an armoured suit, with seemingly no way up.
I remember somebody summing up their fear of the ocean:
ReplyDelete"Going in the ocean is like putting your legs in a bucket of black water that you can't see through, and just hoping that there's nothing in there with you."
Making ocean games scary isn't all that hard I feel, which is why I'm kind of amazed that Narcosis missed the mark. I've seen a full playthrough of it before this review, and most of the time that a game over happened I didn't even realize that they were dead until they respawned.
The loading screens too break the immersion really hard, which is a shame since the only thing this game has going for it is the immersion since there's only really two enemies, one of which is barely encountered.
The worst is the ending though, and I hate it when games like these end like that because it asks the question of what the point of everything was. Why are the game overs even a thing in an ending like that? It also creates a problem in any future watch of making it extremely hard to get invested in the game.
Personally I'd like it better if you could get an alternate ending, and making this alternate ending nearly impossible to attain (unless you're a speedrunner). This way nearly everyone would get the regular ending, but in future playthroughs when you're trying to get the other ending you'd stay invested. The squids would be scarier too since looking for oxygen would be detrimental and getting attacked more because you're trying to push past everything means you could get screwed because you need to go looking for oxygen.
I also don't get who you're playing as, because the game overs and tutorial make it look like some sort of futuristic simulation, but you get your characters thoughts directly when you pick up other ID's, which is an issue since there should be no way for anyone to know what the main character was thinking at the time. It really seemed as if that ending was done for shock value.
The environments were really well done however, I definitely agree with you there and it's certainly a very beautiful looking game.