00:00:02.22 Dave J. Hello everybody, my name is Dave Jackson and you're listening to Tales from the Backlog. This is a video games deep dive review podcast where each week I'm joined by a guest to bring a game out of the backlog, play it and discuss. My guest today is a friend of the show, one of the hosts of Monster Dear Monster podcast and a renowned sushi chef. Welcome Dave Cox. 00:00:26.04 Dave C. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. It's finally great to be out of the midnight sea. 00:00:31.42 Dave J. That's right, yeah. ah Good to ah finally have you on the show. I've been thinking about some way to get you on the show for a while now. Happy to have you here. And we have a special game today. ah So good to have you here, man. 00:00:47.72 Dave J. Today, we are going to be talking about Dave the Diver, which is a resource management slash adventure game developed and published by Mint Rocket for contemporary systems in 2023. Real quick, Dave the Diver is on the show because it won a poll on Patreon. It was submitted for the poll by Aaron Angle. Thank you, Aaron, for submitting this. And thank you to everyone who voted in the poll. All patrons can vote in future polls. So just a little quick plug for that if that sounds cool to you. And if this is your first time listening to the podcast, here is how spoilers work. 00:01:24.18 Dave J. We are not going to spoil the story in the early portion of the episode. And I think like the meatiest portion of the episode today will be non-spoiler and then we'll warn you when spoilers are starting. And then you can leave if you don't want to be spoiled on what happens in Dave the Diver. You can also check down in the show notes. There is a timestamp for when those spoilers begin. So ah let's get into it. What is Dave the Diver? We have prepared some elevator pitches to describe ah what this game is. I say, Dave the Diver, in Dave the Diver, you scuba dive to catch fish to serve in your restaurant, to make money, to dive deeper, to catch bigger fish, to serve in your restaurant, to make money, to, you know, Dave, what would you say? What's the pitch? 00:02:09.41 Dave C. The pitch is you're on a sweet, sweet Island vacation and an old friend comes to get you to make you do work. 00:02:20.14 Dave J. When you put it that way, it might be a bad omen for the rest of the episode, the rest of the game. 00:02:27.25 Dave C. I mean, some people love their work and Dave loves diving. 00:02:27.35 Dave J. um Yeah, that's true. he he If there are two things that Dave loves, he loves to dive and he loves sushi. So it might not be the worst deal for him. 00:02:38.85 Dave C. Yeah. 00:02:39.80 Dave J. So let's talk about what got us interested in playing Dave the Diver. So always start with the guest. ah Dave, was this on your radar before? Was there something that drew you to this in the first place other than the protagonist's name? 00:02:53.85 Dave C. and Not really. So I remember the little trailers for it and it looked interesting. I liked the art style um and it looked like it had a little bit of weird and 00:03:01.28 Dave J. Mm-hmm. 00:03:09.12 Dave C. After playing, I think it's Subnautica, where you're diving down and there's some critters in the deep dark. 00:03:11.98 Dave J. Yeah. 00:03:17.38 Dave C. ah This looked a little less tense, so I could probably enjoy my diving experience versus that. 00:03:22.55 Dave J. Yes. 00:03:24.19 Dave C. But yeah, aside from ah the um like the little, the Dave signal that popped up to get me over here. 00:03:29.81 Dave J. Mm 00:03:31.85 Dave C. um Yeah, I probably wouldn't have gotten into this one, or been able to just sit in the backlog. 00:03:34.19 Dave J. hmm. Okay, yeah, yeah, well, it's always a, ah you know, no matter the reason for inviting people on the show, it's always good to have a reason to get these games out of the backlog, you know, ah for me to like, I personally wasn't super interested in it. The reason it's on the show is mostly because it won that poll on Patreon. And ah it was in that poll in the first place because it's on PS Plus at the time of recording, so technically it's in the backlog, it's fair game. and um This is not normally my kind of game. I have a pretty pessimistic view, honestly, about games like this, the games that have the endless gather, sell, upgrade, loop, you know? 00:04:21.20 Dave J. um they kind of feel cheap to me. And every time I see a trailer for another game that looks cool, and it's like, gather resources to build your base and upgrade your equipment. I'm like, ah man, skip, not me. So the one thing though, that did make this kind of like, But two things that made me kind of like consider this one more than others. The art style looks cool. I like the ocean. Okay. Three things. I like the ocean. So like a scuba diving thing and good point, like about subnautica, uh, it seemed like a scuba diving game. 00:04:57.49 Dave J. That's not going to make me shit my pants when I'm playing it because I played subnautica also. And that game's terrifying. 00:05:02.94 Dave C. Yeah, yeah, I didn't, I didn't get too far in that, um, for that reason. 00:05:03.95 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah, but honestly I put Subnautica down too because it got to that point where it was like you went on this risky trek down in the depths to gather this thing and then you come back and they're like, you can build this thing in your base now and then you can go back down and gather more stuff. And I was like, I don't want to do that. so i 00:05:27.20 Dave C. ah I don't want to die back down. 00:05:29.12 Dave J. I don't, that's, that's part of it too. 00:05:30.23 Dave C. Yeah. 00:05:30.81 Dave J. Like part of it is I'm scared. I'll be honest, but the other part of it is like, I'm not motivated by these kinds of games. The other thing that made me take note though, is this game got crazy critical reception, like over 90 on open critic and those sites like that. 00:05:37.56 Dave C. Mm. 00:05:46.97 Dave J. So like. Even if it's not a game I'm normally interested in, any time a game gets wild unanimous praise, I always kind of take note of it at least and be like, maybe there is something there because there are thousands of these games all the time now. So that was part of it too. 00:06:07.67 Dave C. Yeah, I mean, there has to be something that puts it above all of the others in the same genre. 00:06:11.82 Dave J. Yeah. 00:06:14.36 Dave C. that got a lot, you know, that got people to play. And I and I heard it through the at the time, like the Twitter vine, um people were playing it when it came out. 00:06:23.80 Dave J. Yeah. 00:06:23.86 Dave C. And I was just like, Oh, I mean, that sounds cool. I'll just file that little ah file away, you know, put it on my wish list and see if it comes up on a sale or something sometime. 00:06:32.79 Dave J. Yeah, exactly. 00:06:33.00 Dave C. And it was a multi-platform release. So this ah for me was like, Oh, it's a perfect fit for the switch, because I can just kind of 00:06:38.94 Dave J. Hmm. 00:06:42.44 Dave C. dive around and then go to bed. like I don't have to sit there and spend all of this time and during the day and have to hook up a TV and make a big mess trying to put my PlayStation together. 00:06:45.00 Dave J. Yeah. 00:06:54.07 Dave J. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So ah to get into our our opening thoughts here at the top of the episode, um out on Front Street, I was pessimistic going into the game, I will admit that, ah but there have been games like this on the on the podcast in the past, these crafting type games that I really loved, like Spiritfarer, This War of Mine is another one, I really love those games. I i hate this game, I think this game is, ah I think this is, 00:07:23.89 Dave J. well We'll make the distinction right now. It is not a poorly made game, okay? So like when people say they like this game, I understand what people are getting from this, but I don't think there's anything of substance in this game. I genuinely dislike my time playing this. Every time I quit the game after playing it, I was in a worse mood than I was when I started playing it. And I got this sense that Everyone who hypothetically ever in my life told me that video games were a waste of time was right after I finished playing this game. Like, I could feel myself wasting my time playing this and not getting anything out of it other than a way to make time pass. 00:08:15.38 Dave J. There are things to like about this, like mostly aesthetic things that I think are actually really, really good, but the story, the gameplay, none of it did anything for me. It's one of my least favorite games I've ever done on the podcast. 00:08:31.23 Dave C. Well, I can't even sit like this faintly, but it's like a damning praise. Um, yeah, that's, I don't know that I, that's the feeling I got from it, but we'll, I'll get into that in a minute. 00:08:42.65 Dave J. Yeah, for sure. Do you, do you have any opening thoughts here about just generally how you feel about the game? 00:08:48.62 Dave C. Yeah. Uh, so I started out the same way where I felt like, Oh no, I've, I've given myself podcast homework. I don't, I don't like to feel like, Oh, it's homework. 00:08:57.08 Dave J. Yeah. 00:08:59.38 Dave C. I want to enjoy the thing I'm doing. Because I have limited free time. 00:09:00.83 Dave J. Mm hmm. 00:09:02.64 Dave C. Um. So yeah, I booted it up in the first, I think, hour or two, ah maybe three hours. That's what it felt like. I put a little bit of time into it, and did a couple dives. And I was like, Oh, no, I have to do chores at night and little mini games that I don't like. i and And the problem is, it's on the switch, which was a great idea. But also now everything's very tiny. And I have old man eyes. 00:09:24.87 Dave J. Hmm. 00:09:26.58 Dave C. I can't always see what the prompts are. 00:09:29.05 Dave J. Yeah. 00:09:29.39 Dave C. So, uh, it became like a chore. Um, and then I got a little further into the game and it, uh, you know, ah unlocks, I guess, I can't say that they're quality of life concessions, but it's putting in systems that I felt like it should have led with rather than like kind of hamstringing you from the beginning. 00:09:37.71 Dave J. Mm-hmm. 00:09:50.25 Dave C. Um, I don't need that kind of progression. My Dave is a professional diver. This is what his job is. This is his livelihood. 00:09:56.88 Dave J. Yeah. 00:09:56.93 Dave C. Like he doesn't. know what dive gloves are. There were just silly things. I'm like, okay. 00:10:02.27 Dave J. Yeah. yeah 00:10:03.50 Dave C. Um, I should have been kitted out for this, like from the beginning, uh, and just left to like Rome. 00:10:03.57 Dave J. Yeah. 00:10:10.46 Dave C. Um, So as those things were added in, I did get a better sense of, okay, I can see what people like why they might have been having fun with this. And so I started to have some fun with it. 00:10:20.57 Dave J. yeah 00:10:21.76 Dave C. ah And then it just kept going. And it's more of a feeling of, okay, I'm enjoying the thing that this is putting down, but I'm not going to enjoy 20 something hours worth. 00:10:36.79 Dave J. Yeah. 00:10:37.18 Dave C. Cause I was like, oh, let me look up to how long to beat and no problem. And it was like, okay, 26. I just, all right. 00:10:43.60 Dave J. Yeah. 00:10:43.72 Dave C. I don't have this kind of legs, you know? 00:10:46.22 Dave J. Right. Yeah, it took me 18 hours to beat it. And I mainlined, I did not do a single bit of side content in probably like the back half of the game. and It's another thing we'll talk about when we talk about what this game is asking you to do. I didn't feel like any of that was worth my time. So I skipped all of it. Still took 18 hours to beat. So it's not a short game. And I can see, like I have seen other people put many, many more hours into it if you really like clicking with it. So yeah. 00:11:19.46 Dave C. Yeah. 00:11:19.49 Dave J. i 00:11:20.87 Dave C. I don't, I can't even, I can't fathom that. 00:11:21.02 Dave J. ah yeah 00:11:24.62 Dave J. No, no, me either. um And again, like before we dive into it, and I'm gonna have a lot of like, not nice things to say about this game, I do think again, that this game is not like poorly made, or that there's like, these huge problems with like, you know, things that don't work or anything like that. And I'm not sure why I viscerally disliked it as much as I did, but I did. Uh, so, and it's not like I was grumpy about video games at the time or playing games for the podcast because all the other games I was playing concurrently, I was having a great time with. 00:12:01.51 Dave J. So it's just Dave the diver for me, uh, and 00:12:06.40 Dave C. Well, I mean, some of that could be soured by comparison. If you're enjoying something else and then this one's just not really clicking, you can get a feeling of, well, I could be playing the other thing I'm liking. 00:12:12.71 Dave J. Yeah, exactly. 00:12:17.48 Dave C. And so then it becomes like an extra, it's an extra step. 00:12:17.77 Dave J. Yeah. 00:12:21.25 Dave C. Like, okay, I've got to boot this thing up. Got to do it for something that I said I was going to do. And now I'm resenting it. 00:12:29.35 Dave J. yeah 00:12:29.47 Dave C. And now I'm resenting Dave and Dave's otherwise fine. 00:12:29.97 Dave J. Yeah. 00:12:32.62 Dave J. Yeah. 00:12:33.71 Dave C. If it was just Dave, if it was just Dave, the diver, I would have been all, all aboard. 00:12:33.87 Dave J. I, that. 00:12:37.11 Dave C. Let's just dive around. 00:12:37.43 Dave J. it's, it's possible. Yeah, I will, I will allow that possibility. But when we, when we get into it, there's just like, there's a lot of stuff I really didn't like. 00:12:44.13 Dave C. Yeah. 00:12:46.67 Dave C. Hmm. 00:12:47.36 Dave J. And the, yeah, 00:12:47.48 Dave C. I mean, that's, that's not what the game is. So, you know, you could, you could, what if all kinds of things, but at the end of the day, this is the, we, this is the game we got. 00:12:57.33 Dave J. Yeah, for sure. And one more note here because this is a thing that people bring up to ah people who are doing critique for a podcast or writing reviews or anything like that. This notion that the fact that you're doing it for the podcast or for a written review or something like that will make you feel some kind of pressure to play it when you don't want to. or ah you know time pressure or something like that. I was not under a time crunch at all. I finished this game several weeks ago now. And ah like I said, I very rarely feel like it is homework to play the games I'm doing for the podcast. um Three other games I'm playing concurrently like right now don't feel like homework. I'm having a good time. It's what I would be doing anyway. 00:13:50.16 Dave J. This one felt like homework. 00:13:50.14 Dave C. Yeah. 00:13:51.32 Dave J. And I think part of it too is that it's like, well, I'm playing like I'm playing lost Odyssey right now and I'm enjoying playing lost Odyssey, but I can't play lost Odyssey right now. Cause I need to make Dave the diver progress. And this one did actually feel like that, that type of like, you got to take your medicine before you're allowed to play the thing that you really want to play, which, uh, yeah, just unfortunate, but. 00:14:15.73 Dave C. Yeah, I mean that, that, that's that whole resentment angle. And, um, I guess I'll go for a full disclosure, um, if we're, because this is a review format, um, I did not finish this game. I made it about 10 hours in and I just kind of liked it. And That's when I went out to look up how long to beat. How much more can there be? And then I'm going, wait, I'm still in chapter one. but There's a lot more to the game. 00:14:37.80 Dave J. Yeah. 00:14:37.96 Dave C. And I just do not have the time. I'm very busy. I have a lot of other podcast obligations. but it's not just that. It's just real, like everything. um I do a lot of stuff. 00:14:49.32 Dave J. Yeah, yeah. 00:14:50.96 Dave C. And so I had kind of set aside time to play this game. And I'm, I'm looking at the, the, the times I had set and then just kind of tabby that up in my head. I'm like, it doesn't take like a month, like, like longer than I want to spend on it. 00:15:06.91 Dave J. Yeah. 00:15:07.08 Dave C. And longer than I had, like I'm going to, because it would take that long in these weird little bite size chunks of me doing the same. It is not like changing what you do in the game. 00:15:18.98 Dave J. Right. 