Review for SeaBed. Game for PC and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 19/03/2020 The version for PC came out on 25/01/2016
If there is a videogame genre that we can define as niche, is certainly that of visual novels, even hardly recognized by some as real video games, but which over the years have certainly given, in particular to lovers of Japanese stories and culture, many emotions. Curiously, while home consoles battle it out with exclusives, voxels and 4K, VNs have always found their home in the meanders of Steam (usually the market where they debut, perhaps without causing much fuss in a sea of daily releases) and portable consoles, passing the baton from the days of PSP to PlayStation Vita up to the Nintendo Switch today, what we hope will become the destination par excellence in this field. Three years after its - relatively silent - Western release on Steam in fact, recently landed on Switch SeaBed, a visual novel with really sweet tones that bewitched us in these slow days of self-isolation due to the coronavirus.
Brought to the West by Fruitbat Factory, a Finnish localization company, and the original debut work of the independent development studio Paleontology, SeaBed is a long-lived "yuri" love story (Japanese romantic narrative with sapphic s) with very gentle and interesting colors, immersed in a blanket of mystery, with a pinch of esotericism that never hurts.
At the bottom of the sea
The story of SeaBed is a videogame adaptation of a manga miniseries originally published by the author of the - splendid - illustrations of the game, pseudonym hide38 (here some of his works). The plot is told from the point of view of three women (the cast is basically made up of female figures only, giving the plot a special sensitivity): Sachiko, a designer who struggles to deal with a past love, Takako, his ex-girlfriend (known since kindergarten) disappeared under mysterious circumstances and Narasaki, the doctor, also a childhood friend of the other two, trying to balance the sanity of everyone involved in the story. Through 10 long chapters + 1 prologue that alone will take you a handful of hours, SeaBed will go from an apparent excuse to show the splendid illustrations (with inoffensive amount of skin shown, therefore suitable for almost everyone) to a deep introspection on decidedly complex and intriguing characters.
What may not involve everyone is the rhythm of the narration: In fact, SeaBed reminded us of a visual novel version of Gone Home. As in the splendid Fullbright game, it seems all the time that there is something ready to happen, which in the end, however, practically never happens, but leaving the high tension and the player's interest aroused.
"Ugh, but books are boring!"
While presenting excellent music and a great variety of backgrounds (key elements in a VN of the genre), SeaBed remains a Visual Novel for true fans of the genre, very “hardcore”, unlike other recent ones such as Nekopara, Doki Doki Literature Club or the evergreen Steins; Gate. Its structure is in fact that of one "Kinetic" VN, practically a really long-lived non-interactive novel (about 30 hours, like a decidedly full-bodied book): unlike other more famous VNs, SeaBed has no alternative endings or choices to make, the story develops in the same way for everyone, just read what will pass on the screen to complete it all. The only deviation from the formula will be when advancing with the events we will unlock the "Tips", or short additional skits that will give more context to the events through small episodes.
Clearly stated, this structure may not be digested by everyone, but fortunately the quality of the narration, the music, the backgrounds and the - rare - illustrations manages to keep the interest high all the while, with the healthy curiosity to know how it will end. Having to look for some small flaws, perhaps the excessive saturation of female characters with similar physiognomic characteristics could sometimes confuse the user (also given the non-linear narrative, full of flashbacks and excursus) and in general SeaBed can sometimes leave too much space for the description of some apparently non-fundamental events, potentially forcing us to scroll through some parts faster than we would have liked.
SeaBed does not have animations, pixels, dubbing, it has almost nothing of a real video game, but it knows how to capture, even if in its abundance of details and descriptions of moods and sometimes apparently useless conversations it could bore the general public. On the other hand, those who want to immerse themselves in its sea will find a story that they will hardly forget, albeit in its being perhaps excessively prolix.
► SeaBed is a Visual Novel-indie game developed and published by Fruitbat Factory for PC and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 19/03/2020 The version for PC came out on 25/01/2016
