I love highwater's art direction, in a visual sense. puttering around in your inflatable dinghy can often be a serene, beautiful experience—in it, you peer out into the world around you, paved with cerulean and sinister waters, which at times yield to massive landmarks to the world before climate disaster. everything is eye-catching, eerie, and impressionistic, giving you glimpses into the setting, without revealing too much

even your closest buddies, in how they're visually represented, lack visual definition in even their facial features, lending an air of interpretive mystery to the closest sources of support you have in the game. in this respect, I would say the lack of high definition, of specificity, serves the game well

it does not, however, serve the writing well, which, for me, is the game's greatest (but not only) flaw

I appreciate, and even sometimes love, the intentions behind this game. rag-tag group of set-adrift folks try to work together to survive, escape? a climate disaster suffering world where the remaining institutions of power continue to do business as usual: exploit. it touches on community and the perils of individualism, and isn't afraid to give the player uncomfortable consequences

unfortunately, its writing beyond the point of concept is consistently lackluster, in almost every respect. the biggest crime for me is that the characters—who should matter so much in a story like this—are so thinly sketched they're barely on the page. there's never enough dialogue, and what there is is so plainly generic and lacking in personality from person-to-person. new characters get air dropped into your party with little explanation, and any backstory is short and not the easiest to navigate. some characters barely have enough writing to even meet the threshold of being archetypes. it's really disappointing and, worse, boring

the political worldbuilding is barely better. in moments it offers some decent observational satire, but the circumstances are so impressionistically vague in how they're explained that it's hard to say anything truly sharp or smart with it, other than "corporations bad!" (correct) and maybe "rebellions just as bad!" (eck). I would've said through most of the game it floats around this kind of, apathetic libertarianism, though to its credit, I think the endings do make it somewhat more complex, though barely

I think most other people will be frustrated at the gameplay. the gameplay didn't bother me much—the lack of level turned each combat encounter into a type of puzzle, which I could enjoy—but it isn't super well-tuned. once you figure out how to use josephine, almost every battle is easy to slice down. given my frustrations with the game, I didn't mind speeding through that part

on the flipside, though the exploration aspect of the game looks very pretty, it is deeply underbaked. despite the tantalizing appearance of being able to explore across this flooded environment, it's remarkable on rails for most of the game. and by the time you get to the one area that isn't, you've been trained to not explore that it's almost lucky if you still have the impulse

lastly, there's a lot of polish missing, especially towards the end. typos, score suddenly drops, etc. it's not game breaking, but it is noticeable

I appreciate the experience of the game, and respect the developers' intentions. I hope they can build on what works and improve on their writing approach moving forward, because there's totally potential here.

if you want to play better games the explore similar themes, I'd very highly recommend saltsea chronicles, citizen sleeper, and kentucky route zero

Reviewing this game is going to be tricky as some of the design decisions and faults can annoy people a lot while others can really love the game for its strong points and what it’s trying to do. I was very hesitant on getting this so soon based on the mixed reception but I’m glad I went ahead with it after completing Highwater.

So what’s the gameplay basically? The loop is generally using your boat to get to the next destination. The journey is supported by the same radio host from The Cub with some music mixed in between. There are short cutscenes that don’t overstay their welcome. You can also explore (optional) areas to find collectibles, weapons and boosters. Collectibles are magazines or books with a cover and title to set the mood (so no real reading material). Weapons can be character specific and boosters are consumable items used during battles only (heal, better movement, hit harder etc). The fights are your typical strategy RPG like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics. So the game is mostly going from A to B with a lot of focus on fighting and exploring. Exploration is kept light hearted, everything you can interact with is hard to miss. The fights are not as complex as the games I mentioned and there is no progression system like level up or learning new skills. Skills are usually bound by the weapons you have equipped and there are some exclusive character skills.

So what’s so good about this game? The style is strong with this one. Some of the landscapes seen while travelling are so pretty with a great use of color. The game is great at showing you what humans are dealing with, how everyone is coping and how desperate they can become (it’s depressing). The battle system is actually VERY good. Although I didn’t expect anything close to Fire Emblem, it’s still complex enough, satisfying and it made me think a few times due to the objects you can interact with along with some of the achievements. Speaking of the achievements, they’re terrific. Some are clear from the get go. Others make you guess and keep you on your toes but once you encounter the moment you’re supposed to do something, you’ll know when the achievements will trigger. As long as you keep notes of the achievements (read them to remember) and explore all areas, then they’re doable and fun to get. I got them 100% blindly without using a single guide. The game also has a good pacing for the most part and the length (7.8 hours in my case) feels just right. There is chapter select and you can check your collectibles from the menu. The game saves automatically after leaving an area, completing a fight or picking up an item. So you never feel like you’re forced to play longer than you want. The performance, 1440p resolution and loading times are excellent.

I’m going to deal with the negatives a bit differently this time. First I’m going to focus on the negatives that I noticed and then talk about the negatives experienced by others. To me it was the overall lack of polish in terms of UI, bugs and graphics. All of these are not that bad but you do notice them. The UI can be lacking or unclear. For instance, I didn’t find out where I can check enemy movement before attacking. Sometimes it is unclear where you can attack when the color of the tile is mixed with a different tile to indicate something else. When equipping weapons, the grey color to show you who can equip what is so light, that you can easily miss it and wonder why certain characters can’t equip something. The bugs are mostly some rare visual bugs or when your party gets in your way while exploring. They can cause you to get stuck. While the style is good, the graphics could have been better. Some of the environments and objects are too blocky and it felt odd that you couldn’t control the camera while exploring or using your boat. With the graphics, perhaps it’s because of its mobile roots since this was a Netflix exclusive for a while. Others didn’t like the game’s map, the lack of character backstory or strong characters in general. The map is not typical and not really helpful in the grand scheme of things but it’s not needed at all because the game gives you the illusion of exploring ‘islands’ but it’s not really the case. If you go too far to the left or right, the controls are taken away from you temporarily to put you on the main road. The mini radar literally shows you where you can go and how close you are. The map is there to give you a general sense of direction but it’s mostly to make you feel how it’s pointless and there is no real infrastructure due to the story. The story is not really about the characters. It’s more about showing you how this can happen to anyone and how it feels, not the characters being memorable.

This is a game that could have used some more polish but I still loved it. I’ve completed it within 4 straight days and I leave satisfied. €20 feels like a bit too much but the €12 I paid is fine. I could have played the Netflix version for free but I’m glad I got it on PC for the performance etc. Give the game a try if you like the lore of Demagog games and are a fan of strategy RPG while keeping expectations in check in terms of scope.

Highwater nos transporta a un mundo postacopalíptico con un sistema por turnos táctico donde controlamos a gente normal intentando sobrevivir o escapar del mundo que les han dejado. Y eso es lo más bonito del juego. Estás viendo a personas reales y normales. No hay héroe alguno.

Lo que no me ha gustado:
- Una traducción lamentable. Diría que hecha por IA.
- No hay mucho que explorar.
- ¿Los objetos equipables servían para algo? Porque para mí que estaban de adorno.

Lo que me ha gustado:
- Cada humano que aparece.
- El sistema de combates táctico. No era muy profundo PERO aún así no podías ganar solo dándote cabezazos contra todos.

Nota final: 8,5.