Submerged: Hidden Depths

by Aethyna Apr 16, 2022 | 1 Votes | 36 Played | 0 Reviews

10 rate

Genres:

Adventure

Graphics:

Labels:

Exploration , Sailing

Platforms:

Publishers:

Uppercut Games Following the adventures of siblings, Miku and Taku, once again, you’ll join them on yet another breathtaking journey in Submerged: Hidden Depths as they explore a brand-new city while trying to cleanse it from the corrupted vines of the Black Plant, restoring nature to what it is supposed to be. Play Now Similar Games

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

Submerged: Hidden Depths is the highly anticipated sequel to the popular and well-received indie title, Submerged. Following the adventures of siblings Miku and Taku once again, you’ll join them on yet another breathtaking journey as they explore a brand-new city while trying to cleanse it from the corrupted vines of the Black Plant, restoring nature to what it is supposed to be.

Plotline

The ocean rose submerging cities, and with it came the Mass, an alien-like plant that engulfs life and regurgitates shades of the once-living beings, frozen in place. Fortunately for Miku, when the Mass touched her, instead of swallowing her like all of her fellow humans, it left her a unique gift… but the gift came at a price.

Set in the events after the original title Submerged, this game puts you into the shoes of Miku, the sister, and her brother Taku, who has made a full recovery from his injury in the previous game. They’ve decided to venture out of the city in search of a new home. However, they have encountered something troubling instead - the Black Plant is angry, as evident by the seething black vines that wrap themselves around the submerged buildings, and Miku is determined to use her gift to heal it by returning its seeds.

As you explore the place, you’ll also find diaries that you can then collect and reassemble into story snippets, revealing more about the world.

Although it is entirely possible to enjoy the story in the sequel without experiencing the original game, you’ll get a bit more insight as to how the ruined cities came to be submerged (there’s a summary of it in the intro, however) and the background of the siblings you play as.

Gameplay

Submerged: Hidden Depths is similar to its original title in terms of its gameplay, offering a chill and relaxing, exploration-driven experience. In this game, you play as either sibling, the sister, Miku, or the brother, Taku, as they travel to a new submerged city that’s under threat from the Black Plant, a.k.a. corrupted plants.

The way to do so is to retrieve the seeds of the plants and return them back to their respective hollows. Each of these seeds is located on a building, usually a pretty iconic one for the city, that you’ll have to find first. This is where the exploration part of the gameplay comes in.

In Submerged: Hidden Depths, you’ll need to scout out your surroundings using the telescope to mark out interesting points-of-interests or POIs, and then you can travel to said location via boat, or in cases where the place is already cleared, fast travel. Besides seeds, the POIs also contain diaries, relics, and boat upgrades that you can collect.

Finding and getting to the location is only half of the fun though. Most buildings come with an intricate set of platforms and you’ll need to help either of the siblings make their way via light parkour to find whatever that needs finding. This part of the gameplay prominently shows off the game’s chill design. Had the devs wanted to make this a more brutally challenging game, they could have easily done so by testing your reflexes as you help Miku swing from rope to rope, or as you try balancing her on narrow pillars or planks, timing jumps, etc.

Instead, in this game, jumps are done automatically and there’s no way for you to fall (to your death). It’s hard to even get lost here. The only challenge left is to make sure you explore every inch of the place to find everything you can collect, whether it is a diary entry or another kind of collectible, like flowers that sometimes grow on the sides of the building. There are also plenty of other collectibles, including animals that you may encounter in your journey while sailing or scaling buildings. In fact, if compared to the original, there are almost more than twice the number of collectibles here!

There are some very simple puzzles as well - if you could even call them that… puzzles - which involve moving a heavy circular stone so it could hold down a button on the floor, or simply step on a lever to activate something, though most of the time, it’s a bridge.

Submerged: Hidden Depths did everything right with this sequel and is a step-up from the original in every way possible. Even if you haven’t played the first game, you can still easily dive into this relaxing exploration-driven sequel with some light parkour.

Graphics/ Sound

Simply breathtaking graphics with plenty of gorgeous scenery, Submerged: Hidden Depths is the kind of game you can easily lose yourself in. The game world is so well built, and considering that you’re given absolute freedom to explore, you can check out every corner of it to your heart’s content.

I’d like to also point out that this game has a Postcard mode a.k.a. photo mode, allowing screenshot aficionados like me to constantly try to find the best angle to take the most brilliant screenshots.

The animations here are worth pointing out as well. Both Miku and Taku move so smoothly in this game, whether it is climbing vines and jumping from platform to platform, or sliding down pipes and swinging from rope to rope. The camera angles also change depending on where your character is and what he/she is doing, allowing you to have a better view of the place and know where you need to go.

I’d also like to commend the team/composer behind the music in this game. Incredible soundtracks that match perfectly with what was playing out on screen, especially during breathtaking moments, such as the first time I recovered a seed. The voice acting is great as well. I love that I can’t understand Miku and Taku since it makes the game that much more realistic.

Conclusion

Submerged: Hidden Depths is everything a relaxing, collection-heavy adventure game should be and is an incredible sequel to what was already a fantastic original. The game lets fans dive more into the world Submerged is based on while giving enough background so that new players don’t feel left out of the story. The animations and graphics are even better than before, and honestly, this sequel improves on the successes of the original title. I truly can’t wait for Submerged 3!

New Game Added: Submerged: Hidden Depths

by Aethyna Apr 16, 2022

Following the adventures of siblings, Miku and Taku, once again, you’ll join them on yet another breathtaking journey in Submerged: Hidden Depths as they explore a brand-new city while trying to cleanse it from the corrupted vines of the Black Plant, restoring nature to what it is supposed to be.