00:15:19.38 Dave C. Uh, that's going to make me upset with it. And you know it'll get rid of any kind of good graces I had. 00:15:22.87 Dave J. Yeah. 00:15:26.40 Dave C. Whereas because the loop was the same thing, putting 10 hours in, I'm like, nothing's going to change with the game. like it's. It's just going to be doing this. And the only thing different is there's going to be more of the story. And I put some quotes around there um for that. And I was OK with that. You know what? I put my time in. I understand what the game's doing. I understand what it's offering. And I can just, I'll catch up the story bits um online because yeah, I would like to know how it ends, you know, but I also don't want to spend 10, 15 more hours ah doing this game. 00:16:03.57 Dave J. Yeah. 00:16:04.00 Dave C. Um, and that's again, I don't think as much for us, it's not a slight on the game. It's just not for us, uh, because everyone else that I talked to and I checked with a bunch of people that enjoy all the different manners of games, not like, Oh, these are my souls buddies and I'll see what they think. It's, I just, you know, you get a kind of a, I wanted to get a good cross section and pretty much. 00:16:23.17 Dave J. yeah 00:16:28.03 Dave C. I wasn't getting that feeling from anybody else. Everyone was like, if they didn't like it, they're like, oh, you know, I just, I didn't play it. Okay. Did you play it? Yeah, I played it. It was great. Okay. 00:16:38.83 Dave J. Yeah. 00:16:39.24 Dave C. Like it, it wasn't a divisive thing. It was, everyone kind of fell on the side of that. 00:16:42.37 Dave J. Right. 00:16:44.88 Dave C. It was good. 00:16:46.05 Dave J. Yeah. 00:16:47.12 Dave C. And I just wasn't... I'm like, I'm not getting that. I don't... I like art. I like the little beep beep beep beep of the voices. um Because it reminds me of... 00:16:54.84 Dave J. Mm 00:16:57.11 Dave C. it reminds me of basically like Old King's Quest or like Leisure Suit Larry, like the original versions. 00:17:02.30 Dave J. -hmm. 00:17:04.12 Dave C. And so I felt like, oh, this is like playing an old Atari game. but like the Atari ST computer. um And so there's like a little bit of nostalgia tied into that style of game. 00:17:13.50 Dave J. Mm-hmm. 00:17:17.91 Dave C. And I was like, okay, maybe if I just cast myself back a little bit, and then I'm going, you know what, teenage me would have not liked this game. 00:17:24.92 Dave J. Yeah, yeah yeah there's a definite thing where like I think even if you are making yourself set aside time to play it, if you liked the game enough, like that would still shine through even if you have limited time or scheduled time to play it, I think. 00:17:25.78 Dave C. You know, 40 something years old me definitely just doesn't have time for this. 00:17:45.91 Dave C. Yeah. 00:17:45.96 Dave J. And also, I will jump on your side here. Having finished the game, what you're doing in the game does not meaningfully change between the first chapter and the last chapter. You're still doing the same thing. There's just more emphasis on the story as it goes along. So I think that even if you just played the first chapter and played over 10 hours of the first chapter, ah you do have a meaningful idea of what the game is. 00:18:05.08 Dave C. Yeah. 00:18:16.48 Dave J. but There's a lot of stuff to cover. So we'll put a pin in this. 00:18:19.56 Dave C. OK. 00:18:20.67 Dave J. We'll listen to a bit of music. We'll reset. We'll come back. We'll set up what the story is about in Dave the Diver. 00:18:29.72 Dave J. In Dave the Diver, you play as Dave, who is a diver, a skilled diver. And at the beginning, he's approached by his friend Cobra, and Cobra has a business opportunity over at a place called the Great Blue Hole, which is similar to things in the real world, just a big ass hole in the ocean. Lots of biodiversity and stuff down there. There have been strange phenomena observed at the Great Blue Hole. ah They say the layout of the depths change every day, and that means an opportunity to source seafood for a sushi restaurant. So Dave is tasked with helping the sushi chef. The chef's name is Boncho. Dave is going to go down in the depths, gather seafood, and then at night go up and help in the sushi restaurant. 00:19:19.92 Dave J. Now, complicating the quick little setup is that there are strange earthquakes happening around. ah So they feel unnatural in a way. So there's some kind of unnatural thing happening down in the Great Blue Hole. But this is the story setup for Dave the Diver. You are just kind of chilling out here. You go diving during the day. You go help in the restaurant at night. And then all the while investigate what's going on down in the Great Blue Hole. So what did you think of this story setup? Did it intrigue you at the beginning? 00:19:54.64 Dave C. Yeah. So reading through the wikis to kind of catch up on the the story stuff toward the end, um, just cemented like my feeling of, I would have watched this as like, uh, like a sci-fi movie, like a just moving you on the sci-fi channel, um, or even something kind of like lost, just do like a short, like eight episode little series. 00:20:07.72 Dave J. Mm-hmm. 00:20:20.89 Dave C. Um, I just think the mysteries of this blue hole and that you know the divers come in and you could have several so much fun with it. 00:20:30.26 Dave J. Yeah. 00:20:31.32 Dave C. And so I liked yeah I like the setup I liked the mystery I love this like. kind of sort of return to Blue Lagoon slash abyss, all those. I like those kinds of movies. So um this has a very cinematic feel to it, um despite it being like these, low you know, these low poly graphics. 00:20:53.58 Dave J. Yeah, it it could be like a summer blockbuster type of of movie or like fuck. It's almost like Jason Statham in that one movie where he's fighting the giant sharks or something like that. 00:21:03.04 Dave C. No, Meg, the Meg. 00:21:04.94 Dave J. Yeah. 00:21:05.48 Dave C. ah Yeah, no, it's like that. 00:21:05.55 Dave J. Yeah. 00:21:07.20 Dave C. Like, ah whatever that, um there's that Chinese production company, maybe they can make a movie out of this. 00:21:13.83 Dave J. Yeah. 00:21:13.95 Dave C. They seem to like to produce stuff like this. 00:21:16.63 Dave J. Yeah, so that setup is interesting. And like, you know, the simple thing, you go down, you get sushi, help out in the sushi restaurant at night. And then there are these mysteries that are teased really early on. So there's the earthquakes, there's a giant squid that's going around, like destroying stuff. And then they also find an artifact from this ancient civilization. So there's another story thread that becomes important as you go on. um So the setup and like the intrigue of all of those things are interesting and I think you said earlier in the show That one of the things that kind of made this like catch your eye a little bit is there's that feeling that there's there's some weird to this game like you they would do something interesting once you figure out what's going on and like so 00:22:01.23 Dave C. Yeah. 00:22:07.72 Dave J. There are things in this game that I think are fine and I don't personally like. And then there are things that I think are bad. And I think that the first thing that is bad about this game is that the story is not weird. It does not capitalize on the promise of limitless things that could happen in the Great Blue Hole. You're diving down into the abyss and nothing weird or really interesting happens. It's like they did like the rated G version of this. 00:22:37.75 Dave C. ah yeah 00:22:39.40 Dave J. And like, so I obviously won't spoil what happens here, but like, I'll spoil one tiny thing. It happens in like the first couple hours, depending on how long it takes you to get through it. You find a race of people that live underwater. And of all of the ways that this could articulate within the story and within the gameplay, what this game chooses to do is say, okay, gain their trust by delivering sack lunches around town for these sea people. 00:23:12.09 Dave J. And it does not get any more interesting than that as it goes. And so, I will talk about it. I don't love the gameplay in this, but as I'm going on, I keep hoping they're going to do something interesting and the game ends before anything interesting happens with this. And it's like, it's a huge shame because it's a huge lost opportunity, I think. 00:23:31.90 Dave C. Mm hmm. 00:23:37.73 Dave C. Yeah, and that's something that even as far as I got into it. um They're teasing things and and i I read, ah of course, how all that pans out and I'm just like, I don't It's doing the, the bare minimum and like surface level, uh, archetype of, of, of not just not really the characters, but the, the plot, like the little bits that the little it's it's checking stuff off a list of what's in this kind of genre, like check, check, check, but it's not even giving you ah enough of it. 00:24:05.89 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah. 00:24:16.63 Dave C. It's just like a little inkling. Okay. We checked that off, it appeared um in the same way that there's a lot. So the ah creators of this have a love for, Movies and I think um ah Multimedia of that are in this genre um There's nods to like Michael Bay and just like it's just like schlocky ah ah popcorn Hollywood like blitz movies um and and some be Movies and things and but that that's all it is. 00:24:37.56 Dave J. yeah yeah 00:24:52.78 Dave C. It's just like some lip service to that But I don't do anything with it. So that comes a little bit disappointing. 00:24:58.83 Dave J. Yeah, 00:24:59.94 Dave C. Yeah 00:25:00.51 Dave J. Yeah, it is to its credit, a couple things to its credit for sure. I think it's a pretty funny game. ah So like things that happen are always presented through that like blockbuster or even like comedy lens, I guess, there's like very little in this game that's presented in a serious light. 00:25:16.06 Dave C. Mm hmm. 00:25:20.49 Dave J. So I think humor kind of worked differently for different people, but I did find this game to be pretty charming. And keep in mind, I was often in a bad mood when I was playing this, and I still found a lot of things funny. So that is a credit to this. ah I think one thing that I think exemplifies the humor is some of the side characters that you meet are pretty cool, pretty funny to ah to go hang out with, go talk to Bancho, the sushi chef, I think is the best character in the game, like 00:25:51.81 Dave J. by a pretty wide margin. But there's like the weeb guy who makes your weapons. He's kind of funny. um Cobra's kind of funny with his like, ah willingness to just throw Dave into harm's way, like very nonchalantly, just yeah, had just gone down into the abyss, it'll be fine, man. ah So I think a lot of those side characters in like the overall like humorous tone, I think work pretty well. 00:26:19.97 Dave C. Yeah. And that's something where, I dunno, I feel like Dave is getting taken advantage of like often. 00:26:30.42 Dave J. Hmm. Yeah, for sure. 00:26:31.16 Dave C. And he's not given his own agency, like at all. 00:26:35.92 Dave J. Oh no. 00:26:35.90 Dave C. Everyone just tells him to do stuff and he's just like, I guess I gotta go do the thing. 00:26:36.40 Dave J. Dave is not a character. 00:26:41.21 Dave J. Yeah. Dave's not a character. Uh, earlier I kind of made a joke that if there's two things he loves, it's sushi and diving. And that is, that's his entire character, basically. 00:26:51.32 Dave C. Yeah. 00:26:52.31 Dave J. Yeah. 00:26:53.12 Dave C. I didn't know the stuff he doesn't want to do, maybe because he'll let you know. 00:26:53.44 Dave J. Uh, Yeah. 00:26:57.49 Dave C. It's like, I didn't. Yeah, I don't, I'm not, that doesn't sound great. And then he's like, well, I guess I don't have a choice. Um, it's like, well, I mean, you do, but yeah. 00:27:05.15 Dave J. Yeah. 00:27:08.63 Dave J. Yeah, you could just lay by the beach. You could do that. 00:27:12.13 Dave C. Like that sounds way better than this. I might if I do it if I'm being honest. Just go sit up by the beach and go, let's go hang out in Margaritaville. 00:27:15.93 Dave J. Yeah. 00:27:21.24 Dave C. I will say that, yeah, most of the side characters, um like they're people, they're, everyone's quirky, but I would like, I wouldn't mind hanging out with them. 00:27:30.49 Dave J. Mm hmm. 00:27:31.70 Dave C. Like everyone, Oh yeah, we'll just sit at the bar and have a few drinks and just chill. Like that, that sounds fine. Um, this other stuff that you're getting into is, uh, some of the sounds are very dangerous and I'm not on board with that. 00:27:43.89 Dave J. Yeah, yep. While we're on the subject of Dave, there was one thing that I really didn't like is Dave is fat, he's overweight, and it is commented and joked about constantly throughout the game ah that Dave is overweight. And as a former fat guy, myself, who is still sensitive to things like that, um I hate this. I hate that there is almost nothing about Dave that other characters comment on other than the fact that he's overweight. ah he and there's The only thing about his character that the game presents to you is he wants to dive, he wants to eat sushi, and then the other characters, most people that meet him, will comment on this. 00:28:30.94 Dave J. there They'll say things like, oh, I thought that was a blue manatee, but it's actually a human. Ha ha ha ha. That was a joke about how big he is. It's a good joke, right? I hated this. I don't know if other people are sensitive to this, but like for me and my own personal experience, I, i yeah, completely rubbed me the wrong way. 00:28:55.01 Dave C. yeah uh so those are things um my she's And on the show, I think so. Yes. So, uh, my wife, Jala, uh, her podcast is on, it's not just health and wellness, but it's on like improving yourself and, um, a lot of social issues and things like fat phobia, uh, where she takes those and takes an academic look at them, but then also gets experiential, um, chats with, with listener with other hosts, I guess. 00:29:16.86 Dave J. yeah 00:29:27.59 Dave C. And. not because of that, but that also was on the forefront of my mind when these things started cropping up because it happens immediately in the game. 00:29:36.97 Dave J. Yeah. Mhm. 00:29:40.28 Dave C. And yeah, it was in poor taste. They kept doing it. And I was like, no, I love this little roly poly dude. Like let him dive. Is he so graceful? Like it's, it's fine. It's not a, um, none of that is just him. It's not a flaw. That's not something you have to point out. Um, and if you're like, you do that, but then you don't acknowledge all the stuff that he's doing for everybody. Like none of the things can move forward in this game except without you doing it as Dave. 00:30:11.09 Dave J. Yeah. 00:30:11.68 Dave C. And he likes his weight has no bearing on him as a person or him in his ability to do things he likes to carry out his life. 00:30:25.59 Dave J. Yeah. 00:30:26.39 Dave C. and for it to be used like this, like to make him the butt of a joke when he's the one taking care of everything for everybody. 00:30:37.19 Dave J. Mm hmm. 00:30:37.23 Dave C. ah Yeah, no, it was really shitty. I didn't um I didn't like that either. ah So yes, when I said everyone's cool to hang out with, ah except for that part, because everybody had had to like stick him in the ribs. 00:30:47.37 Dave J. Yeah. 00:30:51.75 Dave C. I'm like, come on. 00:30:53.02 Dave J. Yeah. 00:30:53.13 Dave C. It's dude, he's other, you know, yeah, he doesn't have a lot of character, but he seems like a pretty cool dude. I don't, I don't think he needed to go that far. No one else is making fun of, uh, Bancho for being bald or, or Cobra for having a bad mustache. 00:31:05.38 Dave J. for the other guy, for his, yeah, his, yeah, or for the other guy, for his like, his anime and like girl group obsession, you know, no one jokes about anything about anybody else. 00:31:16.75 Dave C. Yeah. 00:31:17.05 Dave J. It's just Dave being fat. Um, speaking of Jala's podcast, I was on her podcast on the episode about weight loss and, uh, like, 00:31:19.02 Dave C. Yeah. 00:31:30.98 Dave J. just the whole topic around body image and weight loss. So like this is something that I do care about. 00:31:33.84 Dave C. Yeah. 00:31:37.24 Dave J. And I do recommend people go listen to that ah episode, especially people who want to hear something from me that's not about video games and something about my real life. That episode was really good, good conversation, as Jolla's show always has. But it's a topic that I care about. I think this game was really shitty about it. Everyone just constantly taking potshots at Dave for being overweight is just like, Oh man, this, uh, this sucks. 00:35:23.90 Dave J. Why are we doing this right now? But, you know, Yeah. 00:35:26.42 Dave C. Yeah. Well, and then the thing is he's the player's avatar. Like you're, you're meant to play this and you are Dave. So that's not a great feeling either. I mean, I don't want anyone to say that to another person, but I don't want to be like that secondhand, like, okay, so what are you saying now? Like, because now not only are you like lambasting someone, you're all saying it to me like the player. 00:35:49.84 Dave J. Yeah. 00:35:51.84 Dave C. I like, but okay. Like, yeah, don't do that. 00:35:55.52 Dave J. Yep. 00:35:55.61 Dave C. and then you, you, you're not doing that kind of humor to any other character. Like no one else is getting that treatment. 00:36:01.39 Dave J. Yeah, exactly. 00:36:02.78 Dave C. So it's just, it comes off as kind of mean spirited. 