Mythic Ocean is a first person… hmmmm… visual novel, puzzle game I guess is what I’d call it. You play as an unnamed individual living in an ocean. You wake up in a cave without any memories and an eel explains some things to you. You’re to help a bunch of gods power up to where they can create a new world as the old one has ended.
You mostly swim around the ocean talking to fishies, finding pages from a journal to get some backstory, and talking with the gods who don’t have any more memories than you do. Through choices you make you can change how the gods think and feel towards each other, as well as power them up through special conversations. There are a number of gods you meet through the game, a total of six, I believe. Each god has a different personality and feels differently about other gods, they all feel, and actively are, unique individuals. I didn’t actually expect that to be honest.
The reason I didn’t expect them to be so unique and interesting was because of the visual style of the game. It’s colorful but seemed basic at first. The gods all look different from all the other living creatures around them. They stick out and not necessarily in a good way. However, they are also what you see in the main picture for the game. Half the gods are very cartoon-y and very childlike in colors. The other animals in the game have a more realistic color scheme, they aren’t as bright and they feel like they have more detail and definition even though I’m sure the gods have just as much, the feeling is just different between them. Because you see the super cartoon-y looking gods on the store page’s header, I expected this to be for little kids or to have low quality, I was wrong. I admit that, I was totally wrong with my expectations.
The game takes six to ten hours per playthrough, and you’ll be expected to do a number of playthroughs. Each playthrough you can get a different god to be the next world’s creator and with that and how the gods feel towards each other the epilogue is vastly different from each other. After you finish a playthrough, you can start effectively a new game plus so you keep all the scenes and artwork you’ve collected unlocked while unlocking more.
I have to say, I was primed to think this game was meh, but I’ve really enjoyed talking with the gods and reinforcing their beliefs or getting them to change their minds over time, and trying to get them to like or dislike each other. The conversations sometimes deal with some serious shit. Each god has a specific personality bit. The thinker is always trying to learn, the playful one only cares about playing around, the mischievous ones like to play around and are immature, the hungry one is ummm hungry… >.> <.< yeah… Each god has their own shit to deal with, which you can help with if you’d like, including interpersonal relationships which are sometimes harder to deal with between god A and B than between god A and C. The relationship system was cool because you could get the gods not only to hate each other but even theoretically you yourself.
I can’t really speak much for the story because it’s kind of important and most of it is just you talking with the gods and determining how you want to deal with their issues. So let’s get to the end here. Overall, its visual style is all over the place, but the gameplay and story are both fantastic. I wouldn’t necessarily say this is for little kids, but young teens and up would understand the interpersonal issues in it. As such, I was surprisingly all for it.
Mythic Ocean was developed by Paralune LLC.
Point of Sale: Steam.
$15
A review copy of the game was provided by the devs.
darkmikasonfire surprisingly awards Mythic Ocean the Indie Gamer Team Seal of Approval.
Indie Gamer Team 