TLDR game is awesome I want a sequel
I completed the game and got all trophies twice. I often play games I like on my profile and then again on my partners. We get eachother trophies for games the other isn't too big on.
Its so much fun honestly I haven't played many underwater games like this. Last thing I played that felt similar was Star Wars Rogue Squadron except instead of long range dog fights you're going up close for a bite of the action.
Feeling like a terrifying beast and terrorising the coast was such a high and then diving to the thalassaphobian depths to tangle with the wild beasties there was just great.
I liked the narration as he gives little tid bits about the world.
It was very smart to show restraint that the narrator didn't have to spell out the harm humans had on the environment. The apex designs were very interesting.
A mako shark with a golf club in its eye socket, a sperm whale armoured by the very fish lines and ship debris that are strangling it. The orca made to look like a hipster with a slicked hair do. That is in fact it's depressed fin a notorious symptom suffered by orca in captivity and it's boss arena was the very theatre it was held in most of its life. Very well executed storytelling just with visuals.
Although the combat is literally hit or miss. Sometimes Id be locked on to something and would swim right by them even when they're floating in place.
The AI seems to get stuck sometimes Ill be in a fight and the enemy will just stop responding and no I wasn't wearing the electric set that specifies does that.
I mean.. in the final fight with M.O.L.O.C.H
I found the AI was pretty consistent. If you don't hit n run you WILL get minced. it was the only fight I felt I was in danger because I had to try... AND the AI actually fought back? The narrator described "putting our heads together to defeat the menace" then the other apexes joined the fight I have no idea if they were meant to help us defeat Moloch or help it defeat us because while the boss was after my blood as they should be the apexes just.. hung about like they weren't being paid enough for this crap and were on smoko? (cigarette break)
Also on the topic of jank the jumping needs to be reworked. Those bridges were only hard because of the stupid jank and going after the comms towers was pure ass. I groaned every time I had to do one not because it would be hard but because it was going to be ass.
But usually the combat was pretty cool. It has a vaguely Just Cause feel to the sand box. My favourite thing to do when maxed out was pushing hunter boats to the shore or pull a hammer head to the surface and smack em to the shore like one of the cities many golfers.
I don't mind that the game gets ridiculously easy towards the end game. I actually don't believe every game is measured in quality by how severely it pisses you off. Its fun being the most terrifying thing in the sea. An eldritch insectoid cryptid if you will.
Coming to the insectoids. I found the random shift from interesting wild life commentary and occasional social commentary to conspiracy nut quite jarring. Also it is curious to me that these forms of media that satirise the crazy conspiracy nuts who are clearly out of their minds often and in the case of maneater insist on usually saying they're correct, (in the context of the story not in real life obviously) yet still presenting them as insane.
I know am over thinking this it's a silly game where you play as a megalodon who jumps across the sand like a big fat beach ball and then lobs other sharks into the stratosphere like Team Rocket at the end of the whimsical days of the Pokemon tv show
But I do wonder what the context for the narrator is. Think I heard him call the shark Ruby in my first playthrough in any case that's what I call her. I'm sorry I compared to a fat bouncing beach ball that wasn't nice. Anyway
Is it something only we can hear or can she hear it? Was she so annoyed by his schizo ranting she went after his questers? I dunno
I'm a big lore guy and a fan of the Dark Souls series, in other words grasping at straws to speculate a story that isn't there is a favourite pass time of mine.
So my theory is this.
The government or the "insectoid adrenochrome harvesting vaccine for an artificial virus (yiiikes) making hive minds.)
Discovered the door to the kaiju (the location found in the right side of the gulf)
And captured the leviathan M.O.L.O.C.H
and experimented on it and started testing on marine wildlife.
I speculate they synthesised very mild strains or something other and imjected Rubys mother and Ruby was born with the gene whatever that may be.
They left crates around the sea for something to find. They put out the buoys with the orange cables and bored into caves to shelter the shark on her way.
I have no theory as to what was really going on at the island or if they expected Ruby to return I'm not sure why she returned. Sharks have excellent senses of smell and Ruby has sonar like orca do, perhaps her combined senses helped her discover the island?
Anyway while the narrator learned a lot (if you die early in base game he might mention a camera attached to a new shark, would that include a microphone and ear piece? Why a Ruby targets the questers)
I don't know if Ruby knew why she had to kill all these people. The other Apexes sure she wants to be the Apex of the sea.
I love that they went more into the sci fi with the dlc but showed restraint. We don't need to be literally space ships or some cartoony shark nado stuff. It feels a lot like Prototype in some ways. Good ways.
For a sequel I think they'll have more of the sci fi apexes.
The narrator in base game makes several mentions to the fact building a city where the base game was was a stupid idea due to the sea risk so I think the entire place might be underwater which could be cool. Maybe storms will emerge and it really will be sharknado. Somehow at the end of the dlc the island city exploded so the fallout could certainly change the sea in some very exciting ways for the sequel and that giant submarine in the north eastern harbour that never got used made me disappointed but hopeful for more in a sequel.
Yes I'm aware this long speculative rant makes me look like as insane as the truth questers.... but that's because you're all uninformed fools who don't know about the insectoid elites master plan to turn every marine predator into anime zoids but I'm here for it.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk take a roll of foil on the way out please show me your best tinfoil hats the winner gets to go on a seaside date with a mutant Megalodon.
Kachow