00:36:05.67 Dave J. Yeah. Mm hmm. 00:36:06.38 Dave C. Yeah. 00:36:07.55 Dave J. It definitely does. Yeah. ah Another thing about the story is ah if we want to talk about, you know, themes or things like that. I personally don't think that there's a lot there in this game, ah but this game does have a bit of environmentalism to it and I did read a quote from the developers who said that one of their initial inspirations ah was to quote, bring awareness to all the beauty the ocean has and how it's slowly fading away, end quote. And it's like there are some ways that this game shows you this kind of environmentalist lean to it. 00:36:47.88 Dave J. But it's either A, played off for jokes, ah like there's this mercenary character that you have boss fights with who yells at you for destroying the underwater sea life while he's shooting grenades and stuff like that. And it's very much played off as this ironic thing. um I also think that this game's entire gameplay loop clashes with the idea of protecting the oceans because 00:37:15.71 Dave C. You're literally farming the entire, uh, the depths. Like you're eating every fish you can find and picking every, um, bits of flotsam and jetsam. 00:37:20.25 Dave J. Yeah, you 00:37:26.95 Dave J. yeah not only that, ah you are there are some animals that you cannot kill, like you can't kill dolphins, you can't kill whales, ah you can't kill, quote, the friendly ones, right? But ah there are plenty of species down here that are, um rare or otherwise endangered, and you're very much incentivized to kill them, bring them back for to sell in the restaurant because you get a bunch of money for them, like narwhals and like the Greenland shark that lives for hundreds of years, you're incentivized to kill them and take them back because the sushi sells for a lot. ah And then 00:38:07.67 Dave J. So like there's that. And then they kind of have at the very beginning of the game, like a few people will comment about like, oh, it's so beautiful. We need to protect this. And nothing happens in the entire game to ever suggest that what you're doing is wrong or that you need to avoid the endangered species or that you need to ah be careful about what you're doing. Nothing happens in the entire story to support a kind of theme like this. 00:38:39.33 Dave J. So, like, it's brought up, but it's that surface level thing again. They never go any deeper than. Let's put a line in here or let's put a joke character in here to make you think like, oh, yeah, we shouldn't shoot fucking grenades underwater and blow this stuff up. It's just like they introduce this 00:39:00.69 Dave C. Yeah. Well, they give you a camera that they could have used so certain things could have just been unselectable as targets. 00:39:04.50 Dave J. Yeah. 00:39:09.72 Dave J. Yeah. 00:39:13.86 Dave C. Um, but you, you could be able to, oh, here's a rare cuttlefish or something. And you can take a picture of it and we can use that for our research. Like you could, there's, there's literally multiple characters in this that are doing scientific, like supposedly doing scientific research. 00:39:30.04 Dave J. yeah 00:39:30.57 Dave C. that you could get them, like, you know, don't make it a make, there's a lot of weird technology in here, make it not a camera, make it like a scanner or something. And you could then you could use that as it as a gamification thing, where you could, you know, aim the scanner beam at them and have to hold it for a certain amount of time to to 00:39:39.35 Dave J. Yeah. 00:39:51.51 Dave C. Any other animal, it would have, you know, that would have been your harpoon or something, but yes, use the scanner beam and then you can get their information and we can, you can put that in your little card catalog to update it. Like a little Pokedex, like that would have been cool. 00:40:03.39 Dave J. Yeah. 00:40:05.96 Dave J. Yeah. This game does have something like that, but the way that you fill it is by killing them and taking them back into the sushi restaurant. 00:40:12.71 Dave C. Yeah. That's what I mean. 00:40:14.67 Dave J. So yeah. 00:40:14.67 Dave C. like if you could just There's non-lethal options to study stuff without having to take it out of its environment um and could have pushed forward, hey, here's a message of like environmental preservation and stuff is failing and here's a way that you can um ah keep the biosphere intact and not like, you're you're like, 00:40:19.85 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 00:40:37.96 Dave C. culling, especially if you're getting any of the large things, like these are huge swaths of the food chain, like that are now not there because you've been killing them. 00:40:50.33 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Like, what if I killed a Greenland shark and brought it back and everyone was like, Hey, those are endangered. What the fuck, man? Like, maybe don't kill those. But no one ever says anything like that. ah In fact, they 00:41:05.46 Dave C. No, it's Oh, that might be delicious. 00:41:07.71 Dave J. It is delicious and it's pricey because it's endangered, maybe. 00:41:10.84 Dave C. Yeah. 00:41:12.64 Dave J. so ah it's it's just like I don't know, man, like I was excited about all the possibilities that this story could take, all the themes it could explore, environmentalism. There's a little bit of climate change, like parallels as the story goes along, but they're not that deep. ah And that's the whole thing. It is a super surface level look at any theme that it wants to introduce. And then on top of all of that, 00:41:43.81 Dave J. the story that has promised to be weird, maybe scary, maybe you introduce some cool sci-fi, maybe you got some cool monsters down there, it has none of that. It's just boring. And so if you're in it for the gameplay and you just want to click through all the conversations, that's fine. But like, That's not what I want out of a game and that's not how I will look at a game for the podcast. So I left this story incredibly disappointed. Like this, this is boring and it sets up a theme and then like goes completely against that theme with the entire like rest of the game. So yeah, yeah not a fan of anything this game is doing with its story really, except for Boncho. He's cool. 00:42:33.80 Dave C. Yeah, I like him when he does his little ah fire um inspiration thing. 00:42:39.67 Dave J. Yeah. um Quick thing. There are two DLC packs with tie-ins with Godzilla and with the other game Dredge, which I did cover Dredge on the podcast. I like that game. It's another one of those crafting games. I like Dredge because Dredge is a weird game. It's very weird. And I like what it's doing. um There are DLC packs. They're both free. They're both really short. um they're both pretty like the dredge one especially is pretty insubstantial it's just a way to make a bunch of money ah with a little bit of dredge flavor the Godzilla one actually does have some like 00:43:16.28 Dave J. Godzilla content in it. um I'll talk about it in the spoiler section. I just wanna point these out because they're free and they're pretty cool. And even if they are short, they're free. So like, I'm not gonna complain about free DLC that's just a half hour long. It's free and I get to see Godzilla. So that's cool. 00:43:33.01 Dave C. always a win 00:43:34.08 Dave J. And the way they presented that was pretty good. I liked it. So it's cool that, and I like, just cool that these crossovers are happening around the industry, especially with, um This game is not indie, but it is a common thing that we see more and more indie studios collaborating and not Because I mean Game development trying to sell video games has to be so cutthroat the competition is insane But there's a lot of these studios that choose to collaborate with each other and I think it benefits them for Dave the diver and dredge to collaborate together the developers it helps them both I think and 00:44:00.36 Dave C. yeah 00:44:14.80 Dave C. Well, it pulls attention, um, to one or the other properties and they're not the same company. So I like it if you hadn't played dredge, but then it pops up, you know, you Oh, the DLC is free. 00:44:19.56 Dave J. Yeah. 00:44:24.01 Dave C. I'll, I'll, I'll get it. And then, Oh yeah, there's weird stuff. 00:44:25.39 Dave J. Yeah. Look at these fucked up fish. Let me, maybe I'll try this game out. 00:44:27.49 Dave C. Oh, there's a whole game where something's like this. Okay. 00:44:30.42 Dave J. Yeah. 00:44:30.67 Dave C. And then there's also Godzilla. Um, and you can go watch a Godzilla movie and have a whole lot more fun than this and it's shorter. 00:44:38.73 Dave J. Yeah. 00:44:40.26 Dave C. I mean, like, you know, Howard, you have two hours, two, three hours. 00:44:40.67 Dave J. Oh my God. 00:44:44.10 Dave J. Yeah. I would watch Godzilla minus one seven times in a row. 00:44:45.61 Dave C. Don't watch, yeah, I was like, what, you got the little minus one. You can see some weird sea creatures too. 00:44:50.10 Dave J. Yeah, exactly. So there's a lot of story stuff happening, a lot of stuff that I think is quite bad. um Let's move into some stuff that I think is good. It's time for some positivity. Let's listen to some music. We'll come back and talk about what this game looks like and talk about the soundtrack. 00:45:09.24 Dave J. Dave the Diver is presented in a kind of pixel art, but like a 3D pixel art type look. It's not like that flat pixel art that you might see in a 16-bit platformer or something like that. It has that side of view, but there is depth to everything. And um I think it strikes a really nice balance between looking kind of retro-ish, but very much like looking like a 3D space, I guess. 00:45:37.74 Dave C. It's like 2.5 D. So there's, depth and there's not only depth, but there's depth of scene because there'll be things happening, um usually to affect like little cut scenes where stuff way, way in the background, uh, as an impact on things in the foreground. 00:45:39.87 Dave J. Yeah. 00:45:53.94 Dave C. Uh, and that's, it's used sparingly. 00:45:54.35 Dave J. Yeah. 00:45:57.67 Dave C. Um, but it also adds a bit of tension to the game. Um, you know, we mentioned that, yeah, you're, you're diving down and it gets dark and there's, there, there's an idea that there could be something spooky, whether or not that happens. It doesn't, but you're given that field of view and they play with it every now and then. 00:46:12.94 Dave J. Yeah. 00:46:20.28 Dave C. And that's fun. So that's definitely a positive. 00:46:24.35 Dave J. Yeah, like we said, there's a giant squid around and there's some parts where you'll be swimming around. You might see that giant squid's eye in the background. and You just be like, Oh, it's watching. So the way that's presented is really nice. Um, I like the little pixels, like 3d pixel sprites for the fish. I thought those were really cool. Uh, especially on the loading screens, it will just isolate those and blow them up. So you can see like, uh, just these, these little recreations of all the animals. They're really good. 00:46:51.51 Dave C. There's a lot of detail in them, and I was really surprised because, like I said, I played this on a Switch, so my screen's very tiny. 00:46:53.58 Dave J. Yeah. 00:46:58.05 Dave C. ah But you can tell, even with a few pixels, like what each fish is, like once you, once you encounter them enough, you can look and say, oh, that's a little clam, or, you know, that's, that's a, that's a ah blowfish, you know, and it puffs up, it's or a a puffer fish. 00:47:04.43 Dave J. Yep. 00:47:15.01 Dave J. Mm 00:47:17.05 Dave C. um And everything has distinct animations. 00:47:19.83 Dave J. hmm. 00:47:20.96 Dave C. They all move like fish. Um, and that adds, it adds a lot to the environment. Uh, you feel like you're underwater and they, if they succeeded anywhere, it's with that. And that, I mean, they have to, because like it's an underwater game primarily. 00:47:38.97 Dave J. Yeah. The animations are great. I'm glad you brought those up. The animations for the fish, the they're simple. They're not like super smooth animations like when Dave is swimming, but they're good. I like the way it looks. 00:47:52.68 Dave C. No. 00:47:53.46 Dave J. And um special shout out, especially there are a lot of we'll say animated cutscenes. They're still in this pixel art style, but they are presented as full, fully animated, you know, 3D cinematic cutscenes. So they're always short, but like when you research a new dish, you'll see this thing like Bancho cleans his blade, slices open a fish. Maybe he looks up to the sky, gets like a flash of inspiration, then gets to work making this recipe, stuff like that. 00:48:27.05 Dave C. that or the animation when you like, um, enhance a recipe. 00:48:31.18 Dave J. Yeah. 00:48:31.24 Dave C. And he likes, I think he's sharpening his knife and there's a, there's the fish tank, um, of the sushi bar in the background. of You just, it's just black. And then you see a fish in there and it's like staring at the whetstone. And then once the knife gleams, the fish is like, no, yeah just cause it's like he enhanced the recipe and you know, whatever that means. 00:48:49.91 Dave J. Yeah. 00:48:54.61 Dave C. Um, so. 00:48:54.93 Dave J. Yeah, stuff like that. There's also the one, um my favorite one is ah you have these VIP guests that come in and make special recipe requests in the restaurant. 00:48:56.63 Dave C. yeah 00:49:04.87 Dave J. And when you give that to them, it always plays some version of the famous scene from Ratatouille when the food critic tastes the food and is transported back to his childhood. They have a bunch of different versions of that type of scene and they're all really good. So I love these. 00:49:24.03 Dave C. yeah yeah those are fun um Just a little, so they'll do the same thing when you're upgrading like your weapon, uh, or I guess you're crafting a weapon and the, the nerd weapon guy, like he's like furiously typing on his keyboard and you see his, um, little, his favorite figurine, um, on the desk and his, I think his glasses gleam. 00:49:35.52 Dave J. Mm hmm. Yeah. 00:49:50.28 Dave C. It's fun little stuff. I wish that one had more variety because it just does it every time you're like, okay. I've seen it once or twice. 00:49:55.03 Dave J. Yeah. 00:49:56.36 Dave C. But um yeah, they are full screen, like, little cinematics. So it's good. 00:50:01.30 Dave J. Yeah, they're really good. um So, you know, visually, animation wise, this game is really nice. um As far as sound goes, I think that the, I don't like the ah voice, the voices in quotes, you know, the little beber but but but me but bee but be but but like that when there's typing, that really annoys me in most games. Um, but one thing I did think was funny is, uh, there will be little like one word barks every now and then, um, probably most often when you're in the restaurant and whenever an order is ready to go out, uh, Bancho yells dish and you go back and pick it up. 00:50:41.06 Dave J. I like those little touches, but luckily this game's not super talky. So like you're not sitting there listening to him for like minutes at a time, but. 00:50:51.28 Dave C. No, it's like a couple seconds usually. 00:50:53.27 Dave J. Yeah, not a huge fan of that, but you know, not a big deal. Um, music I think is fantastic. Really, really good. Uh, composing credits to D Anthony Wooten and Jukio Calio. Hopefully I'm saying those names, right? Uh, I love the soundtrack. It's probably my favorite part about this game. 00:51:14.71 Dave C. Yeah, there's a, um, It's a Jamaican Caribbean restaurant we go to every now and then. And it's only, it's just playing like um reggae all the time. 00:51:22.37 Dave J. Mm-hmm. 00:51:27.05 Dave C. So that that just puts me in that like like headspace. I'm like, oh yeah, I just want to sit there and they'll have like a ah football match on um the TV. And there's just Bob Marley in the background. I'm like, okay, yeah, i can I can just chill with this. this that's that's 00:51:39.80 Dave J. Mm hmm. 00:51:41.36 Dave C. The mood that I like the music and stuff gives for the games like just this kind of like island beats and stuff. The music is good. Yeah That's that's it. 00:51:48.72 Dave J. Yeah. 00:51:49.82 Dave C. The music's good and the arts good. It looks nice um the movement of Dave is really good and Then they just drop the ball. 00:51:57.49 Dave J. Yeah. 00:52:00.59 Dave C. I'm like the gameplay loop and the story Well 00:52:03.57 Dave J. Yeah, it's ah it's pretty unfortunate, but at least, you know, 00:52:10.69 Dave J. I think like whatever number score I would give to this game, I think like, I don't know, three or four of those points would be because the music and visuals are so good. Like I really, I could, I could listen to this music easily. 