4/5 ★ – Austion_Ernie's review of Call of the Sea.

Call of the Sea Review A good mystery can be enticing, but solving said mystery beat for beat alongside the very protagonist you control in the manner that Call of the Sea weaves its narrative makes for an alluring and well paced experience. Call of the Sea uses that very angle with Norah as she sets off in order to discover what came of her husband, Harry. Where does this mystery take her you ask? Norah’s voyage brings her to a mystical island offering answers for more than just Harry, but her taxing disease to boot. Call of the Sea grabbed my attention as I’m new to the Xbox ecosystem. It stood out as a promising exclusive for Xbox. In this first person narrative puzzler, Norah deciphers what came of her husband Harry, who left on an expedition to find answers on Norah’s mysterious disease. Harry’s letters stopped and Norah is committed to finding out why. Norah’s adventure does nothing else if not set the tone. The very first thing you see on screen is Norah submerged and capable of breathing, yet that’s not the most appealing aspect. Norah starts speaking an unintelligible language before she awakens from a dream just as confused as we the player are. The game includes abrupt, but chilling whispers in this very language lending itself well to the ambiance of the island as well as eerie moments like your first encounter with a sea creature. As you play you come about a music box. This music box’s tune plays a big role in environmental storytelling as you progress and does so in the most subtle but effective ways. Puzzles & Gameplay You learn early on that context clues are hard to come by. The island speaks to you in environmental clues, but they never seem forward enough for you to make a logical leap in utilizing them to solve puzzles. After solving the first puzzle in quick fashion, doing so for the second didn’t present such luxury. That continues with the third in an even more punishing form. However, once I successfully solved the third, going forward seemed a bit easier or I came to terms with the island and how its puzzles flow. Solving puzzles later in the game in an entirely new environment clicked much better than the ones that preceded them. The most enjoyable puzzles for me personally come in chapter six consisting of utilizing mysterious switches in order to align platforms of such in an unorthodox manner. While the puzzles offer a fluctuating difficulty, the moment to moment gameplay couldn’t be any different. Norah might as well be wearing pounds of bubble wrap. There are absolutely no stakes in traversing the island. Norah cannot die, run, or even fall. This lends itself well to exploring, but leads to a juxtaposition between that and the tone the game sets up from the start. Traversal The island is presented in a colorful and bristling nature that encourages the player to explore. The art direction, while totally the opposite of trudgey or empty, can’t carry the player alone and makes all the difference in presenting a living and breathing world. Luckily, the care and attention to detail on the island totally delivers a deceptively worthy experience. While progressing you can find elements such as coffee stains, crumpled notes only to be found if you the player choose to follow a wire, or even hidden items unique to every stage. When stumbling your way through the island, events can transpire once you progress far enough in each stage. I call these events, grand scale events. When these grand scale events happen, they truly give you the feeling of an artistic next gen experience. During these very moments of visual magic, you don’t want to look away. While the game utilizes a neat change of scenery and means of travel later on, it is never utilized very well other than maybe a chance of pace. Whether it be subtle details or grand scale events, traversing the island offers visual storytelling and presentation that wows the player. Narrative As I mentioned above, Norah is deciphering this mystery alongside us. Doing so in the puzzle genre gives the game a leg up in direction and delivers on the narrative as it progresses. You genuinely feel as if you are Norah. Unlike the gameplay, her stakes are your stakes. You don't only relate to her, but you give a damn about how she approaches the narrative presented. Some of Norah’s complexity comes at the cost of her disease. You see her hands often as you play. On her hands are these spots. These spots seem out of place, but as you progress they seem less and less bizarre while also increasing in quantity. You remember the dream I mentioned above? Well, that very dream comes to fruition almost frame for frame and doing so with Norah gave me the feeling of the narrative coming full circle. It compelled me to continue more so than I had previously. While the narrative plays with the trope of going mad on a mysterious island, it never gets in the way of the story’s intrigue. Not only was I intrigued, but I was arguably more so with Harry’s arc in the game. I was anticipating his conclusion with a heavy heart and that surprised me once I wrapped up his story. The way the story wraps up really brings attention to the VO work in Norah’s final moments on screen. They were superb, not only in her performance, but wrapping up everything the narrative presented along the way. The story was really wrapped with a nice bow on top once you roll credits and yes that includes both endings. Verdict Call of the Sea presents engaging puzzles that are plagued with pacing issues. Luckily the narrative doesn’t share the same fate. However, the tone set up for that very narrative works super well with everything except moment to moment gameplay and traversal of an island filled with everything from eye catching grand spectacles to subtle coffee stains in its environmental storytelling. It is a story about love and sacrifice. The final moments between Norah and Harry are brilliant, and once you play you’ll realize how easily they could have botched it. What follows is a choice, and I can honestly say both make sense for the characters portrayed. I’ll leave you with a grim but telling direct quote from Norah herself, “In real life true love stories don’t end with a wedding, they end with a funeral.” 👍