Sword of the Sea

Short and not hard (2 and a half hours my first time), but really great experience that just flows the whole time. Repeatable with new game plus

Sword of the sea is a good and chilling game. One issue i have, isthat it's trying so hard to be next journey, but it's not as good as journey was.

Graficamente carino la storia bella ma troppo breve a mio parere completato in 2 ore e 20 gameplay un pò ripetitivo. La storia è comunque il suo punto forte.

Hard to describe this one. The gameplay did things I've never seen and it was cool , but the overall experience and length of the game was lacking. Is this about the tricks? Is it about the platforming? The style? Well, kinda all of it but not enough of any of it. Don't pay more than $10 or $15 for it.

Skateboard of the Sea drops you into a vibrant yet desolate world filled with signs of a long-lost civilisation. As you interact with key points, you gradually uncover the history of the world and its secrets. Your presence actively terraforms the environment, restoring it to its former glory. Over the game’s short, roughly four-hour linear story, I experienced many genuine wow moments as vast landscapes are revealed and adorned with floating marine life. Visually, the game is beautiful and dream-like. Unfortunately, that beauty is weighed down by a number of issues. While the controls are mostly responsive, the trick system lacks impact. There are dozens of different trick combinations, but they all look and feel nearly identical. None of them meaningfully change how the game plays, which makes the system feel underutilised and shallow. The core gameplay loop consists almost entirely of navigating to an objective, interacting with it, and triggering a short cutscene. These interruptions happen constantly. Opening doors, uncovering entrances, activating fountains, or progressing the story all pull control and camera away from the player to show brief cinematics. Because objectives are so frequent, there are often only a few minutes of uninterrupted gameplay between these moments. This results in a constant start-and-stop rhythm that completely kills flow and momentum, even when the visuals are impressive. Worse still, these interruptions can actively work against the player. Control is taken away without warning, which can lead to your character falling into lava or pits through no fault of your own. While the game has no lives or health system and death simply respawns you, it is still frustrating and immersion-breaking. It is difficult to get lost in a world that refuses to let you stay in control. This issue is compounded by unskippable cutscenes. It is baffling that this is still a problem in 2025. After completing the game, you unlock a New Game Plus mode where items and abilities carry over, allowing you to replay the story with everything you have collected. However, the game offers virtually no replay value. Once the mystery is gone and the major reveals are known, replaying the story feels flat, especially when you are forced to sit through dozens of cutscenes you have already seen, some of which can run four to five minutes long. The story itself is delivered through hidden shrines scattered throughout the world. While this approach fits the tone, the narrative is disappointingly generic. It leans heavily on a familiar wanderer fantasy trope that feels uninspired and overused. Optional collectables like shells and frogs are hidden throughout the map, but they have little narrative relevance and do not feel intentionally placed. They come across as an afterthought, seemingly added only to encourage players to stray from the main path. The music is mostly pleasant and whimsical, but some tracks become repetitive and distracting over time, particularly in areas like The Great Shark level. The final boss fight is another major letdown. It boils down to an awkward game of volleyball, where the controls feel at their worst. This makes the climax feel underwhelming and out of place. Since the game features no combat and your character is otherwise impervious to harm, the antagonist ends up feeling toothless. A more indirect or environmental resolution would have better suited the game’s relaxed tone. I am a big fan of Giant Squid’s previous work, which is why it surprised me to dislike Skateboard of the Sea as much as I did. While it succeeds visually and has moments of genuine beauty, its constant interruptions, lack of mechanical depth, and poor pacing prevent it from reaching its full potential.