00:52:21.26 Dave C. yeah 00:52:25.65 Dave J. It would be a good time. Like the music when you're underwater is really relaxing and echoey and kind of got that vibe tone to it. I like that a lot. um When you're in the sushi restaurant, it has like this lo-fi hip-hop type sound, but with a little bit of like East Asian instrumentation, gives a little bit of flair to it. It's got like this melody that plays on loop when you're in the restaurant that's pretty good. ah so It's a, it's a really pleasant thing to listen to. 00:52:58.22 Dave J. So like, especially for me, playing a game that I dislike, you know, at least I get to listen to some cool tunes while I do it. Like I shudder to think like, what if I hated the music too? I would have sold my PlayStation or something like that. 00:53:10.49 Dave C. Yeah, it's, it's, it is a deal breaker if there's no, no good tunes. 00:53:13.09 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah. 00:53:14.67 Dave C. Um, and yeah, and that's because the, uh, cosmetically I, I dig the game. 00:53:14.89 Dave J. But this is good. 00:53:22.74 Dave C. Like if you're just on surface level, like if I look at a screenshot or, you know, when I'm playing the game, no, this is great. 00:53:23.73 Dave J. Yeah. 00:53:29.26 Dave C. Um, it, it really just needed to be like an eight hour game. Maybe like, you know, cut it more, and more than in half and. those, all the vibes, all the fun stuff that like that, it just had like the vibe that it's bringing and the atmosphere and the genre. Like I like those things, you know, cut out the crafting, cut out like the busy work, the weird fetch quests and stuff. Don't have that in there. like Make this a clean, you know, tailored and shorter experience. If you have a message, we kind of outlined a few ways 00:54:09.82 Dave C. that you would like um have included and and put like an environmental message or or you know, whatever you wanted to put in there and would have made the thing like a more snappy and positive experience. 00:54:22.60 Dave J. Mm hmm. 00:54:22.88 Dave C. um But you know, we'll talk about the gameplay and everything and kind of that is where the sticking points are. 00:54:32.37 Dave J. Yeah, I think it's time. So let's ah let's let's give people some more of that good stuff. We'll listen to a bit more of that music. We'll come back and talk about what it's like to play Dave the Diver. 00:54:45.88 Dave J. So Dave the Diver, we'll say this at the top. ah Dave the Diver was originally conceived as a mobile game and the development team has a history in making mobile games. The company that made Dave the Diver, ah they usually make mobile and MMO type stuff. um So this is not to say that mobile games don't have anything to offer to quote the serious gamer because that's not true at all. But ah that type of like, Like I can almost feel where the microtransactions would be in this if this was like a free to play mobile game. It has that kind of feel of cheapness to the gameplay mechanics, I think, and like that feeling that everything takes longer than it should. 00:55:35.03 Dave C. Yeah. 00:55:36.00 Dave J. There's too much going into it. Like I can see where they will be like, okay, well, at some point you could grind up money to just buy this thing or not grind up money. You could just pay five bucks to get your diving gloves. So you don't have to go through some weird elongated story quest just to get diving gloves when Dave, like you said at the beginning, he's a semi-professional diver. He should have gloves on at the beginning. What is he doing out there? going fucking raw hands in the ocean like what are you doing man yeah so i like just pointing this out because it kind of like i didn't know this when i started playing it and then when i started to do research for podcast notes i saw this and i was like yep yep so 00:56:05.69 Dave C. but In an unknown place. 00:56:09.71 Dave C. Yeah. 00:56:18.78 Dave C. yeah 00:56:21.78 Dave C. Yeah, I could, yeah, I didn't know that. So knowing that now. Okay. Yeah. The pieces sort of fit. And I can also see a lot of, uh, another big aspect of mobile games, um, particularly if it's a phone game is, uh, you have like, and It's not a health bar it's a like a time allotment on games where you're given like a certain amount of time ah and It'll like you have to wait a day or or you can pay money in it like it'll let you reload your your turn or whatever it is it's it's 00:56:59.91 Dave J. Yeah. 00:57:00.86 Dave C. It's incentivizing um monetization to like to make the play quicker or or or pay to win, you know, and you can see like, yes. 00:57:08.11 Dave J. yeah 00:57:11.76 Dave C. So if you're splitting them, um the diving segments down or. Uh, you know, Dave only has so much oxygen and that here's a three minute dive or two minute dive. When you start, um, yeah, you could say like, oh, well, if I could just, you know, I'll pay like a dollar and then, oh, he gets another minute of air or something. You know, you could, you could see where they could, could have, or would have had this game been another incarnation, like put those things in. 00:57:35.27 Dave J. Yeah. 00:57:44.05 Dave J. Yeah, I think that it's not too big a stretch to ah like to see what this could have been had it followed through that original premise. But ah the game that we got is not like that. So let's talk about what that is. 00:57:57.07 Dave C. No, no. 00:57:58.88 Dave J. ah So the game is split into three times of day that you go through. There's morning, afternoon, and then night. So in the morning and afternoon, you can do two separate dives. And then at night, you go into the sushi restaurant. So we'll talk about the diving part first, then we'll talk about the sushi stuff. ah This is where the crafting loop, the loop of you know you go down, you get fish, sell them at night, upgrade all of your diving gear so that you can dive deeper, stay down longer, have more health. ah Your health is your oxygen. If you get hit, you just lose oxygen. That's how that works. 00:58:36.31 Dave J. So you're constantly upgrading these things. ah You go down, you have a harpoon gun, and you have another weapon like an actual gun. And one thing that I thought was pretty cool initially is that The way that you catch fish will affect how expensive you can sell the sushi. ah So if you shoot a you know fish with a shotgun, it's going to be worse meat than if you harpoon it or use a tranquilizer to catch it alive. Stuff like that. 00:59:10.47 Dave J. Um, this is going to be a common thread through basically every mechanic in the game. It's cool in concept, but it does not matter because you will make plenty of money doing anything in the sushi restaurant that like halfway makes sense. Uh, so I, yeah, this doesn't matter. And the other part is you're kind of incentivized at the beginning to use the harpoon to catch fish, better quality meat, higher price sushi, right? The problem is using the harpoon in this game sucks. It's terrible. 00:59:48.05 Dave J. If you shoot a fish, your harpoon does really shitty damage. So like maybe you need to shoot it with your gun a few times and then use the harpoon. But every time you want to reel a fish in with the harpoon, you have to do a button mash QTE. Sometimes you need to do it two times. And I don't want to do 30 button mash QTEs on a trip down into the ocean. You do two trips per day. And I played this game for 18 hours, you know, like, this is terrible. 01:00:18.28 Dave J. Like, I don't know why this is the way. And then like other types of harpoon tips that you pick up have different little mini games, like a timing one, or what's even worse, one where you have to rotate the thumbstick a bunch of times. Like, I don't know. 01:00:31.69 Dave C. Oh yeah, that was so loud. 01:00:34.22 Dave J. I don't know why this is how the harpoon works. It's terrible. 01:00:39.74 Dave C. Let's pick one way and just stick with it. What if you're going to do that? Like, don't give me multiple ones. 01:00:43.47 Dave J. P it's 2024. Like, did we not get the, did we not get the memo that button mash QTEs are not good? 01:00:49.99 Dave C. Yeah, not a thing. 01:00:51.11 Dave J. Like we stopped doing that a long time ago in most other games, but instead this game is like, here's the thing we want you to use to get better quality meat. 01:00:51.24 Dave C. Yeah, don't do them. 01:01:02.69 Dave J. You have to do a QTE every single time you catch a fish. And most of the time you'll have to do that QTE two times. 01:01:09.69 Dave C. yeah at least sometimes more yeah no i did not like it and then i could like i said i couldn't see the uh when it did the two button one where you have to press like 01:01:11.95 Dave J. Yeah, I don't know. I was really mad at this. du Did you hate this? How did you feel about this? Yeah. 01:01:23.42 Dave C. uh, to two subsequent buttons. 01:01:24.69 Dave J. Oh, like a little combination. 01:01:25.55 Dave C. I didn't know we, I couldn't read what they were telling me to do. I'm like, whoa, there's X. What is that? What's up? What, what, what letter is that? And then it only lasts for like a second. Um, or initially when you're doing it in the button mashing, it's the little dumb golf meter where you have to like, you're spamming it to get, uh, like to fill a bar and you have to, the bar, like. it goes up and down, like even as you have it up. So if you like to let go at all, it drops and then you fail, like catching it. 01:01:51.10 Dave J. Yeah. 01:01:55.96 Dave C. Yeah. 01:01:56.03 Dave J. Now I found out late in my play through because I eventually got to the point where I was like, okay, it's 2024. Accessibility being more of a thing that people care about now, which is good. But a thing that the developers are keeping in mind now, there has to be a way to turn these off. So I went into the options and looked. You can turn off the button mashing, but you still have to do the other QTEs. So I turned off the button mashing. You still have to, you know, you, you harpoon a fish, you have to hold it X for a couple seconds and then it wasn't strong enough. 01:02:31.80 Dave J. Go harpoon the fish again, do it again. Like, yeah, it's, so you, yeah. 01:02:35.46 Dave C. Yeah, just let me harpoon the fish if that's what we're doing. Yeah. 01:02:38.44 Dave J. I mean, so you can turn it off. It's good that you can turn off the button meshes, but I don't know why this is the way it is in the first place. 01:02:46.80 Dave C. yeah Yeah, I didn't jive with that. ah I did so initially the game is kind of roguelike in that um you have your harpoon gun and you have like a diving diving knife. 01:03:01.40 Dave J. Yeah. 01:03:01.82 Dave C. Um, and your little Dave has a little punch to stick, a little stab, a little knife, but it's like an inch from his body. 01:03:06.64 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. 01:03:09.53 Dave C. Um, And then that's your weapon. So you can, you'll start picking up things that you find like in chess when you dive. Um, but there is one use only because the deep blue sea, the deep, the blue hole, um, is like special and anything that you take out of it. 01:03:27.49 Dave J. Yeah. 01:03:33.69 Dave C. And that's, that's, that fell in will fall apart. 01:03:39.73 Dave J. Yeah, something like that. 01:03:39.88 Dave C. So you have to find materials that are like from the, the, um, the whole, uh, and then you can eventually like find and build blueprints to craft like a version of whatever that item, like say it's a ah shotgun or something. 01:03:45.06 Dave J. Yep. 01:03:55.69 Dave C. If you pick up three of the shotguns over three different or over different dives, you'll unlock the blueprint. And once you have the, the, um, requisite materials, you can build that and then you'll just have the shotgun now. 01:04:08.59 Dave J. Yep, yeah. 01:04:08.88 Dave C. Yeah. 01:04:10.42 Dave J. ah Yeah, it was okay. 01:04:10.49 Dave C. I liked that aspect of it. um 01:04:12.97 Dave J. Yeah, it made it exciting to find a weapon that I thought was good because I was closer to unlocking it permanently. 01:04:16.88 Dave C. Yeah. 01:04:20.17 Dave C. I wish, um, I kind of wish instead of unlocking him permanently, they just had like 20 weapons or something. Didn't you just randomly find that guy with the trebuchet, you know, just something really weird, like from these chests, that would have been fun. 01:04:32.89 Dave J. Mm-hmm. 01:04:33.88 Dave C. Um, and like that's not what they did, you know? 01:04:35.02 Dave J. The melee weapons are fun. There's a lot of those and those are, those are, so there are some weird ones. 01:04:36.88 Dave C. Yeah. There's some weird ones like here's your crappy sword. 01:04:40.53 Dave J. Yeah. 01:04:41.30 Dave C. Here's your sharp sword. Okay. 01:04:43.32 Dave J. Yeah. 01:04:43.82 Dave C. Here's a bat. 01:04:44.01 Dave J. Here's a, you know yeah, like a, or a rubber bat, like a kid's toy, baseball bat, stuff like that. 01:04:47.84 Dave C. Yeah. Oh yeah. The rubber hammer. 01:04:50.28 Dave J. Yeah. The rubber hammer. There's a rubber chicken. There's a bunch of fun ones. And then there's real serious ones too. So those are okay. 01:04:56.82 Dave C. Yeah. Here's a sniper rifle. 01:04:57.88 Dave J. ah so 01:04:58.76 Dave C. It's like, okay, sure. 01:04:59.34 Dave J. Yeah. 01:05:00.69 Dave C. Whatever. 01:05:01.80 Dave J. Yeah, guns work underwater, we know this. 01:05:03.84 Dave C. Yeah. 01:05:04.33 Dave J. ah One of the other things you mentioned that kind of like rogue-like next to it is um they say at the very beginning, they tell you this is like part of the story set up too, that the layout of the Great Blue Hole changes every day. And so the way this works in gameplay is that the first section of the Great Blue Hole changes layouts every day. ah The deeper sections do not change at all. So like, you know, figure that out. How does that work? But ah usually like the draw for this in a roguelike is like these proc gen levels or shuffling things is to give you a feeling that every run is different. 01:05:48.86 Dave J. And in Dave the Diver, that is not the case. Every run in the shallows still feels exactly the same. 01:05:55.34 Dave C. Yep. 01:05:55.69 Dave J. The same fish are there. There are no new environmental challenges. ah The thing that happens, though, is that there are these like subsections of this shallow area. There's one called the Limestone Cave. And then there is a shipwreck and stuff like that. Some of those, no, no, not some of them, those things are not always available depending on what the layout of the day is. 01:06:16.03 Dave C. Yeah. 01:06:21.26 Dave J. So this happened to me at least two times. I don't know if it happened to you, but the story is telling me, go to the limestone cave for something. And I dive down there. I could not mentally map where the limestone cave was at all. So I'm scouring this area and I can't find it. and then I realize it's not here today. So I just wasted my time. I can collect fish, I guess, but I don't need more fish. I got plenty of fish. So I guess I'll just go up to the surface and skip diving in the afternoon and try again tomorrow. 01:06:58.93 Dave J. like I think shuffle the thing up, but like leave the key parts of the level in there every day. like i don't know what point I don't know what purpose this is serving. 01:07:06.46 Dave C. Yeah. 01:07:09.30 Dave J. like i There are so many things in this game that like don't make any fucking sense. 01:07:10.96 Dave C. We gave you the option to advance time, but you still gotta go dive and check. 01:07:15.09 Dave J. I don't understand it, man. like Why would they do this? They're like, go to the shipwreck. Too bad the shipwreck's not here today. Go lay in the street and come back tomorrow. 01:07:25.86 Dave C. like think we we we gave you the option to advance time 01:07:29.56 Dave J. Yeah, but like you're only gonna know... 01:07:31.19 Dave C. but you still got to go dive and check 01:07:33.13 Dave J. Yeah, you're only going to know that it's not there after you. 01:07:35.01 Dave C. if you would no 01:07:36.38 Dave J. Yeah, you went and checked. Yeah. Oh my God, it doesn't make any sense. 01:07:41.53 Dave C. Like, oh, I don't see it. I guess I'll just take the little bathysphere back up. 01:07:45.11 Dave J. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, I guess I'll go catch some more lionfish to serve to people tonight. So that's, ah that that's that. 01:07:52.99 Dave C. Yeah. 01:07:53.22 Dave J. um There are also times when like, you know, maybe you go down to like a brand new area, and there's a story purpose that you're chasing down there and the game will like I'm gonna say if it felt like this. It's probably like ah what is Murphy's Law type of thing where I just remember the times that it pissed me off and not the times that it didn't. But there are a bunch of times when you're doing story stuff it will take you to a brand new area with a bunch of new fish and new stuff to see and the story thing will take you there and then immediately yank you out of it. 01:08:27.48 Dave J. right back to the boat and you don't get a chance to explore the new place when you're excited to explore it and that bothered me too it's like i just got to this ice cavern let me explore the ice cavern oh no it's time to go up because this npc says it's time like 01:08:35.12 Dave C. No. 01:08:43.67 Dave J. I don't know. Or they'll say, you get down to the ice cavern, you need a new item to do something down there. It's too hot in the heat vents or whatever in the ice cavern. I don't know. So they'll say, oh, the dude up on the boat, he can make you something that can help you with that. You have to go immediately. Do not explore the ice cavern. Go back to the boat. And it happens over and over again. So the times that I did feel like I was having fun down there, I felt like it was yanking me out of it. It's like I can't win. 01:09:16.39 Dave C. Yeah. And that, that goes back to the, um, thing I said in the beginning, or it's like, I just wanted to dive. Like, let me let Dave, let Dave dive. 01:09:22.88 Dave J. Yeah. 01:09:26.10 Dave J. but Let Dave dive. 01:09:27.76 Dave C. Yes. 01:09:27.98 Dave J. Let Dave dive. 01:09:29.41 Dave C. And it would have been great. 