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Posted in: Games, Indie Games, Review, Video Games | Tagged: Dave The Diver, MintRocket
Dave The Diver Review: Who Can Say No To Fresh Sushi?
We belly up to the sushi bar and give Dave The Diver a try, as we hunt in the water by day and serve customers with friends by night.
One of the most peculiar games we've played in 2023 so far has to be Dave The Diver, simply for the fact that while it has a genre, it doesn't fit into any category. On paper, the premise of the game is still, the activities you're doing seem tedious, and the overall threads feel like something ripped from JRPG. But when you look at it, the game has a pleasing appearance and charm to it that makes you want to dive in, figuratively and literally, into what it has to offer. We bellied up to the sushi bar, ordered a round with a dragon roll, and took our chances in the deep for this review.
The concept for Dave The Diver is that you're playing the title role of Dave, who, in both his pastime and profession, is a diver who explores the ocean. Specifically, a small area that the locals refer to as "The Blue Hole." It is in this location that you and your friends/co-workers have opened up a maritime sushi bar that caters to the local crowds and tourists. Essentially, you dive for sea creatures big and small during the day to bring them aboard the ship-turned-restaurant, and by night you cut it up and serve it to the customers. The game blends a few different genres together as its one-part exploration, one-part adventure, and one-part management sim. The main reason you've set up shop here is that the Blue Hole is a magical place where the underwater terrain changes daily, along with all of the life living there and objects you can discover. So every day is a new adventure for Dave and his friends, as well as a new menu every single night.
The storyline for Dave The Diver is kind of a weird one as you'll be interacting mostly with your friends in the business, but you'll also have to deal with many of the people outside the restaurant. The first of them being customers and other people looking to do business, who have a habit of insulting your weight. You'll also have to deal with environmentalists who show up to harass the crew over fighting in the Blue Hole and robbing it of its natural wildlife, even though they respawn new creatures every single day. You'll also have to contend with what is probably the best and weirdest story of the bunch, as you'll encounter a world of merfolk who have made the Blue Hole their home. By far, the best interactions are with those you become friends with over time as they bring a rich and endearing story to the life of Dave and give this game a lot of heart and story where you might not have thought it existed.
When it comes to the gameplay, there's a few different elements to Dave The Diver we need to discuss. Starting with your underwater adventure, you'll swim around with nets and a harpoon, as well as an arsenal of guns you'll get from a local weapons maker, to hunt down different aquatic creatures to serve up that night. The deeper you go, the harder things get as you'll run into predatory animals like sharks, which come with their own attack patterns and ways of hurting you. You'll also encounter bosses of the deep, like a giant squid, who you will need to navigate around and find weak points to defeat. Over time you'll learn how to fight enemies and be rewarded by taking them out with the least amount of brutality. Sure, you can blast every fight around, but guns remove resources and yield less usable fish for the sushi. There's also a ton of treasure down in the depths, often found in random locations, but also in ancient ruins that are often puzzles to solve.
Touching on the restaurant side of things, this feels like a mix of management simulator and quick-order mayhem. At the start of each night, you'll have the task of dealing with a lot of people who tend to be very picky about what they order, and you'll need to plan out how best to serve everyone without losing money or having anyone leave without getting their food, all while making them happy. You'll have to train staff to help serve them, as you won't be able to do everything yourself. This includes coming up with new recipes that you'll make yourself, adding them to the menu, and being able to have the supplies needed to serve that dish each night. That doesn't even include running your farms where you'll harvest the thing you need to make tea or just having standard fish on hand. But once you see the success of your business grow, you'll realize the work was well worth it.
Between all of this, you'll be able to upgrade your gear and weapons to make all of this easier, but be careful, as the better you get at Dave The Diver, the more it recognizes you're a little overpowered and will start to up the ante in challenges. It is entirely possible to hold a steady pace and gradually upgrade everything as you go. However, there's always the temptation of getting a better gun to take things out, especially when it comes to bosses. For us, it was better to upgrade times like poisons to knock out the fish than to take the easy route with an aquatic AK-47. A lot of this is done through, you guessed it, resource management, which you handle through your smartphone in the game. This is a part of the game we found satisfying beyond belief as it's not a complicated system, and you actually feel a sense of accomplishment when you respond to a request to get a special fish and are rewarded handsomely for it.
Overall, Dave The Diver was one of the most unique and entertaining gaming experiences we've had all year. It's so weird to say this, but the game is amazingly addictive. There are many times that I found myself up until 3am, forgetting that I told myself I was going to quit hours ago. This doesn't even include all of the minigame fun you can have, such as betting on seahorse racing, going to concerts with rhythm mechanics, taking part in night market activities, speeding away from people trying to gun you down in a speedboat, photographing different aquatic life, raising a Tamagotchi, and more. This game is absolutely addictive, and I loved it! If not for the fact that I needed to work to pay my bills or the fact that my body actively wanted to sleep in my chair, I'd play it all day long. There's really no complaints from us. The few things we could moan and cry about aren't worth it, and even if it isn't perfect, it's so great that it's hard to complain about it. This is a must-play worthy of your time, which you will quickly discover, you don't have enough of after you say "Okay, one more dive!"
Dave The Diver
10/10
Dave The Diver is a quirky kind of game that hits all the right buttons when it comes to concept, playability, and fun. Its got a nonsense premise that is endearing with enough challenge to it to make you come back for seconds, both in gameplay and in sushi. It truly is hard to swim away from this one.
Credits
Developer
MintRocket
Publisher
MintRocket
Release Date
June 28, 2023
Reviewed On
PC
Also Available On
Nintendo Switch
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