Song of the Deep is a metroidvania style game, created by Insomniac Games, and published by GameTrust. It is the first game that has been published by the new publishing arm of the huge American gaming retailer GameStop. It is a single player games that is played as a 2D side-scroller. Having recently reviewed the fantastic Inside which for me set a new bar in the 2D side scrolling genre, it’ll certainly be interesting to see what Insomniac are able to bring to the table with Song of the Deep, in what is a bit of a departure of genres for them, being the team behind franchises such as Spyro, Ratchet and Clank, Resistance and Sunset Overdrive.
In Song of the Deep you are Merryn, a young girl searching for her father, whom she loves very much. He is a fisherman and has long told her fantastical tales of sea adventures. One day her father doesn’t return home and is missing at sea. Merryn has a dream that he is trapped in the depths of the ocean. She is determined to find him, so does what every sensible 12 year old girls does, and builds a freaking airtight, usable submarine, and goes on her own adventures to sea to rescue him.
Through the course of the adventure, she realises that a lot of her father’s stories that she had been told for so many years were actually true. During the game you will come across mythical and fantasy creatures, with some splashes of steampunk influences thrown in for good measure. Plenty of imagination has gone into it, and I’m a fan of the weird a wonderful, but Song of the Deep has something missed for me to get at all attached.
Throughout the game you are encouraged to collect treasures in order to upgrade your submarine, which will eventually lead you to be able to go back through the game and complete sections that were not doable previously. There is the expected dose of puzzle solving and exploration in the game, along with some combat and boss fights. What detracts from the gameplay is the movement and controls of your submarine. The game is based underwater, and as such, the developers have taken into account that movements underwater is a lot different to on land. But because of this it makes the controls awkward and fiddly at times. This can be looked over during general movement as there is enough leeway to get it wrong, but during some puzzle sections and boss battles where timing and accuracy can be vital, it turns into a game of difficult frustration due to the ‘floatiness’ of what you’re controlling.
It is a game that seems to miss a few beats across the board for me, but there is massive potential there. Visually, the use of bright colours, and vibrant environments suffer slightly because they are missing some sharpness to make it all ‘pop’ as they should. The sub at times looks out of focus and blurry for no apparent reason, and it takes away from what could be a great immersive world. The soundtrack features calming serene sounds, that just get tiresome over time, and the voiceover seems very off, and I find it irritating after 20 minutes of playing. I can’t pinpoint a real reason for this if I’m being honest, and it may be something that others love.
There wasn’t enough to Song of the Deep’s story to make me want to keep pushing forward. There is a clear attempt here to make a simple rescue missions plot more interesting by making the world itself exciting to explore. But I just wasn’t filled with the intrigue required for me to get much joy out of finding what was around the next corner. Some fans of metroidvania games may well find more enjoyment here than others, and maybe shouldn’t be put off by my not-entirely-positive look at the game. It is not a genre that is high on my favourites list, however I tend to find enjoyment from any game that has an interesting story and lore. And Song of the Deep, for me, unfortunately doesn’t have that.
**Thank you to Insomniac for providing the review copy of the game**