01:09:29.63 Dave J. Free Dave. 01:09:32.28 Dave C. You know, just let, let Dave explore. It's what he loves to do, you know, or sit on the beach. 01:09:36.49 Dave J. Yep. 01:09:37.66 Dave C. Let me pick one of them, I don't want to go, we didn't even talk about it. though The stupid, um, mini games at the sushi bar at night. 01:09:46.59 Dave J. Hmm. 01:09:47.10 Dave C. So that's the other thing is you do the, you, you do your two dives and the morning and afternoon. 01:09:50.33 Dave J. Yep. 01:09:51.62 Dave C. And then at night you go work in the sushi bar. 01:09:52.35 Dave J. Yeah. 01:09:55.59 Dave C. Uh, uh, it's like you're waiting tables. Um, I mean, you're, you're in the bar. So it's, it's like, it's not like tables. It's just like the sushi bar. 01:10:02.83 Dave J. yeah 01:10:04.60 Dave C. Um, it's not hard. It's a little like the porcelain team in the game that I don't like, um, ah bust the table mini game, which is button mashing. 01:10:13.80 Dave J. Yeah, there's a later one that is ah pour a beer and it is really bad. It is such a simple mini game and it's awful. Like it's just, they're like, ah you know, tilt down on the stick to pour the beer and then it is, you get judged on how much head the beer has and it's completely random how it works out and they give you a bad grade for no reason half the time. It's terrible. 01:10:39.66 Dave C. Yeah, yeah 01:10:41.05 Dave J. Luckily, As you go, you can um hire people to work in the restaurant and they will pour the beer and the tea for you, which is cool. So like it kind of shifts from, I literally need to take all the orders out, pour all the tea, bus all the tables to, okay, I've hired these people, they're gonna take care of most of that. I just need to kind of like go where I'm needed every now and then. like got an order to pick up. I'll go pick it up. Oh, we're out of wasabi. Let me grate some wasabi stuff like that. um I kind of liked the sushi part of it. like 01:11:17.39 Dave C. Yeah, I think once they made those concessions like give you help and then um on the wiki, there's, I think it's like 20 people you could conceivably hire. 01:11:17.78 Dave J. i 01:11:29.31 Dave J. Yeah, a bunch of people, um tons of, you know, food that you can make, ah like you're gathering, you're not only gathering fish, but you're gathering ingredients like you find, you know, sesame seeds and oil and soy sauce and stuff like that. So you're building out recipes. I don't kind of like the sushi part, like it's just Like just kind of a nice time, you know, going back and forth, doing these jobs, Bancho's cooking stuff up back there. But like, it's, it's not what it could have been because like everything else in this game, it is. 01:12:09.29 Dave J. It's just kind of like they made it and it works and that's that's it. There's no substance to what you're doing in the sushi restaurant. Like you don't have to really consider what you put on the menu except for like once every in-game week, there will be like, it's tuna day. Try to put tuna on the menu. But the rest of the time everything's fine. As long as the food gets out in time, everybody loves it. There's no like, This dish is much more popular. Hey, maybe we should make more of this. 01:12:39.99 Dave J. Dave, I need you to go get more ah mackerel down there. Like, stop bringing jellyfish back. The people like mackerel. Like, there's none of this. 01:12:47.29 Dave C. Yeah, no, no, I just picked the most expensive I could put on the menu because people would order it didn't matter. 01:12:48.29 Dave J. So, 01:12:52.63 Dave J. exactly that's exactly what it is. Yeah, but there's no, exactly, there's no like, ah hey, everything you put on the list is too expensive. People don't have budgets that come to the restaurant. They will just order whatever's there. ah It's like, and the other part of it, I think too is, 01:13:14.52 Dave J. There are no real stakes to how you perform in the sushi restaurant. like As long as you catch fish and fill the menu each night, you'll make enough money to get your upgrades. You can't really fail a night at the sushi thing unless you get super overwhelmed and refuse to hire workers or something. like it's just It feels like a game that plays itself as long as you put in the minimum level of effort. and I don't know. 01:13:44.86 Dave C. yeah 01:13:47.24 Dave J. like it. It's the same with catching fish, by the way. It's really easy to catch fish. like Don't piss off a shark, otherwise you'll be fine. and Then later on, you can fight all the sharks you want. and 01:14:00.54 Dave C. Yeah, it gives you the tools to deal with any of the situations really, eventually, like it's that little drip of like, here struggling doing the busing for like a little while. 01:14:00.85 Dave J. like people 01:14:03.73 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah. 01:14:13.51 Dave C. Oh, now you have people, you know, 01:14:15.60 Dave J. Yeah. So it's like both of these like main gameplay things, catching the fish, bringing them back, um doing the sushi restaurant, like it works. It is, it's functional. It keeps you busy. But, like, there's no soul to it, I feel like. Like, the only soul to it is from aesthetic things. The music is great. The animations are great. But, like, I don't have to make any decisions about what I do in the sushi restaurant. I literally just pick what's most expensive. And it doesn't matter if that costs $300 or $25. It's fine. 01:14:54.12 Dave J. every single time I went to the sushi restaurant, it was fine. noah Nothing really required of me except to be there. and like This is going to be something I say later in like the recommendations, but like if you just want a chill in bed with the Switch, a type of game that is just like, you know, it's pleasing and all you have to do is show up and you'll have a nice chill time. I think that this game will give you that, but like, that's not really what I want. If you're going to ask me to go down and you know, scuba dive, do the sushi restaurant management. Like you got to require something of me and I don't feel like this game really does. 01:15:39.23 Dave C. No. And then it starts tacking on systems that don't, they're not additive. So there's the food stove, which is like Instagram. Uh, so the customers come in and they can take little pictures. 01:15:49.47 Dave J. Oh, yeah. 01:15:52.55 Dave C. It's all hands off. They're just doing their NPC thing. Um, yeah. 01:15:56.10 Dave J. Yeah, there's the fish farm, there is the vegetable farm. 01:16:00.99 Dave C. The, oh, the, the, the op, the. 01:16:01.35 Dave J. So they get introduced. 01:16:05.47 Dave C. The restaurant management app, which doesn't actually let you manage anything, which was making me upset because let me hire from the app. 01:16:08.49 Dave J. Yeah. 01:16:14.19 Dave C. Let me do the stuff that I like, that way I don't going to do it at night. 01:16:19.14 Dave J. Yeah. 01:16:19.33 Dave C. Like that. That's why I thought you gave me this app, but all I can do is monitor the status of the restaurant, which I don't care about because I'm just sending fish there. 01:16:19.89 Dave J. um Yeah, and the restaurant's fine. like Spoiler alert, the restaurant is fine. ah There's the fish farm and the vegetable farm that get introduced you know incrementally throughout the game. You do the story things that make you do them, but in every story thing at the farm, an NPC does the farming for you. All you have to do is when the rice is ready, go harvest the rice. 01:16:53.34 Dave J. and then never go to the farm again. There's absolutely no reason to ever do farming in this. I never went to the fish farm a single time after the one thing that introduced it because it's not hard to catch fish and there's like no incentive to breed a certain type of fish because this game is not that deep. It's not asking that of you. So exactly like you said, they introduce these other systems that just feel like they're there because people feel like they should be there, not because they actually like, are going to help you do well. 01:17:33.26 Dave C. They're not additive in any, for any reason. 01:17:33.57 Dave J. I maxed out all my shit. Like I didn't need money. 01:17:36.34 Dave C. Yeah. They don't, they don't add anything to the game. They're just bloated. So it's just like, I didn't want to turn on the little phone, your little pause menu phone. Cause I'm like, Oh, ah it's making me think I'm looking at my Twitter notifications. Like I don't, I don't want to open the thing up. Oh, there's phone call messages. I don't know. I just wanted to go diving. 01:17:55.79 Dave J. yeah 01:17:56.65 Dave C. I don't, that, that, that's adding stress to me on a game that is otherwise chill. Um, but if you're, if you're making me do or giving me the option of like, here's the busy work you can do, uh, to go, go, go fill out your little fish Pokedex. 01:18:12.73 Dave J. Yep. 01:18:13.23 Dave C. Go do that. mike but yeah Why? Because you're not, it's not, it's not giving me anything. 01:18:16.47 Dave J. Yeah. 01:18:18.89 Dave C. I'm not getting something from it. 01:18:21.26 Dave J. Yeah. 01:18:23.09 Dave C. So yeah, that, that, those are, those are a big miss. 01:18:24.60 Dave J. What? 01:18:26.39 Dave C. Like initially when they popped up, I was like, Oh, that's kind of cool. And then like none of them did the thing I thought that they were going to do. So then I was like, well, I just won't engage with that because that's just stressing me out. 01:18:37.23 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah, you like they introduce a farm and you think, okay, like maybe people are going to start wanting recipes that have vegetables in them. So I'm going to need to grow vegetables to do that. But the only people there are these VIP customers again, and some of them might say, I want this recipe with eggplant. So you have to grow some eggplants and the NPC grows the eggplants for you, like offering to do it and doing it without you asking them to. 01:19:08.77 Dave J. So like zero input on my part, I just show up three days later and get the eggplant. You don't even have to water it. The NPC will do it for you. So it's just, again, stuff that feels like it should be there because this is that type of game. ah Now, One thing that this game gets a lot of credit for is for mixing up what you're doing with other types of gameplay, um boss fights and ah like set piece things we'll say, like a ah like chase sequences. There are chase sequences. There's a part where there's a big 01:19:48.35 Dave J. ah side of fight. I don't want to give too many things. There's a mini game like chopping vegetables and stuff like that at certain points in the story. There is a ah side on stealth section. stuff like that. ah This game gets a lot of credit for adding in new gameplay modes. I know that you probably didn't see a lot of those during what you played, but I'm sure you got into a boss fight or two, maybe a couple of these things. What did you think about these non-diving, non-sushi gameplay things? 01:20:24.14 Dave C. It's additive. I think that they're, they're sprinkled throughout the game at enough intervals to where it still feels fresh every time you run into something like that. Um, and then I read through the other encounters and I'm like, Oh yeah, that, that would have been cool. How'd I stick around for X amount of hours to go to see that. 01:20:39.99 Dave J. Mm hmm. 01:20:42.36 Dave C. um And they're all narratively interesting like this with the boss battles and things that pop up Okay, it serves a function um And it's giving you something different. That's fine um but again, the game is padded so weirdly that um The goodwill I think that those things interject would be lost on me by the time I get to them and Like, like, okay, you're changing it up. 01:21:06.69 Dave J. Hmm. 01:21:07.86 Dave C. But like, I've been doing the other same stuff for hours and like, that's not this one or two fresh things isn't enough to like, carry me through the game and go, okay, I can't wait to see what the next weird one is. 01:21:20.95 Dave J. Yeah, for the most part, I'll say the bosses I thought are pretty good. Like they're my favorite gameplay thing here. The presentation of the bosses is cool. You get like this, you know, a split screen like a title card. 01:21:36.41 Dave C. Mm hmm. 01:21:37.00 Dave J. Basically when the bosses come up, it's really neat. ah The bosses have, you know, unique move sets. There's usually a kind of puzzle element to figuring out how to damage them. There is ah one, I think it's like the penultimate boss that's really bad. It's just an awful time. ah But everything else I thought was pretty good, including things from DLCs, which were nice. um The other stuff though, like the chase sequences, the so like the there's a like a laser cutting mini game that you do, I thought a lot of that stuff is just like, it does shake up what you're doing. 01:22:16.24 Dave J. Like it's so it's not just like continuous diving all the time, like it, I'm doing something different. So there's novelty in that. But like, everything you're doing is like the C minus version of that thing. 01:22:29.62 Dave C. Mmhmm. 01:22:29.65 Dave J. So it's not a good chase sequence. It's not a good laser cutting mini game. It's not a good vegetable chopping mini game. It's not sushi strikers or or like fruit ninja or something like that. um It's just there and it's functional and it shakes up what you're doing. So like, I guess I see why it's here, but this is one of the things I hear this game praised for is like, look at all the different stuff that you're doing, but none of that stuff is good. Like the chase sequences in particular are bad. Like the hit boxes on them are terrible. Cause it's not that kind of game, like, 01:23:08.30 Dave J. It reminds me of like, you know, games that are not stealth games that do stealth sections, which Dave the Diver does, and it's not good. It's just different. 01:23:16.31 Dave C. It's not a sneaking mission. 01:23:18.59 Dave J. Yeah, it's, there's, 01:23:24.03 Dave J. For people who know, for people who listen to the podcast, it reminds me of all the stuff in Final Fantasy 10-2, where That game is full of mini games and that game engine does not support most of those mini games. So they end up being pretty bad most of the time. And that's kind of how I felt about Dave the Diver. Like this is not a thing built for stealth missions with falling projectiles because the hit boxes don't work. and so like I am doing something different and it's exciting and the music is pulsing and there's this giant thing chasing me and that's cool but like I'm getting hit by stuff that's not actually touching my character and it's frustrating so like I don't know it's another one of those this is like the a microcosm of the entire game Dave the Diver and all the praise that this game gets and I just like don't get it there's nothing that this game excels at 01:24:20.13 Dave J. And this is like one of the prime examples of that. This game functions and it presents itself really nicely, but there is nothing that this game does extremely well from a gameplay perspective. And I just don't get why this became the one, you know? 01:24:41.70 Dave C. Yeah. The, the, the praise heaped around it and like, just the expectation, all of those, I was, so I was cognizant of them. And that made me super wary when I fired the game up and I was like, well, hang on, because again, this is, this is just like. 01:25:05.30 Dave C. It's not stellar at the things it's doing. Um, it honestly feels like they, they, they were, they were cooking and then they just started throwing stuff at the wall. I'm like, let's see what sticks and see if it's ready. 01:25:15.23 Dave J. Hmm. 01:25:18.04 Dave C. Um, and then they just, they didn't stop throwing everything. It's like, well, you put in all these features, but they're not, they're not additive. 01:25:22.74 Dave J. Yeah. 01:25:29.24 Dave C. They're not cohesive. They're each of them. don't really, they don't work independently and they're not like working in synergy. So it's just, it's extra stuff that's making me like not able to, I just want to go dive. So now you're making me pay attention to a lot of other things that I realize ultimately I don't even need to bother with because they're not actually doing anything. 