TL;DR - Dave the Diver is a charming, genre-mashing experience with endearing characters, diverse gameplay, and beautiful art direction. There's so much here to enjoy, and this game is an easy recommendation to anyone looking to kick back and have some good, old-fashioned fun.

Review:

I find it difficult to describe what Dave the Diver is. It is one part underwater fishing experience, one part restaurant management sim, all interlaced with rewarding and surprisingly deep RPG systems. It's a farming game, a Pokemon-style collect-a-thon, and about a dozen other things. It is a jack-of-all-trades approach to game design that will have you bouncing between wonderfully diverse activities in a single session of play. In one moment, you're dashing between customers, frantically filling drinks and serving them food; while another will have you carefully maneuvering between fish as you locate the correct angles to fire off your harpoon gun; and yet another will find you crafting and leveling new gear and weapons which facilitate deeper and more dangerous dives. And there's much, much more. As you progress deeper into the story, you'll solve puzzles, unlock a farm to harvest crops, play a dozen wickedly fun minigames, and run side quests for your friends and acquaintances. Dave the Diver continuously builds on itself, introducing new features and mechanics even up to the final hours of the story. The variety of activities sustains the game up to the very end, and I delighted in mastering each portion of its addicting gameplay loops.

In Dave the Diver, you play the titular character, Dave, a man who would prefer to be left alone but doesn't know how to say "no." As such, he's begrudgingly convinced by an old friend to open a sushi restaurant, with Dave shouldering the daily task of collecting the food they'll need to feed their clientele. In the weeks that follow, Dave will uncover the secrets of a hidden underwater civilization, battle shady ecological activists, and forge relationships with all sorts of interesting people.

The meat of the game takes place in the ocean during dives. Underwater, Dave must use his harpoon gun to spearfish to stock up for dinnertime at the restaurant. He brings a small knife with him for close encounters, as well as an additional weapon, like a sniper or shotgun, to assist him with more dangerous prey. While killing fish might be the easiest way to harvest them, there are more fruitful and effective methods, like a net launcher and a tranquilizer dart. Using these tools is harder, but you'll get much more meat and a three-star rating in the MarinCa (Pokedex) for doing so. The concept is simple, but the challenge increases when facing aggressive hammerhead sharks, barracudas, and other predators. Steady aim and optimal positioning are key. The fishy boss fights are a hoot, with each encounter requiring quick thinking and tight reactions to overcome. Their designs are memorable and absurd, including a mantis shrimp toting boxing gloves and a shark with a tooth-covered buzzsaw for a lower jaw.

The writing is silly and light-hearted but can be surprisingly poignant, and the many characters that Dave encounters have personalities that shine. There's Cobra; a grizzled, tattoed, cheerful man who convinces Dave to accept this new business venture. Bancho is the self-serious, incessantly passionate head chef of the restaurant. One of my favorites, Otto, has a new, harrowing story of adventure from his youth to tell you at nearly every interaction. What starts as silly caricatures gives way to deeper emotional beats that endear you to the growing cast of friends Dave meets during his adventures in the deep, especially if you pay attention to the gorgeously animated cutscenes. The main quest has a few pacing issues, and I occasionally felt like the game was going out of its way to slow me down. Thankfully those moments are few and far between what is otherwise a story filled with heart.

Art direction shines in Dave the Diver, taking full advantage of its simple, pixelated 2D art style. The ocean itself is a joy to look at, and it's made better thanks to a photo minigame that asks you to capture the Kodak moments of an aquatic paradise. As you tread deeper beneath the waves and enter new biomes, you'll discover a host of new fish to capture and bring back to the restaurant. Some fish like to school together, others you'll find floating lazily by themselves, and some are large and intimidating, but all are unique and distinct in their designs.

Even after the credits have rolled, there is still a LOT left over for me to tackle in the future. I'm desperate to earn three-star catches for every fish, beat the optional bosses I missed, and level up all my gear and weapons to the maximum. Also, the restaurant portion of the game is my favorite, and I could extract hours of fun from that progression alone. Dave the Diver is excellent. It's one of those games that almost anybody would have a good time playing, and I wholeheartedly recommend you give it a try. I think you'll be captured by the charm and the heart it wears on its sleeve.

Reviewed on May 22, 2024


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