Long time no see! At the end of 2025, I committed myself to doing at least one media review or other content post a month. Today, I am holding myself to that – don’t worry, I’ve been working on this for a bit!
I swapped around several games this month, with a big focus on adventure RPGs and some card games! I played Dave the Diver, Cult of the Lamb (WOOHOO Massive Monster for their Woolhaven release!), and returned to ye ol’ faithful, Monster Hunter World. Dave the Diver was the only one new to me this month – a breath of fresh air (though the oxygen meter might contradict me) and some fun mechanical challenges.
For these, we’re going to do a breakdown of what I thought of certain categories: mechanics, aesthetics, and story. Of course, warning for spoilers in all of these!
Mechanics: ★★★★☆
If you’re used to fishing minigames in other games – tap to pull, waiting for the right time, and maybe a little bit of winding of your fishing rod – you might be relieved to hear that they use the same concepts for the core harpooning mechanic. All the same, MINTROCKET breathed some life into the routine – new harpoon tips change the way you use the controller and you have different nets, baits, and weapons to catch, stun, and fight fish. No longer do you know if it’ll be tapping A or swirling the joystick – it’s all up to your reaction time and tools!
My one complaint (I did try getting good) is the way the game scales difficulty. It’s not out of the realm of possibility to beat bosses or minibosses, but there are some unfortunate cases where a fight becomes incredibly difficult compared to others, even during the same time period. Often, there’s a trick – but not always. Your maneuverability is limited – as is your inventory. My advice to you: keep work and work separate. If you have a sidequest to find what might be a violent creature, make sure to bring the appropriate gear – even if you think you’ll want to net some fish on the way down!
For the restaurant management portion of the game: unfortunately, if you’re looking for cooking simulator elements or cooking minigames, there don’t seem to be many outlets for that. You can pour beverages, prepare wasabi, and hand out dishes to customers, but the actual cooking is done by our master chef, Bancho.
Overall, the mechanics are fun, funky, fresh, and feel true to both the aesthetic and the story. There are some limitations – but there are always limitations. No game can be perfect and give the player everything they desire. If they did, what would the challenge be? How would the player one-up themselves?
Aesthetics: ★★★★★
This game is like cheese on a trap to someone who was OBSESSED with sea life in her school years. I wrote my college application essay about the Sea of Stars in the Maldives. The way the game incorporates the nature of fish into the environment and into mechanics (did you know the front fin of the rhinochimaeridae is poisonous?) kept me diving for more. And the game doesn’t hesitate to have fun with it! The Blue Hole is a scientific anomaly, where fish from all over the oceans collide and create the world’s best sushi-spot!
The 2D style comes with its strengths and limitations, of course. First and foremost, aiming the harpoon. Now, this comes back to mechanics, and one that I have complicated feelings about: the ability to aim left and right, angling up and down is great – but I’ve got awful depth perception and trying to tell exactly how far away a fish is, if I have it at the right angle, and so on took some real trial and error. I STILL don’t always get it right. (Sadly, I don’t think this will help me with pool…) BUT – being 2D instead of 3D means that I have one less axis to concern myself with. I don’t have to worry about telling whether a fish is in front of me or behind me, only above and below or on my sides.
The same, sadly, does not go for the platforms. My depth perception causes me to have a difficult time with the platforms “behind” the ones you move through. Some areas with greater depth of field or deeper shadows – like the Deep – are easier. The shallows have me riding my brakes, though!
Story: ★★★★☆
The story for Dave the Diver is a mysterious, borderline absurdly funny take on Atlantis: a hidden society of merfolk once working with humans turned south when a gesture of kindness did harm. Between making you fish for and serve at the sushi bar, completing mandatory upgrades before story progression occurs, and multiple minor plotlines occurring at a time, it can get a little slow to move the story forward.
The characters are all given depth: children in the Sea People Kingdom, your egotistical recruitment specialist, the cat on your counter – everyone’s got a storybeat. Except… Dave.
So far, what I know about Dave: he likes food, he’s a diver, and he can’t say no to people. Unfortunately, those are the only three points that really stand out about him. And the one people bring up most? Subtle jabs that they’ve never seen a fat diver before. This one comes off as a little painful, likely because I see a LOT of work being done to move to non-offensive humor in video games – but that might be a very Americanized perspective, and one of the developers did take the time to explain on a Steam thread:
“Hi everyone,
We truly appreciate your honest comments and feedback regarding your concerns about some of the in-game dialogue. Our game is still in developing progress so we welcome all types of feedback and our team values your opinion as this will give us an idea about how others might be feeling.
As we are Korean developers with our cultural background, some of our humor may be lost in translation and in some cases, creates misunderstandings due to cultural differences.
We will continue to create a game that is both authentic in its humor, but also able to reach as wide an audience of people as possible to enjoy.
We want to show a variety of character and personality types in our game, and express humor through these character types, as this is an important part of our game’s identity and vibe.
We will always look closely into every aspect of the game and make sure to re-evaluate your feedback.
Once again, thank you for your feedback, and we will keep listening!!!”
All of that to say, I think we could stand to learn a little more about Dave, rather than him being the only one learning about other people. We even know about Duff being a mega otaku and dreaming about his idol, Leahs-chan – I’d love just a little more about Dave himself!
Overall, I have to say that I’ve enjoyed playing the game, but once I got into chapter 3 I started slowing down a lot: between a major boss fight (that I had to give up on, losing an entire haul of fish…), eight fetch quests, side quests for taking photos… I had to take a break. I intend to go back to it, but I can’t say that I’m in a huge rush to do so: I have other games that have long filled my queue, and I bumped Dave the Diver up on an impulse that is – for now – satisfied.