01:25:47.24 Dave J. Yeah. 01:25:56.35 Dave J. Yeah. This, ah it keeps introducing plates for you to spin, but like you realize at some point, or maybe I shouldn't assume because you and I seem to be some of the only people that feel this way that I've heard, but they, 01:26:11.12 Dave C. Yeah, that's what I said. We were saying that everyone was really positive about this game. I'm like, I don't, I don't see it. I, I, I can see the idea of it. 01:26:20.06 Dave J. Yeah. 01:26:23.45 Dave C. Like I, at first blush, I'm like, okay, yeah, this, I, I like the surface level of this thing, but it's not going any further than that. So why is this more than just mediocre? 01:26:35.31 Dave J. Yeah, they're introducing these plates for you to spin, but at some point I realized none of these plates matter and I can just let them all drop because, I don't know, they're cheap and I can go to Goodwill and get the same thing for 25 cents. 01:26:45.54 Dave C. Yeah. 01:26:49.95 Dave C. Yeah, these aren't going to shatter. 01:26:50.33 Dave J. like 01:26:51.00 Dave C. They're just gonna fall. 01:26:52.55 Dave J. that's right they're plastic yeah so um i don't know it's like i trying to think about like why why does this not work for me so hard when other games like this that i've played pretty recently 01:26:53.53 Dave C. Yeah. 01:27:08.69 Dave J. work. ah This war of mine is this type of game. It is to gather resources to build stuff to allow you to survive. That's what that game is about. That game has very harsh punishments for making bad decisions. which this game, Dave the Diver, does not. There is almost no punishment for any decision you would make in this game. The worst that will happen is you will try to fight a shark and you die, and you get to choose one fish in your inventory to take back to the surface, and that's it. 01:27:45.62 Dave C. Yeah, I meant to mention that like that, that did upset me when it happened. 01:27:46.01 Dave J. ah 01:27:48.94 Dave C. I was like, man, I just spent 18 minutes and I, I, I died. Um, I was like, well, I can, I can grab a piece of lumber. 01:27:53.37 Dave J. Yeah. what 01:27:56.91 Dave C. I mean, what do I have in my inventory? I can pick one item and take it back with me. 01:27:59.81 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah. 01:28:00.99 Dave C. And I've never wasted that 20 minutes. And I don't have that. That was the thing it's like, it's a time sink. in a way that I'm not willing to sink the time because I wasn't getting the return back on the time that I was spending. 01:28:16.52 Dave J. Yeah, the other example of a game like this that I really liked was Spiritfarer. And that's because that game has incredible characters and great stories going on with them. ah There are very, very well thought out heartfelt themes that are explored to their fullest throughout the game. And so like, even though the crafting and stuff in Spirit Farer is not special, ah I mean, you know running the lumber mill in Spiritfarer is not super fun, but like I have a motivation for doing that because the story is really good. 01:28:51.56 Dave J. And in Dave the Diver, the story is nothing. It is just like a parade of things with ideas they had, basically. 01:29:01.07 Dave C. Yeah. 01:29:01.29 Dave J. There's no moral to it. There's no lesson. There's no exploration of themes. It's just, what if there was a people living under the sea? And then I ask, okay, what's the what's the deal with them? I don't know, like they had something happen and, you know, you're going to help them out. That's it. Nothing else to it. 01:29:21.50 Dave C. Just like I'm helping out my friends. So what are they going to do? I don't know. They're running a sushi bar. 01:29:27.15 Dave J. Yeah, you'll help them start their own restaurant down in their village. 01:29:30.82 Dave C. Yeah. 01:29:31.02 Dave J. So, yeah. I don't know, man, like I don't want to keep, uh, keep bashing on this too much, but like this too, we can do our, our wrap up thoughts and stuff like that. So like me. 01:29:46.23 Dave J. We'll start with you. 01:29:47.28 Dave C. Okay. 01:29:49.27 Dave J. If you have any wrap up thoughts and then like, what kind of person would you recommend Dave the diver to? 01:29:57.04 Dave C. Um, I would feel safe recommending this to almost anybody because everyone else seems to really enjoy this game. 01:30:04.45 Dave J. Yeah, it's true. Anybody who's not me, yeah. 01:30:05.74 Dave C. You have free time. That would be my caveat because knowing that I have limited time made me not enjoy this game extra. 01:30:09.07 Dave J. Yep. 01:30:15.53 Dave C. Because then I'm, I feel like I'm okay. I'm trying to progress in this, but the game's really long. Um, yeah. So really it's just like, if you have kids and full-time job and other responsibilities, but like, I don't know if this is the game for you. Um, just because of the amount of time it takes to play it. However, you can play this in bite-sized little segments. So I don't know how far that would stretch. Like. 01:30:43.15 Dave J. Mm hmm. 01:30:44.65 Dave C. Uh, I, that's a tough one. Everyone else seems to be pretty positive. Um, anyone that's not me, if you are, if you're not, this game is good for those that aren't named Dave. 01:30:57.25 Dave J. That might be true, like. 01:30:58.26 Dave C. I think it is, you know, people were there in the game. Everyone's just digging on Dave. Let him, let him dive. He just wants to dive or chill by the beach. Um, so yeah, if, if you're not Dave, this may be the game for you. 01:31:08.38 Dave J. Yeah. 01:31:13.74 Dave J. That's true, yeah. In-game Dave, um kind of getting a raw deal from everybody. You and I didn't particularly love it. We're both Daves. I ought to have to follow up with a couple of the other Daves out there and see how they felt. 01:31:26.45 Dave C. I see how they got on with it. 01:31:28.15 Dave J. Yeah. 01:31:28.20 Dave C. Um, but yeah, like, so final wrap up thoughts. I, again, a couple hours in, I was enjoying myself more. I do think that, man, it's just, if the game was a little shorter, uh, I would have been more invested in the story and had it not, um, it just has a bloat of like mini games. so our ah fetch fetch quest and things So all the sub quests, if you would like not to have to deal with them, then it wouldn't be so bad. 01:31:58.54 Dave J. Oh my god. 01:32:02.65 Dave C. And I think that that would have engendered more goodwill. um 01:32:09.24 Dave C. But yeah, the music is great. I would listen to the little soundtrack. It's very calming. Um, I like the art style. Again, the, the, the presentation of the game, like, oh, it said I'd get it like nine out of 10. Like it looks fun, but it wasn't. 01:32:25.29 Dave J. Yeah. 01:32:28.34 Dave C. So, uh, yeah, I, I would take off some, uh, for the actual, like the loop I didn't, wasn't enjoying the loop of it. And the problem is that's all it has. So. You know, it's not, not not a winner. 01:32:40.50 Dave J. yeah Yeah, maybe more inclined to forgive a shallow, you know, gameplay loop. if I was pulled along by the story, but the story chooses to do the least interesting thing at every turn and you know sets up some you know themes it might want to explore, or like the game's mission statement, as ah the developer said, but then actively goes against that. And then you know there is no lesson at the end. There is no like, hey, maybe we shouldn't have killed all those Greenland sharks. 01:33:16.02 Dave J. No, it did . Did they just kind of like, you know, hey, that was weird, wasn't it? All those crazy things that happened, they're what you can expect. ah So the story is not great. The gameplay can be like a relaxing chill time. Like there are times when I was just free to dive And I didn't have to do any of the you know the side quests. They are the fetchiest of boring fetch quests. I think I've played in a game for a long time. you know Most video game quests, they do actually all just boil down to go here, get this, or go here, kill this thing. 01:33:54.47 Dave J. But good storytellers will try to mask that with a twist or an interesting character that you meet or something like that. And this game does none of that. It is just, go here, can you collect 10 seahorses? And then you go get 10 seahorses, you go back and they say, thank you. And then you're on your way. 01:34:15.20 Dave C. Yeah, it is. 01:34:15.38 Dave J. And that's it. And they give you currency that you'll never spend. It's it's 01:34:21.04 Dave C. Yeah, it felt like the quest in Final Fantasy 16 where it's like, go bring me dirt. 01:34:25.20 Dave J. Oh my God. Yes. 01:34:26.78 Dave C. And then I like, okay, that there must be a cool adventure. I'm like, no, I found some dirt. Oh, here's your dirt. 01:34:32.45 Dave J. Yep. 01:34:32.58 Dave C. Oh, okay. yeah Are you going to tell me some story? No, I just, there was your dirt. 01:34:35.82 Dave J. Nope. They're ah honest. 01:34:38.45 Dave C. There's your, your, your, see her. So. gameplay-wise, doing the quests. um Given that like the, the, the shallows is random. They'll be like, okay, bring me a red seashell and a blue seashell. Um, but it's like, it just points the direction to you. 01:34:56.97 Dave J. Mhm. 01:35:01.16 Dave C. Like you don't even have the satisfaction of, I'm going to go hunt around for these. 01:35:01.92 Dave J. Yeah. 01:35:04.49 Dave C. Like, nope, it's, it's right there. You just follow the little, like, it's like a metal detector kind of thing, you know like little Dean. 01:35:11.59 Dave J. Right, yeah, it's not it's not even like they say, oh yeah, the red seashells are found at this depth ah in this type of environment. There's nothing like that. It's just follow the arrow, go get the shells, go back. 01:35:21.04 Dave C. Yeah. 01:35:24.78 Dave J. There will not be a twist. There will not be an interesting conversation. Nothing. 01:35:29.03 Dave C. Here's some money. 01:35:29.61 Dave J. They're worse than the quests. 01:35:30.15 Dave C. Yeah. It's like, I should give a big forward. 01:35:31.06 Dave J. They're worse than the ones in Final Fantasy 16. 01:35:34.82 Dave C. Here's your money that you don't need and, and some, and some soy sauce or something. 01:35:35.10 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. so 01:35:39.73 Dave J. Yeah, all that to say, when I wasn't doing that stuff, when I was just diving, jamming to the music, vibing to the music, more like collecting some fish, opening some treasures, stuff like that, it's like ah it's a chill time. And like there were times when I was enjoying myself. but like The point of this podcast is to shine the critical light on the games and you know see what the substance is to them. I think most people who are listening to this podcast, for the most part, want some substance from their games. 01:36:18.33 Dave J. And I have games that I play when I don't want substance. When I want popcorn, good times, I will play ah MVP baseball 2005 and I will have a good time doing that and not use my brain whatsoever. And that's perfectly fine. so that is what I'm recommending Dave the Diver for. If you do not want to think critically and you just want to jam out underwater and like see some some cool stuff and you'll see Godzilla at some point, free DLC, like if that's what you want, if you just want a good chill out time, Dave the Diver will give that to you. And if you want to play a game 01:36:57.66 Dave J. that requires, you know, not a lot of input on your end. If you, you know, you're the type you come home after work and you're tired, you don't want to play, you know, Elden Ring or something, you want to just vibe. Dave the Diver will give you that. But I do not think there's really anything of substance above that in Dave the Diver, which is a shame because both of us were intrigued by what could be there and both of us were disappointed by what was ultimately not there, which sucks. I don't and don't like doing episodes like this. like 01:37:34.52 Dave J. It's fun too, it's fun to clown on stuff every now and then in Discord or whatever, but like, I don't like doing episodes like this. 01:37:40.17 Dave J. I want to celebrate a game. Uh, I want to celebrate the art that people made, but I just, I just think this game stinks. It's, it just, it basically plays itself and you're just there along for the ride and that is not what I want. So not recommending it to most people. 01:37:54.62 Dave C. Yeah. 01:37:58.40 Dave J. So what I do recommend to most people is Monster Deer Monster. So let's do our housekeeping. We'll do our plugs and stuff like that. We'll get into spoilers soon. ah But Monster Deer Monster is a really interesting podcast with an interesting premise. And you guys cover a lot of different stuff all across all types of media. So ah Dave, tell people about Monster Deer Monster. 01:38:25.47 Dave C. Yeah, so basically, it's a podcast that I started because I was listening to a lot of Dark Souls podcasts. and And I have a degree in Korean culture and history. So I wanted to use that degree for something and I was playing Neo. And there's a lot of monsters in this I enjoy. 01:38:44.41 Dave J. Mm 01:38:47.72 Dave C. monsters and creatures and I like to like read up on the encyclopedia so I sat there and played through all of Neo and and yeah killed everything the requisite number of times to unlock the encyclopedia entries 01:38:48.85 Dave J. hmm. 01:39:00.73 Dave C. read them all, and then I dug out my, um I just have a bunch of reference books of old folk tales, and some of them were from China, some were from Japan, and I went through and found the actual academic initial entries for those monsters, and then compared them to what like popped up in Neo. And I was like, I'm enjoying this. I did my first episode and I basically wrote like a term paper. I just read it. Um, and I was like, wow, this is a, I need someone to talk to because this is, I'm boring myself. I like the information, but, uh, this sounds like I'm trying to read to a class. 01:39:39.73 Dave J. Yeah. 01:39:40.18 Dave C. And so I got together with a couple of fellow, um, fans of monsters and we decided, Hey, we'll do sort of a round table. We'll watch a movie or read a book and whatever we pick from that, uh, say it's, um um um, American werewolf in London. And we will see how that is and then go, okay, we know, where did this come from? What, what's a werewolf? And then. go back and look at some original Lugaru literature and do a little comparison. um I've been doing the podcast since 2017, so it's been a few years. ah And over time, we sort of got away a little bit from the, we're going to do comparison of like pop culture um monsters and and their origins. 01:40:31.43 Dave C. um And instead went into like, we're going to watch a lot of movies just because that's easier on our schedules. Every now and then we'll take a look at the books. We do comic books. There's some anime series we've done. and Nothing's really out of the realm of consideration. I've talked to a few horror book authors. um And ultimately what we try to do is, uh, we just have fun digging into movies, doing kind of what we're doing here, where we'll, if a movie is terrible and face that there's a lot of really bad horror movies, I and i enjoy those. 01:41:10.60 Dave C. Um, we'll talk about those. We'll kind of discuss what's going on with the characters. What is this creature they're battling? Um, and then where's the movie like failing or the book or whatever it is? Like what's it not doing for us? And then how could that have been better? Um, we don't do that on like, that's not the normal treatment on everything, but some things do kind of deserve that. Like, you know, maybe we can, maybe we can fix this. Let's build a Frankenstein, maybe make it a little bit better. ah And we've you know we have a lot of fun with that. 01:41:44.76 Dave C. So I'd say if you like any kind of weird creepy crawly creatures, um the podcast, we dig into those. We do some game coverage. We've covered Elden Ring and Liza P. 01:42:02.09 Dave C. We will be upcoming doing the Elden Ring DLC, so we do long form on those. 01:42:02.14 Dave J. Mm hmm. 01:42:08.19 Dave C. Elden Ring, I think we did like 20 something hours of just discussion over several episodes, of course. ah Doing like a sort of safari playthrough, like a lore through of a big game. 01:42:18.97 Dave J. I was going to say, if you want monsters, FromSoftware has got you covered. 01:42:23.97 Dave C. Yeah, they do. They do. They have some weird weird little guys. Um, I think that's our favorite kind of guy, a weird little guy. 01:42:28.00 Dave J. Yes. 01:42:31.88 Dave C. And yeah, nothing's out of the question. We will do like decades or like we did as a whole, I think a year or something on Hammer horror films. So we bounce around a lot. um And it's a lot of fun. ah There was a writer strike going on last year, I believe. So we found films that were like independent releases and just discussed those. 01:42:57.86 Dave J. Mm hmm. 01:42:59.70 Dave C. So we we try to so you know keep cognizant of what's going on in the media and Just try to keep it like a, it's a, yeah yeah, there may be some like explicit talk just because of like the language, um but the subject matter by and large is, I would say it's mostly family friendly. 