Sunless Sea Game Review

Sunless Sea is a roguelike RPG developed by Failbetter Games. It was officially released on February 2015 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. The game takes place in the Fallen London setting although I never played that browser game on which this one is based.

I decided to write something about this game since it's a game that I enjoyed a lot. Also, an expansion named Zubmariner is going to be released some time in the future so I figured there might be some renewed interest in it and there will be people looking for reviews and honest analysis on Sunless Sea.

Premise

Long story short, London has sunk underneath the Earth. You are a zee captain of a steam ship and you sail across a vast and terrible underzee for reasons known only to you. "Zee" and the like are the game's terms by the way. The world of Sunless Sea is one of fantasy and it's full of all sorts of bizarre stories and adventures that are sometimes humorous but are more often dark and twisted. 

How it Plays

You have a sky-view (if there even is a sky in Sunless Sea) of your cute, doomed little vessel. You sail it from port to port completing missions, and acquiring money and trinkets. The zee itself is home to some dangerous beasts which you probably don't want to mess with until, at least, you earn enough to get the more sturdier vessels.

You have four resources to manage: fuel, supplies, hull points and terror. Fuel is needed to run the ship, of course. Supplies refer to food which your crew consumes from time to time. Hull points refers to the integrity of your ship. Terror is a small bar measured from zero to a hundred and is a measure of the sanity of you and your crew. 

Management of these resources is crucial on top of whatever objective the player is working toward. The player may want to uncover the mystery of his character's dead father but that won't go anywhere if his boat is stranded in the middle of the zee and the insane crew members are drawing straws to see who goes inside the stew pot first. Fail to manage fuel and you'll be stranded with no hope of rescue. Run out of food and your crew will resort to cannibalism and subsequently spike the terror meter. If hull points goes down to zero, you sink and it's game over. If terror reaches a hundred, let's just say it won't be pleasant. You get the drift.

Obviously, it's easy to die in this game. Even if you get the hang of it, death can come quickly if you get sloppy. It is a rougelike after all. However, your character can create a "legacy" in the game and leave valuable heirlooms, books and even a mansion for your next character. This eases the burden of building up your character on subsequent playthroughs. There are many different ways to win depending on the questline you choose at character creation.

There are five stats in the game; hearts, veils, pages, mirrors and irons. Completing certain tasks require checks on these stats. For example, you are presented with a scenario where you can either fight a band of pirates or attempt to flee. Fighting requires a check on your irons while fleeing requires a check on your veils. The higher your stats, the higher the chances of doing certain actions.

Money, referred to as "echos", can be acquired by doing certain missions or by trading goods (or smuggling contraband) between the different ports in the underzee. Echos isn't the only currency in the game. You can trade in all sorts of curios and items. You can even trade more abstract items such as stories and secrets.

Combat that takes place on the top layer of the game where you're controlling your ship, is fairly straight forward. You must keep the enemy vessel or beast within range of your guns to prepare a charge for your cannons. Once charged, fire away. Some creatures are more dangerous than others, not to mention enemy ships. Needless to say, don't expect to take on a living mountain or a twenty-thousand ton dreadnought on your starter ship.

To sum it up: you explore, do the things you need to do, get the things you need to get, learn the things you need to learn,  manage your supplies, try not to die, die horribly and then start again but a bit stronger than the last attempt.

The Good

What makes Sunless Sea a great game is its narrative element. Seriously, this game has some pretty awesome writing. The narrative and the setting is what really sells the game. If you're into RPGS or games with cool and interesting worlds, then you can get a lot out of this game.

The mechanical elements of it: the exploration and combat, are respectable enough. I know that doesn't sound like high praise but the game is alright at what it does for the most part. Balancing your resources requires some thought, especially when you start sailing on the bigger ships, the SUVs of the underzee if you will, that burn fuel and eat supplies like no tomorrow.

The game encourages risk. Often the most profitable options are one's where you have to make dangerous trips to the farther locations.

The music is great and fits the setting perfectly. The art style and design of the whole world is also great though artstyle is a subjective thing.

The Bad

Sunless Sea is really amazing on the first try. On the subsequent tries, less so. When you're already familiar with all the locations, stories and secrets, everything starts to become tedious. At some point, the game becomes grindy and monotonous. You'll start to hate just how slow your ship is moving. As you become familiar of the ins and outs of the map, you'll learn where all the good spots to resupply are and the game gets a bit less tense.

The game has poor replay value is what I'm saying. You can never enjoy it as much as the first time playing so the player should savor it if he gets a chance to do so.

A lot of reading is required in this game, which is a turn off for some. While I said the mechanical aspects were good, they could have been better. Combat isn't as pulse-pounding as you'd expect. It gets the job done but it's not terribly exciting.

Being a roguelike, the whole trial and error way of doing things can be frustrating, especially when many of the the decisions to make in-game may lead to irreversible consequences. There is manual saving though, if the player so chooses.

Summary

Sunless Sea is a hard game to recommend but I'll do my best to give a good assessment of it. At its best, it has great stories, a great setting and has well designed sailing gameplay. At it's worst, it's too heavy to get into, is grindy and gets old and repetitive the more times you play it.

If you're the type of player who has a lot of patience, enjoys stories and lore and can immerse himself in the universe of a game, then Sunless Sea will be a great game for you. If you enjoy games with heavy narrative and can deal with games that can become grindy, then this game deserves your consideration.

 If you're a player who really isn't into story or doesn't have the patience for slow paced and grindy games, this isn't for you. The "roguelike" label should be warning enough. You're initial interest may carry you far but it really is a game that's easy to become bored with.

Sunless Sea isn't the type of game for broad, mass appeal despite the praise it received from mainstream review sites. It's the type of game that is liked by people who already know that they'll like it. Doesn't make sense? I know you get what I'm saying. People who have some real doubts that they won't like it, probably won't like it.

It's just that type of game.