Saltsea Chronicles is one other narrative-driven journey from the makers of Mutazione, solely this time, you are enjoying a complete solid of characters, not only one. With their captain lacking, a bunch of mates set sail throughout the Saltsea archipelago to seek out her, just for the thriller to steadily develop a lot bigger.
This visible novel emphasises selection and consequence. Every chapter has you decide somebody to accompany a lead character, and every particular person has their very own views, expertise, and pursuits — all of which have an effect on conversations and occasions. The places you discover are various and attention-grabbing, and as you’re employed in direction of goals, you may discover a number of elective chats, educating you a little bit extra concerning the world and its folks. It is a well-written sport (albeit with rare textual content errors) with likeable characters, telling grounded tales inside uncommon circumstances.
Each dialog provides you frequent selections to make, which affect the route of the dialogue and even character relationships. The Points mechanic is one thing to remember; your crew can develop grievances with each other, or shared considerations. In case you play your playing cards proper, you’ll be able to resolve excellent Points, however should you do not, they’re going to be scuppered and may change the dynamic. It is a intelligent system that makes your dialog selections matter. All of the choice-driven gameplay means the sport is kind of replayable — you’ll be able to restart every chapter in a unique save to see how different selections have an effect on issues.
It is all delivered with fashion, too — the music is atmospheric and stress-free, and the artwork is all clear strains and vivid colors. The one distraction from that is display tearing as scenes transition, nevertheless it’s in any other case a properly offered sport.
We did battle a little bit with the quantity of dialogue. The tempo strikes fairly slowly because of this, and whereas most interactions are elective, you’d miss out on a lot context that it feels essential to hunt them out. The story is intriguing and the characters undergo attention-grabbing arcs (relying in your selections) nevertheless it nonetheless solely held our consideration briefly bursts.
There’s quite a bit to love about Saltsea Chronicles. It has a intelligent construction, low-pressure gameplay, and even a neat minigame to play in every location. Add on prime an attention grabbing fashion and significant decision-making, and you’ve got a pleasing, ship-shape journey.