01:43:19.09 Dave J. Yeah. 01:43:20.19 Dave C. We try to make it accessible for everybody. And it's not just like horror films. There's like, there's cartoons, there's all kinds of stuff. Uh, just fun discussion on, uh, hobbies that we just really enjoy. 01:43:34.05 Dave J. Mmhmm. 01:43:42.03 Dave C. Um, yeah, if you like monsters, like stop on by, we are at, um, monster deer dot monster. 01:43:49.28 Dave J. Yeah, uh, really good stuff. And so definitely recommend, you know, I, I'm most often tuning into like video game, uh, topics cause to your credit, uh, a lot of the movies that you cover are things I've never heard of. So it's not like you're going for like the most popular type of things. You guys are always choosing what is most interesting to you, which is good. 01:44:11.73 Dave C. We've picked some weird stuff ah and I try to uplift like if it's an independent film or if it's something that I know is under the radar, I will grab that because I make sure what we're discussing are things that are accessible. 01:44:18.13 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah. 01:44:26.20 Dave C. Like in some form, it's easy to get to, um even if it's like off the ah ah path film, ah because those things don't get discussed. 01:44:26.90 Dave J. Mm hmm. 01:44:38.08 Dave C. and that And to be fair every now and then we'll be like, okay, Uh, I can't think of an example top of my head, but we'll pick something that's like in the zeitgeist like oh people are talking about this and you know Yeah, yeah that that was we we did that as the movie came out because we love We love Godzilla. 01:44:49.42 Dave J. ah The Godzilla minus one episode. Yeah. 01:44:57.50 Dave C. We love practical effects and that's a big thing too. We don't cover like CGI schlocky things. I want to like squibs and little weird puppets and get me some gremlins and stuff. 01:45:12.47 Dave J. Yeah. 01:45:12.64 Dave C. So yeah, we, we, we stick to that kind of thing, but we're not above like, we just did stop motion, uh, that came out on, uh, shutter, uh, a few months ago. And that one is like, it's a discourse on the perils and the struggles of being creative in as much as like someone made their hobby or their thing like that's their life. So that particular one is someone that creates like stop motion, like little short films. Um, but then how that 01:45:53.51 Dave C. drive, uh, and then like the drive don't want to create, but then hitting like writer's block kind of stumbling blocks can like mess with you. Um, so we want to really kind of, it's not just about the monsters. It's about the psychology of it too. Uh, and try to bring that sort of discussion to, um, we know whatever we're looking at. 01:46:10.30 Dave J. Yeah. 01:46:15.14 Dave C. Yeah. I said the Elden ring thing was a lower through, but we. We just had fun going like, yeah, I went up this one mountain and saw a little weirdo rolling down. And, uh, it's, it's just like. I put academic things where I think it's necessary and I will put in some extra research and bring like, Oh, I've, I've, I found the source material of a particular legend. 01:46:33.08 Dave J. Yeah. 01:46:40.20 Dave C. And I'll add that into the discussion, but it's not stuff that I think has to be all the time. 01:46:43.66 Dave J. Yeah. 01:46:46.28 Dave C. So it's not a dry discourse. It's just, we're just having some fun. 01:46:51.57 Dave J. Yep. So it's a fun time, but I was also going to say until you said it, I was also going to say that ah it's also like intelligent and well researched discussion too. So I will definitely recommend that people go check that out. And since um since it we just talked about it and Godzilla has a tie-in with Dave the Diver, the Godzilla minus one episode is ah an episode that I would recommend checking out. It was a great discussion about that movie and you know things below the surface level with Godzilla. So there's a lot of stuff to go check out. um People can look down in these show notes for an easy link to Find Monster, Dear Monster. ah Again, highly recommended. People go check it out. 01:47:36.88 Dave J. And ah for me, the ways to support this podcast, like always, ah we can, you can go join the Discord server, join the conversation, especially this week. Like if you really love Dave the Diver and you think that I'm missing something, please come in, ah let me know. ah Tell me about it. We'd love to have a discussion in the Discord server. It's also a welcoming, great group of people. in there. ah Lovely community. We'd love to have you. There's an invite link down in the show notes. You can leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform if it allows it. 01:48:11.22 Dave J. That will help people find the show, which we want. And ah you can listen to my other podcast. It's called a top three podcast. We do the top three lists. That's more of a comedy show. It's a good time. ah No research going on on that show whatsoever. It's just a good time. And 01:48:28.76 Dave J. ah Also, finally, you can support the show monetarily over at patreon dot.com slash real Dave Jackson. Again, this game was given to the divers on the show because it won a poll and all patrons starting at $2 per month can vote in polls for what games I do on the show. And I don't hate all of them. This is the first one actually. 01:48:55.12 Dave C. yeah 01:48:55.57 Dave J. So. With all that being said, Dave and I are gonna take a break. When we come back, it will be full spoiler time for Dave the Diver. 01:49:05.27 Dave J. Okay, so spoiler time. Do you need a break? Doin' okay? 01:49:09.90 Dave C. doing good. 01:49:11.05 Dave J. Okay, ah this will be a short spoiler section because, again, there is almost nothing of substance to discuss, but there are just a couple things to bring up. 01:49:16.90 Dave C. yeah 01:49:20.55 Dave J. So, let's see here. Okay, restart. 01:49:29.15 Dave J. Okay, we're back. And it is full spoiler time for Dave the Diver. And as always, we're not gonna like to run chronologically through the story here. There are a few things that I would like to discuss, namely big moments in the story that happen, things that I thought were kind of cool, some missed opportunities. ah We'll talk about the Godzilla and dredge DLCs and what happens in them. And then we'll talk about the ending and stuff like that. but might be a shorter spoiler section which is okay because we spent almost two hours i feel like i spent two hours just non-stop ripping on this game but hey it happens sometimes i'm so the big thing that's revealed is 01:50:13.09 Dave J. You find this ancient race of sea people. They tell like a um story about the sea people of the past. There were these divine fruits from like the divine tree down there. Some of the sea people got greedy and ate the fruits. Where have we heard that before? They became zombies. So like the thing that gets introduced later on is that there are these zombie versions of the sea people that were locked underwater. And this is just like what happens in the story. There's no substance to it at all. You kind of like you do some stealth missions to get around them. You solve some puzzles underwater. At one point there is a giant ah zombie that chases you through some tunnels and 01:51:04.01 Dave J. Like, this is part of my problem with this game. Okay, we have our thing. This is the decision that they made with the story because we have this story of the divine fruit. Is this going to be a story about human greed? Is it going to be a story about global warming? Because there's this thing about like, these things underwater are melting that shouldn't be melted and freezing that shouldn't freeze like, Our climate's all fucked up. We're all dying down here. like Is the story gonna explore those things? No, it doesn't. It's just plot points that happen. 01:51:40.62 Dave J. and like Let's take that giant zombie thing, for example. It chases you through the tunnels. You kill it with some collapsing rocks as you get out of a doorway. Nobody ever talks about it, ever again. There's no like, oh, maybe we should evacuate the village. There's giants down here, literally right next to the Sea People Village. um There's no like, oh, pity these people that have been stuck in zombie form for centuries down here. Let's figure out a way to cure them. Is there a way to atone for our sins? 01:52:15.84 Dave J. ah Nothing. It's just stuff that happens. and it's not even like not even entertaining. like I don't know. I don't know why I'm even talking about this. I'm doing what the game does. I'm talking about it because I feel like I should talk about it. Not because there's anything there worth talking about. But this is what happens. This is what happens in the part of the game that you didn't play. And, like, I don't know, it might sound like I'm just giving you a surface level plot recap, but that's what the game explores too. They don't explore any of this to a deeper level and are super disappointing. There's no commentary to be had here. 01:53:02.19 Dave C. No, so i the um the wikis that I read through to make sure I was caught up on everything before we did this um had ah had screenshots, had a little plot synopsis of what the quests were, and but then it had the little dialogue, like the bits that were spoken and it's not, like I could read those. 01:53:10.60 Dave J. Yeah. 01:53:24.65 Dave C. And I was like, well, I don't even have to play it because there were like three lines. Like they didn't, there's no exposition. They didn't actually tell you like, Oh, here's all this crazy stuff going on. And we locked up our ancestors in, you know, in these cages. And so, but what does it have to do with anything? Like there, there's no conflict with that. 01:53:46.08 Dave J. Yeah. 01:53:49.64 Dave C. There's, there is because you, they sent you through there to pick up a thing to go. repair a statue. 01:53:54.19 Dave J. Yeah. 01:53:54.75 Dave C. You're like, okay. Um, the, the, the culture looks interesting. They're based on Chinese mythology. 01:54:03.17 Dave J. Yeah. 01:54:03.49 Dave C. Um, I loved all of the, again, ah the surface level stuff, like the architecture and like their clothes, like everything was very evocative, but it, it's enough to go. They have a culture. It doesn't mean anything though. Because you're doing the same stuff down there as you did. 01:54:22.01 Dave J. Yeah. 01:54:23.66 Dave C. Like, Oh, they're just like us. Okay. Well, why, what does that matter then? Like there's no, yeah, I understand. 01:54:30.26 Dave J. Yeah. 01:54:31.45 Dave C. There's no resolution. There's no real issue because they're not the ones causing the problem. And it's all like secondary to it's like, okay, I yeah. 01:54:39.66 Dave J. yeah 01:54:44.94 Dave C. like It's just Dave getting into some more shenanigans. Like, Oh, no. 01:54:48.34 Dave J. Yeah, it is. it It's just like 01:54:54.99 Dave J. you could have cut this entire thing out of the game and it would not have changed anything about the story they're trying to tell like what eventually happens is you go down to the bottom of this divine tree which I forget what it was but like something corrupted the divine tree and there's like this you know energy flowing out of it and there's like a parasite on it there's a ah monster down there that's feeding on it and getting big and that's what's causing the weather problems in there so it's not even like that humans caused this really like it's not a I thought it was going to be like a global warming thing like trying to cause like 01:55:40.07 Dave J. give us a message here about like, you know, human greed caused the climate to get all fucked up down here and destroy this beautiful sea people civilization because it is beautiful, like you said, like the. the architecture and it's super colorful. And there's, there's like these giant clams everywhere blowing bubbles up in the air. 01:55:55.64 Dave C. yeah 01:55:59.28 Dave J. It's, it's, I mean, it's awesome. They got to like a beluga that you can use as you fast travel around the village. 01:56:00.91 Dave C. Yeah. It's a little toxic now. 01:56:06.35 Dave J. Yeah. You're a little taxi. And it's like everything's super cool. And it turns out there's no message to it. It's just, you just have to go kill the monster and that's it. Nobody self reflects their, 01:56:17.48 Dave C. No. it's And it's a case of, like, hubris, so... It's... Showca- I guess- I think it's in one of the like the little subquests where you find out that, um... the sea people, they had the the the tree of life and then they were experimenting with its power and that's why so some of them ate it and became huge zombie guys. 01:56:39.59 Dave J. Yeah. 01:56:42.91 Dave C. um But also they were experimenting on like what it what else it could do and that the the test subjects weren't like the sea people, it was the trilobite looking thing and that ended up 01:56:53.47 Dave J. Yeah. 01:56:56.45 Dave C. becoming immortal because of the energy from the tree of life and that's why it became giant and it's it's babies were what was like eating the or you know becoming like little parasites on a tree which eventually would disrupt like the land because that's what's causing the earthquakes so it's 01:57:00.71 Dave J. Right. 01:57:18.56 Dave J. Yeah. 01:57:21.69 Dave C. It's trying to do like a, not a parable, it's doing, if you're trying to get like a great power, you're trying to get power, you're trying to gain power and to do that you're doing it at the expense of something else. 01:57:38.62 Dave J. Yeah. 01:57:42.45 Dave C. Um, but ultimately what that will do is that it will be self-defeating. You'll just injure yourself and then your experimentation, your, your like, um, Experiment is not the word I want. The yeah exploitation of your other resources is going to come back and bite you in the butt. So it is doing that message, but it's doing it in such a roundabout way because they decided not to use people as ah ah surface humans as like the model. 01:58:05.86 Dave J. yeah 01:58:17.04 Dave C. They're using the C people. So I, I, I guess they're doing that, it's the Atlanteans and Atlantis sunk because they, they, they tried too hard or they strove for something and it collapsed their civilization and we should learn from those mistakes. 01:58:35.87 Dave J. Yeah. 01:58:36.16 Dave C. But except for nobody in this way, we should learn from those mistakes. You're like, let's just have a sushi party. 01:58:39.46 Dave J. Yeah. 01:58:41.77 Dave J. That's exactly what I think is the issue because like the piece, the pieces are there. 01:58:47.80 Dave C. It has a message, but it's not for anyone in the story. 01:58:51.95 Dave J. Right. The pieces are there, but so like the C people who, you know, whatever they, they committed this, this mortal sin or whatever, and it doomed the people who were involved to turning into zombies or something like. 01:58:52.86 Dave C. Yeah. 01:59:09.11 Dave J. They just locked them up and then forgot about it. And like, when you tell them, when Dave tells them like, yeah, I got chased by these zombies, they're like, oh, they're still there. Oh, oh, oh, oh okay. ah That's it. 01:59:23.39 Dave C. They're like, hey, did you kill them? 01:59:23.79 Dave J. There's no, there's no self reflection. There's no atonement. 01:59:26.62 Dave C. Yeah, I, I told some of them. Oh, good. 01:59:28.89 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah, so there's none of that. 01:59:32.20 Dave C. Yeah. 01:59:32.35 Dave J. um And then, like you said, like, so at the end, you go down into like this deep sea vent, you go you find the one that's like become immortal, because it's just been feeding off of the energy from the tree of life. You do a boss fight with it, which is really fun, by the way, it's like a, ah like a side on shoot them up bullet hell boss fight. It's pretty good. um But you kill the monster. That solves the problem. The tree goes back to normal. And it's like Seinfeld. Nobody learns a lesson. They just have a party at the sushi restaurant. And you can go and like to talk to all the characters. 02:00:13.92 Dave J. You know, they're all sitting down. Like every single one of them is sat at the restaurant. You can go talk with them. None of them has anything interesting to say, not even Bancho. They just have like just boilerplate NPC dialogue could have been written by an AI. Like nobody comments on the adventure that you've had. Nobody comments on, Hey, that was a, that's pretty messed up. Maybe we should take better care of the ocean. Nothing, it's just sushi party time. 02:00:45.21 Dave J. They're all like, yeah hey, that was crazy. It's not quite to this level, but it's like a couple levels beneath one of them being like, hey, well that happened, didn't it? All right, sushi. 02:00:58.28 Dave C. Yeah, it's like the, it's, it's the, uh, always sunny in Philadelphia without, um, being actually funny. 