Whereas most video games start by getting you into the motion as shortly as doable, Saltsea Chronicles opens with a fast observe about its save system. It is a small, however vital element on this story-driven journey recreation, as all through its nine-to-ten-hour run time, you will be confronted with numerous selections about the place your crew of post-apocalyptic drifters will discover subsequent, as they set sail looking for their lacking captain Maja. By selecting one island on the finish of each chapter, you will naturally miss out on visiting one other – and with 14 locales to discover in complete within the Saltsea archipelago (and solely 12 chapters to do it in), every playthrough has the potential to finish up being fairly completely different from the final.
However up entrance it tells you “There aren’t any unsuitable decisions, solely your decisions” in Saltsea Chronicles, and that finally this can be a story about “tracing completely different pathways” utilizing its intelligent branching save system. Whilst you can, after all, play it by means of from begin to end in a single swoop, you even have the choice to purloin its extra save slots to take these roads much less travelled (introduced right here as pleasant, wiggling seaweed tendrils), and all with out overwriting your current journey. Instantly, that sense of FOMO is dispelled, and as an alternative of worrying about ‘seeing all the pieces’ or ensuring you get a ‘good’ playthrough, you possibly can merely get pleasure from its enthralling story of excessive seas cleaning soap opera, curious exploration, and the knotty drama that comes with attempting to forge connections in an more and more fragmented world. It is a journey effectively value taking, even when what lies on the finish of it did not fairly come collectively in the best way I would hoped.
However that is getting forward of myself. Your place to begin in Saltsea Chronicles is at all times the identical: the Orkney-inspired island of Njarfie Roust, the place your four-strong crew of adventurers are awaiting the day they will set sail on their newly refurbished boat, together with their beloved captain Maja on the helm. Personalities, motivations and the broader historical past of this flooded future world are established shortly with sparse, however evocative prose, and its expressive array of character portraits immediately make it clear this bunch are going to be excellent hangs for the remainder of the sport. The landscapes of Saltsea are equally fascinating from the off, as effectively. Like Die Gute Fabrik’s earlier recreation, Mutazione, these placing, and generally surreal, tapestries of shiny block colors are an actual feast for the eyes, setting your creativeness alight with risk, and make you excited for the journey forward.
Alas, on the morning of their proposed departure, Maja vanishes, leaving the remainder of the crew rudderless, forlorn and with the wind blown firmly out of their sails. With tensions excessive and morale low, Saltsea units the stage so that you can wrestle this crew again into form and resolve their lingering conflicts over the course of the sport. It is a unbelievable leaping in level, and also you’re afforded a delightful quantity of freedom in the way you go about navigating each its literal and metaphorical waters.
On arriving at a brand new vacation spot, for instance, one character will naturally put themselves ahead to guide that day’s expedition for clues and knowledge, however you may also decide a companion to convey alongside for the journey. The ensuing conversations between them, in addition to their observations in regards to the respective communities you go to, will differ relying on which pairing goes out into the sector, and at occasions, you could even glean further items of slang in numerous dialects in case you occur to convey somebody alongside who can communicate the archipelago’s numerous languages. There are additionally moments when you possibly can convey extra passengers on board to bolster your crew additional, as they too have had folks spirited away beneath mysterious circumstances (and in an excellent nod to the sport’s Star Trek and TV cleaning soap opera influences, they every get their very own little enjoyable phase within the per-chapter-intro sequence as soon as they’ve grow to be full-time forged members).
Everybody’s language abilities and private motivations for visiting every island are all tracked and logged in your trusty Almanac, as are their numerous points and tensions with each other. These interpersonal dramas are additionally flagged up clearly within the textual content itself, each once they first emerge and when progress is made on them, and at last once they ultimately resolve themselves, so that you’re by no means left at midnight about how they evolve. Resolving these points takes effort, and you will have to match characters collectively on expeditions and take the chance to interact within the plentiful provide of optionally available conversations (once more, all of that are marked clearly in your island diorama panels) in an effort to earn cathartic chats between two former loggerheads.
Should you’d somewhat barrel in the direction of the end line, although, you possibly can ignore the entire optionally available conversations and head straight for the star-shaped interplay factors that shift the story alongside. That is the place I am unable to fairly iron out the creases in my very own emotions about Saltsea Chronicles. Regardless of styling itself as an journey recreation, you are by no means actually fixing issues or puzzles in a conventional journey sense, and more often than not you are merely ingesting within the story as you bob about in your journey. There are some objects you possibly can decide up and provides to different characters at sure factors, however this solely occurred a few times throughout a single playthrough, and most of what you discover simply goes straight into your Almanac as collectable stickers. Actually, that is extra of a visible novel that is been grafted onto an adventure-style spine, and finally I’ve zero beef with that. You understand me, I like a great visible novel.
However I nonetheless cannot say I ever really felt like I used to be altering the course of the overarching story – though I used to be, after all, choosing which islands I wished to go to and which companions I wished to take with me. These decisions do have an apparent and instant influence on how the sport performs out, however up to now no less than, the handful of makes an attempt I’ve made to get to the tip have at all times resulted in visiting the identical remaining island, and the identical mildly anticlimactic conclusion.
A part of me looks like that ending does trace at one thing extra, however I am unable to say for sure whether or not the resolutions I search are contained throughout the recreation, or whether or not that is merely a cliffhanger for a possible half two. Alas, I do not really feel very assured in regards to the former sadly, which does, inevitably, forged a little bit of a downer on the remainder of the sport. In Saltsea’s defence, it does say that whereas some occasions might change relying in your actions, others stay the identical regardless. However when these decisions are seemingly at all times funnelled to an finish level that, for me no less than, would not fairly stick the touchdown, I believe it is that sense of dissatisfaction that is making me yearn for extra management over these remaining moments.
And but to boil Saltsea all the way down to these type of fastened brass tacks of an A-to-B journey additionally feels somewhat reductive. I could not have liked what awaited me at its remaining vacation spot, however the journeys I had getting there have been so richly drawn and lively. This can be a superbly written story, conveying an ocean’s value of depth, that means and emotion with only a trickle of deftly crafted sentences at a time, and the thorough excavation of its forged’s particular person foibles, worries and targets made all of them really feel like actual, heat human beings.
There’s a lot I am keen on about Saltsea Chronicles. The characters, the setting, the look of the rattling factor. It is all completely great, and I might gladly make a number of extra roundtrips with the De Kelpie crew with out batting an eyelid (though I’ll make a cease at cat island Los Gatos each. Rattling. Time. Mark my phrases). It is simply… that ending. It is a sticking level I am unable to fairly resolve, inflicting that dreaded FOMO internet to creep again in and loom eerily round my shoulders. Maybe that is the purpose. Maybe my need for a heroic and triumphant remaining flourish merely would not match throughout the confines of what this ragtag bunch of atypical people can realistically obtain. Maybe, it is a story for one more time.
This evaluation is predicated on a retail construct of the sport offered by builders Die Gute Fabrik.
Disclosure: Die Gute Fabrik inventive director Hannah Nicklin has written for RPS as a contributor prior to now.
