An adventure game set in the 1930s with a beautiful art-style that balances its dark undertones with rose-tinted idealism of the time? Of course I am into that idea. Call of the Sea is just that, lead by Cissy Jones as Norah Everhart in the search for her husband Harry (played by Yuri Lowenthal). Harry went missing on an island in the south pacific. He went out in search of a cure for Norah’s blotchy skin, which mysteriously appeared after her mother died. You might think I am being quite expository, though within minutes of starting that is all Call of the Sea does.

After a bombardment of lines after looking at every single object, you’d be mistaken to think you’d have a quiet moment with your thoughts on this adventure. The world is so beautiful, with the Polynesian backdrop that surrounds the island. It seems like the type of thing that should be given silence to take in these sacred moments. However, Norah doesn’t work by the hour. She’s paid by the word, and she doesn’t like to go more than a few minutes without showing off her doctorate on ancient cultures. I’m being facetious, of course, but it is nonetheless jarring to be blarted at every time you open a box or pick up a toothpick.

While the world is the shining star of the game, there is a great focus on the puzzles. They are a collection of your usual straightforward matching things together and the more abstract ideas of what is reasonable. I’ve still to figure out what that lens puzzle was all about. I just stumbled through that mess with no understanding of what was expected of me there. That’s the biggest problem I’d found; for all the lovely and long explanations of Polynesian art and otherwise, sometimes puzzles just lacked a sense of giving you that satisfaction of “ah!! I’m clever!”

The unsettling and unnatural feeling of the grand mystery does give enough of a Lovecraftian creature creeping in the depths around the island. However, I never felt danger, and I never felt like anything was living. Despite it being set on an island inhabited only by birds and bugs, Norah, and the supernatural mystery, nothing would move on without me. Of course, that’s the case with every game, but there is a pronounced nothingness to actions. The island is deliberately designed to look abandoned, with the story presenting that I am the only driving force for anything happening. So why don’t I just leave it as is?

My biggest issue is Norah. It is suggested her “illness” is nothing more than a skin condition that is slowly killing her, slowly being the operative word. To be very merry around this time of year, everyone slowly dies. Norah herself seems to be in her early to mid-30s, so slowly killing her would be another 30-40 years, just under the average lifespan. I think it is the disagreement that she’s risking not only her life but as a result of her and Harry’s actions, other lives are put in harm’s way. The story itself (as it stands) works better as BBC Radio 4 audio drama rather than a game because you are in control. You can stop and sensibly not put Norah in further danger of the more supernatural effects on the island.

Call of the Sea isn’t a bad game, it is a beautiful world crafted with fascinating bits of culture as the building blocks. However, too much of it asks you to suspend your belief without giving a proper reason to do so. The story, in the end, doesn’t make up for the sum of its parts, leaving a tasteless absence from the setup. It is not satisfying nor dissatisfying, but an emptiness that is hardly filled with the beauty of the game’s art direction.

An Xbox One copy of Call of the Sea was provided by Out of the Blue Games S.L. for this review.

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Call Of The Sea

$19.99

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Gorgeous art direction.
• some interesting puzzles.

Cons

• The use of the left stick for everything, including things better used by direction buttons.
• A story best fitting to radio audio drama.