02:01:08.59 Dave J. Yeah, without being good. 02:01:10.32 Dave C. Yeah. 02:01:10.73 Dave J. Yeah. Yeah. 02:01:11.72 Dave C. Yeah. Cause everyone's like, so no one, actually no one else actually went through any of the trouble. 02:01:12.47 Dave J. Um, no, it was, it was just Dave. 02:01:17.95 Dave C. Just Dave. 02:01:18.95 Dave J. Uh, everyone else has just been chilling. 02:01:20.00 Dave C. They're just been chillin eating but chilling, drinking beer and eating sushi. And they're like, oh, Dave, come back. He's just harried and messed up. Just like, you look like he could use a beer. 02:01:28.76 Dave J. Yeah. 02:01:31.72 Dave C. Yeah, guys, that was really rough. but Please don't ever send me on a fetch quest again. 02:01:37.10 Dave J. Yeah. 02:01:37.66 Dave C. It's like, okay, thanks. 02:01:38.40 Dave J. And, and even like, even Dave has nothing to say about what happened. 02:01:39.84 Dave C. Oh man. 02:01:45.70 Dave C. No. 02:01:45.99 Dave J. Even Dave is just like, yeah, that was pretty wild. 02:01:47.37 Dave C. Because he's just a cipher. He's not even like, he might as well just have dot, dot, dot, you know, not even being given a, you know, he gets a little bit of personality, but it's so secondhand, like our offhand. 02:01:50.22 Dave J. Yeah. 02:01:52.55 Dave J. Yeah. 02:01:59.52 Dave J. Yeah. 02:02:00.97 Dave C. Um, yeah, that's not a strong point. 02:02:02.11 Dave J. So. 02:02:03.73 Dave C. Uh, and then the whole, so. When I'm looking at the initial quest, when you first meet the sea people, you rescue the daughter of the, the ah daughter of the sea King and you feed her her clam porridge or whatever to heal her. 02:02:20.88 Dave J. Yeah, they're coral coral porridge yeah 02:02:22.10 Dave C. Yeah. The coral, the coral porridge, um, to heal her up. And then she has her little, um, bro ski that just like things he's the coolest dude, but he's actually a jerk. 02:02:42.22 Dave J. Yeah. So the environmental message in this game is almost entirely through. 02:02:50.23 Dave J. Like that one mercenary character who keeps showing up in a submarine and shooting, you know, rockets at you, and then yelling at you for destroying the environment. 02:02:56.91 Dave C. Yeah. 02:03:01.12 Dave J. That is the only thing this game does with that message. 02:03:04.20 Dave C. He's the head of the, the blue planet or a blue ocean, um, environmental conservative, conservative. 02:03:09.35 Dave J. Yeah. 02:03:11.99 Dave J. Yeah, like the, like the green piece or something like that. 02:03:13.50 Dave C. Yeah. The light green peas, except for they're not, they're actually moonlighting as pirates to farm dolphin meat. 02:03:18.53 Dave J. Yeah. 02:03:20.83 Dave C. So yeah, there's stuff going on, but it's so slapdash. 02:03:21.11 Dave J. Yeah. 02:03:27.20 Dave C. Just, you know, again, that whole chair, we're just checking a thing off a lid like that could, I liked the dolphins. Like that was fun. 02:03:32.33 Dave J. I, like, I almost feel like. 02:03:33.33 Dave C. Um, 02:03:38.89 Dave J. If you ask someone who really likes Dave the Diver, like, what did you think of the story? I almost feel like they would be like, I guess I don't remember much about the story. 02:03:48.16 Dave C. Yeah, that was the story. 02:03:48.68 Dave J. like there's nothing, yeah exactly it's like I just like going through things, catching fish, talking to Bancho, running the restaurant. 02:03:50.14 Dave C. I just, I was just catching fish. 02:03:58.16 Dave J. i yeah I guess there were some sea people and there were like these weird glowing fruits or whatever. I almost feel like the key to enjoying this is to not pay attention to the story. because Like, so again, I'm not enjoying the gameplay a whole lot. So I'm looking for something to latch onto like in spirit fair again, but yeah. 02:04:16.15 Dave C. Yeah. 02:04:18.45 Dave C. ah give me a story. Give me something like what's motivating me to continue to play this. 02:04:24.04 Dave J. Yeah. um, so that's literally all I have to say about the story of Dave the Diver. 02:04:29.66 Dave C. Yeah. 02:04:31.33 Dave J. like there We were not hiding any substance in the non-spoiler part. There is no substance. um The ah cool thing in the credits, Dave has a dream where he goes to space instead of ah scuba diving. And it has a Super Smash Brothers type like you can shoot the names of the developers. And when you shoot the names, uh, it explodes up with like a nice pixel art, uh, portrait of the developer themselves, which I thought was awesome. Like legitimately in my top three favorite things about this game, the credit sequence. It's very cool. yeah Like if you didn't see it, I would recommend like watching a video of it, just, you know, 02:05:13.96 Dave J. You never see faces, even if they are pixel art, you never see faces of the people who make games. 02:05:15.94 Dave C. Yeah. 02:05:18.47 Dave C. No, not unless it was an Easter egg or something. 02:05:19.52 Dave J. So yeah, so um this was cool. I really love this, it's really cute. And again, I still have goodwill in my heart for cool things even after 18 hours of sludge. So this was cool. 02:05:36.16 Dave C. Yeah. So that's just that little bit there. 02:05:37.73 Dave J. Yeah. 02:05:38.29 Dave C. So I don't want to cut you off. 02:05:39.29 Dave J. yeah 02:05:39.33 Dave C. Um, reminds me of what I was in a comparison game to, and this is a terribly unfair comparison, but, um, this is doing something similar to what say nier automata did. 02:05:54.28 Dave J. Yeah. 02:05:54.39 Dave C. It's taking a surface level thing and then adding a bunch of like mini games or um flipping the script on like the type of game you're playing in certain portions and then giving you that post credit, like let's shoot the credits scene. But where the comparison utterly falls down is that Nier Automata has something to say and it has a story. 02:06:22.43 Dave J. Oh yeah, I have a lot to say. 02:06:22.72 Dave C. ah 02:06:24.02 Dave J. Yeah. 02:06:24.05 Dave C. Yeah. And this just like, it's, it's, it's the polar opposite of that while still like trying to do not when you're out about it did, but what it stylistically, what it was doing within the genre. Like it's, it's mixing some stuff up and adding some like, you know, interesting little gameplay things. 02:06:39.05 Dave J. Yeah. 02:06:43.83 Dave C. But again, that all comes down to like, if this was compressed, you know, made it a tighter experience. I think that it would have. Yeah, one word, but it would be more so something that is like replayable. Like it gives it more legs because even though I enjoyed this game fully, I wouldn't want to play it again. 02:07:04.74 Dave J. Yeah. 02:07:11.39 Dave C. Like it doesn't have a replayability. 02:07:12.53 Dave J. Oh no. 02:07:13.91 Dave C. There's nothing added to it where I'm like, yeah, I sure could go catch those same fish again and upgrade my suit and go do all that. 02:07:19.40 Dave J. I was going to say, maybe I'll catch different fish this time. 02:07:22.64 Dave C. Yeah. I'm only going to catch the little ones, you know? 02:07:24.07 Dave J. Yeah. 02:07:26.72 Dave J. ah Yeah, the one, yeah, all ah all fishing net challenge of Dave the Diver. 02:07:30.60 Dave C. Yeah. Only, only diving knife challenge. Yeah. 02:07:33.12 Dave J. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. So it's, I don't know, it was cute at the end, the credits were nice, I liked that a lot. 02:07:37.66 Dave C. It's a game. 02:07:40.40 Dave J. ah And then I think it's setting up a sequel after the credits, there's a thing where Cobra is on the phone with someone and here's an explosion in the distance. So ah Dave the Diver 2 will probably happen just based on how successful this was. 02:07:54.39 Dave C. Oh, yeah, for sure. 02:07:56.19 Dave J. Uh, I hope they give Dave a different job. You know, Dave, the astronaut, they'll find some alliteration or something like that. Uh, I will not be playing Dave the diver to play. Absolutely not. Unless it's a completely different type of game. 02:08:12.04 Dave C. Yeah, it's a FPS. 02:08:12.21 Dave J. I do not, do not trust this developer to make something that will appeal to me. 02:08:17.88 Dave C. No. 02:08:18.06 Dave J. Um, That being said, ah quick things, some things I thought were kind of cool were the DLCs. So we'll get the DLCs and we'll get out of here. um Godzilla DLC, I think is what most people are looking forward to with Dave the Diver. So what happens is and A Godzilla researcher shows up and says that they think Godzilla's around, and they find Godzilla underwater asleep. ah gotze god zero Godzilla got in a fight with Abira, who I'm sure you're familiar with, giant lobster monster. 02:08:54.84 Dave C. Yeah, they're big shrimp guys. 02:08:57.18 Dave J. Yeah, yeah. So after a fight with that one, Godzilla is injured and just kind of resting underwater. ah So what this kind of boils down to is ah you got to go down there, set up a surveillance camera, and then you have a couple of boss fights against Ebirah. One of them is in a submarine, and the submarine is like it handles like absolute dog shit. So terrible boss fight. um After that Godzilla is healed and you play as Godzilla in one of those big side-on kaiju fights like in your automata when you have the two big robots fighting. 02:09:35.30 Dave C. Okay, okay. 02:09:38.56 Dave J. um That was pretty cool like the scale of everything the music you know splashing around ah like the impact when these two things hit each other that was really fun. um And then afterwards Godzilla leaves so just in case anyone thought, like there's a lot of messages to Godzilla, the monster and what Godzilla represents and things like that. None of that is explored in Dave the Diver, but it's a free DLC, like tie-in, like they're not telling a new Godzilla story here. Nobody's reckoning with nuclear fallout or anything like that. It's just Godzilla's here, you do a couple boss fights, then Godzilla leaves and that's it. 02:10:22.93 Dave J. It's like kind of cool, though, because fucking Godzilla is awesome. Like, who doesn't love Godzilla? So hard to complain. 02:10:28.16 Dave C. And you get a little, little, little kaiju battle. Um, yeah. 02:10:31.27 Dave J. Yeah. 02:10:32.48 Dave C. And so both of these DLCs, I believe, and for sure the Godzilla one, um, they're accessible in or after chapter five, there's only six chapters in the game. 02:10:43.26 Dave J. Yeah, pretty deep in the game, yeah. 02:10:44.86 Dave C. So you got to be like three fourths the way through, um, before you can access the DLC. So where people are playing this game, like earlier, um, like when it came out, then yeah, they're probably easy to get to. But, uh, for me, I was like, I'm, I don't know if I've got the other eight, nine hours in me to get to Godzilla, which I really wanted to see. Um, yeah even if it's just a little cameo, but, um, I, again, I'm glad that they did these collaborations. That's really cool. Um, and, and more games should do stuff like that. So it's not, uh, that that's one point in David ever's favor is that they, they have these fun little, um, uh, crossover. 02:11:29.47 Dave J. Yeah, it's like, I think my three favorite things in this game were the Godzilla Kaiju fight, the um the final boss fight, the bullet hell one, and the credits. my three favorite things in the entire game. ah So there's that. And I'm glad the collaborations are happening. like You get like this tiny indie team that made Dredge ah getting a boost from like this tie-in with Dave the Diver. And then the tie-in with Godzilla is really big. So what I hope is that, because the studio that made Dave the Diver is not small. They're part of a huge company. 02:12:16.28 Dave J. So I hope that brings more publicity to The People Who Made Dredge, which is an interesting game. It is another one . I should be praising Dredge along with Spiritfarer and This War of Mine for games that are built around a similar type of loop but like to have that interesting thing to them. like There's a mystery and a tension and a weirdness about Dredge that makes you wanna keep playing and seeing what's gonna happen where, I don't know, not to go back to bashing. The Dredge DLC is kind of interesting. um All the weird like hooded like you know Lovecraft Acolyte type dudes show up. 02:13:01.54 Dave J. Uh, and they want to come eat sushi, but because they're fucked up guys, they don't want real fish. They don't want regular fish. Um, they want those like malformed aberration fish from dredge. 02:13:13.59 Dave C. Yeah. 02:13:16.18 Dave J. So it's kind of cool. We didn't mention earlier, but like at a certain point in the game, you can go dive at night and at night, everything's hostile to you basically. And, uh, It's kind of cool, kind of spooky, more dangerous for sure. So you go do a night dive and all those fucked up like, you know, two-headed fish from Dredge, stuff like that. They're, you know, the horrors of the deep. They come, you know, attack you. You catch a bunch of those. They pay insane prices for those things. 02:13:48.07 Dave J. Like it was the most money I ever made in the sushi restaurant was on Dredge night. 02:13:50.59 Dave C. Thank you. 02:13:53.33 Dave J. So, That was kind of cool. It only happened one time. Like I think this could have been like a recurring thing because I do not understand why someone would. But after you beat the game, you can just keep playing, diving, doing the sushi thing forever. If that, I mean, if that sounds like your idea of fun, ah have fun, but not me. So I did what I like, it was kind of cool that the dredge event happened, but it was only one time. um If it happened another time, maybe I would like to go even deeper in the ocean and see like, okay, so like the anglerfish and stuff like that. Let me see how fucked up those are. 02:14:38.85 Dave J. in this game, but you know I deleted Dave the Diver from my hard drive the second the credits were over. So I don't know, the dredge tie-in was kind of nice too. 02:14:47.88 Dave C. Yeah. 02:14:50.39 Dave J. Did you play dredge? 02:14:51.51 Dave C. I did not. um It's again, it's that's ah that was on my list more than this was. ah But I don't remember some switch. 02:14:58.19 Dave J. Yeah. 02:15:03.65 Dave C. It probably is. 02:15:05.33 Dave J. I played it there, yeah. 02:15:05.53 Dave C. um Yeah, I'll have to give it a look. I, unfortunately, or fortunately more, more on the fortunate side. Um, other DLC is dropping that I have to attend to. So the Elden ring stuffs more on my, um, immediate radar and dragon stock went to, which I needed to get back to. 02:15:16.68 Dave J. Mm-hmm. 02:15:22.02 Dave J. That's right. Yeah. Like 1% of my frustration toward Dave, the diver right now is that the Elden ring DLC released today, literally today, and I could be playing it, but I'm talking about Dave, the diver right now. And I wish I was talking about a better game. So, um, yeah. But that is all I think I have to say about Dave the Diver. It's ah it's been good talking with you and um you'll sneak peek for a couple months in the future. 02:15:53.57 Dave J. Dave will be back about a game that I think will have a lot more substance and things to talk about. So I'm excited to have you on for a game that I think I'm gonna enjoy a lot more than this one. 02:15:58.90 Dave C. Yeah. 02:16:03.58 Dave C. I think so. In fact, I know. 02:16:05.06 Dave J. Yep. 02:16:05.25 Dave C. So I've, I've seen enough of that game that I'm way more on board with that one. 02:16:09.98 Dave J. Yeah, hell yeah. Well, in any case, um this turned out to be a lot of ah complaining and you know arm twisting and stuff like that. Arm twisting is not the right word, but you know you get it. 02:16:22.50 Dave C. Yeah. 02:16:23.44 Dave J. it's been ah it's been a ah It's been a special episode. 02:16:23.56 Dave C. I thought it was a fair shake. You know, we did. 02:16:26.48 Dave J. I gave it a fair shake and I feel like we both explained ah where we're coming from. Just as the only ask of anyone on the show is if you hate something or if you love something, explain where you're coming from. I think we did that. 02:16:39.78 Dave C. Yeah. 02:16:40.32 Dave J. It's been good talking with you and I appreciate you just you know being on the other side of me just letting all of this out. 02:16:46.80 Dave C. Yeah. Well, thanks. Thanks for having me on. I'm always willing to lend an ear. And in this case, um, I agreed with you 100%. So that made that much easier. 02:16:56.19 Dave J. Right, yeah. Well, um thank you again for taking the time. We'll give ah the recommendation again at the end for everybody who stuck it out. All of you are my heroes, especially this episode, and double especially if you love Dave the Diver and you're still here. Thank you so much. It means a lot that you're still here. So please check out Monster, Dear Monster. There was a link down in the show notes once again. ah Lots of good stuff. Scroll through, find a game, a movie, something that you like and want to hear more about. or something you've never heard of because there's a lot of interesting stuff on the show. So again, easy to find down in the show notes. Thank you again for listening and tune in next week for the next game to come out of the backlog.