Wavetale

Wavetale was released for Google Stadia about a year ago and now it has released on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and PC. It's a small adventure game, with light combat, casual platforming and an almost dancing and playful way of moving around - more on that in a moment.

You take the role of a girl called Sigrid, who lives in a flooded world and she lives on a small island with her grandmother. Their world is threatened by a polluted fog that has already enveloped much of the world, but the two hold their ground by keeping their lighthouse going and in doing so, keep the threatening fog at bay. After a few incidents that further threaten their entire world, Sigrid and her grandmother set out on a journey to put an end, once and for all, to the menacing and polluting fog.

As Sigrid, you travel the sea to solve various simplistic puzzles while battling basic enemies that seem to have something to do with this polluting fog. Along the way, you'll pass lots of small islands to land on - some inhabited, some abandoned, and some built up with factories, lookouts, lighthouses and other structures. There was life here once, before the fog rolled in on the world.

The big party trick in Wavetale is the way Sigrid moves between these many islands. This is not done on a boat, but on her own legs and feet, as Sigrid has a magical ability to both run and surf across the surface of the water and swim at high speed underwater for a short period of time. You almost feel like a human dolphin as you leap from wave to wave with dancing ease, almost floating across the surface of the water at high speed. It works really well and actually never gets boring moving around like this, even if you spend a lot of time doing it.

You also spend a fair bit of time in the company of Wavetale on the various islands, fighting simple enemies, solving minor puzzles, activating switches and climbing these tall structures that are on some of the islands - they're almost simple puzzles in themselves. You jump from platform to platform, flying through the air to different points with Sigrid's magic fishing net used as a grappling hook, moving higher and higher. The combat system is simple, consisting of a quick and a powerful attack, and enemies usually only need a few hits before they disappear.

Wavetale is a pretty easy and relaxing game - I died once during my playthrough, and that was because the camera got confused and I was overpowered by some enemies I couldn't see. The gameplay is simple and not the most varied, but it's wonderfully relaxing to dance across the surface of the water and visit the various little islands and their strange inhabitants. It can all be completed in around 5-7 hours, depending on how many of the side missions and time trial challenges you take.

Wavetale has a catchy gameplay loop and it's actually a nice relaxing experience. The technical side isn't quite so uplifting, though. The graphics are aesthetically quite nice, the rolling sea looks great and the whole thing has a light and adventurous style that fits the narrative really well. Unfortunately, everything runs a bit rough and especially when you turn the camera around Sigrid, you are subjected to heavy screen tearing, where it looks like the image is almost torn in half. It's nothing that spoils the game or makes it unplayable, but it's not pretty to look at.

I had a hard time figuring out the sound side. Sometimes it seems like certain sound effects are missing and other times they're there - and some sound effects are there all the time, while others seem to be completely missing. Unless it's a deliberate choice by the sound designers - I can't quite figure that out - it's certainly pretty quiet at times and that seems wrong. The soundtrack, on the other hand, is nicely relaxing - and then it's there all the time.

Wavetale is a bit of a mixed bag. The technical part is a mess and we hope Thunderful will get the technical part of the game optimized very soon, because there is quite a nice little adventure game hiding behind the technical problems - even if none of them directly spoil the gameplay, it's not pretty to look at and it spoils the experience a bit.