Wavetale Review: The Most Gorgeous Indie of 2022

What's up and welcome to the Single Player Experience. As always, I'm your host Sebastian Malden, and today I'm talking about the indie game recommendation of the Week. Wave Tail. Wave Tail is a 2022 Adventure Platformer by the publisher Thankful Group. It's for PS four, PS five, switch, ExOne and pc, and it might be one of the most gorgeous indie games of 2022. So why am I impressed with Wave Tail? Find out right after the intro. Dj. Start the intro, man. This is the single Player experience, the podcast that helps single player gamers manage their video game backlog. I'm your host, Sebastian Malden, and my main quest is to help you manage your ever growing video game backlog by letting you know which single player games are worth your time and money so that you can have the best single player experience. Now, without further ado, let's start the show. DJ Cut the. So wave deal is a game that I knew very little about before I got the game for review. However, it immediately made a very solid impression on me, despite a few flaws, and I do mean there are some substantial flaws. There are many things to like about the game, making a very easy game to recommend overall. So let's dive into. Let's talk about the narrative first. In Wave Tail, you play as Singrid whose world has flooded and is being invaded by darkness. It's up to you to save the day and rescue your small town. Thankfully, you meet an underwater shadow that allows you to surf traverse. And kind of ride the surface of the water. With this power, you go off and ride the waves and beat back the darkness. While the narrative isn't something that really stood out to me, it is very serviceable. The narrative works well at setting the game's tone and everything in this game makes sense, at least according to this game's lore and world. The narrative is short enough that you'll likely beat the game in around two to three sittings. If you're looking for a quick, smaller experience, then this is a game that will satisfy you in that regard. Now let's talk about the environment. Wave Tail features a whimsical cartoon like art style, and kind of reminds me of something that I'd see in a storybook. The lack of realism works in this game's favor because it's not a stretch to say that this game is absolutely. Gorgeous. In fact, it might be one of the best looking indie games of 2022. The water in the sea is appropriately the star of the show here. There's almost a zen and mellow effect that you get watching the games. Beautiful ocean rock back and forth. It's not to the same extent, but I do get the same chillaxin vibe from surfing on wave tails, waters, as I did swinging through the streets of New York as Spider-Man in Spider-Man ps4, and in Spider-Man Mouse morale. So that kind of segues into one of the best aspects of wave tail, and it's the traversal aspect. Running and surfing on the water feels fun in fast pace. It's honestly the best part about the game as a whole. The game also gives you the ability to glide using your nets as helicopters. The ability to use a charged up super jump and it allows you to grapple to certain specific high points in the game. Each one of these motions and movements are fun in their own right, but when you mesh them together, it sort of blends to make this really fun tra universal system that I haven't quite experienced in any other video game. I gotta say play this game because the feeling of surfing and running on this water is very unique. As I mentioned earlier, it's simp. Just relaxing to surf on the water. The game gives you quite the map to explore, and it doesn't feel like a chore from traveling on one side of the map to the other. Let's be real here. That's the highest praise you can possibly give a game when it comes to reversal. Now let's talk about the substantial flaws of the game. A negative of Wave Tale is the fact that the enemies can still attack and hurt you even when you're locked in a text chat with another character. So for example, when I was talking to an mpc, a enemy that I hadn't noticed before just came up and was just started whacking me. So the options here, Is that you kind of have to rush through the conversation that you had with this character and hope that this MPC didn't have anything super valuable or important to say, or you simply risk it all and take that ass whooping in hopes that you are able to read everything before you die. It's a pretty substantial flaw in the game to be honest. Another unfortunate element of wave tail is that I experienced some issues with its performance while playing the game. I noticed that it showcases some screen tearing, some pop in, and stuttering issues. Each kind of happen rarely, and they're easy to overlook since it's easy to get lost in the beautiful aesthetics of the water here. But it does happen nonetheless, especially for people who look for that sort of thing. You're you, once you see it, you can't kind of take your eyes off of it every time it happens again. It happens rarely, but it is something that occurs in this game. Another thing that might turn some people off from Wave Till is the challenging or lacker of element of this game. Let's be real. If you're looking for a challenging experience, this simply isn't the game for you. While it does have some elements of action and combat, it's really easy to defeat your enemies. A couple of swings from your trustee Net will basically put to death any of the foes that you face in this. The biggest challenge of the game is probably finding all the items that people are missing in the area. If you like that sort of collecting aspect of the game, then this is probably where the challenge will come from. Besides that though, you won't really find very many challenging aspects here, so be advised. So should you play wave tail? Simply put, yes, especially if you want a chill and relaxing indie game with some slight elements of action, then this game is absolutely perfect for you. While it does have its flaws, like its lack of a challenge and its performance issues, it still has a really good but short story, and it has fun traversal, that makes this a very easy game to recommend. Overall. Wave Tail is one of the most beautiful indie games of 2022, and it's a solid game that you should definitely check out. In this show, we practice the 10 games backlog rule. In this practice, you log down 10 games, those games are gonna be your video game backlog. To be as productive as you possibly can be, we recommend that you only play three games at one time. One single player narrative game, one game that's gonna be your chill and relaxed game. And another game that's going to be your palate cleanser game, which is a game that you play when you're not in the mood for your other narrative. When you complete or get tired of one game, it leaves the backlog list. Then you decide which new game is added to the list, and which game on the list advances to your active three games. So where should wave till fit in your video game backlog. This is a game that should primarily be in your main focus or your pal close your game slot. It's a short but fun game. That's also one of the best looking indie games of 2022. While this game does have its flaws, such as its performance issues and its lack of a challenge, the traversal and the arts style alone are enough that I'd recommended it for your video game backlog list. So that is the game recommendation of the week that you should consider adding to your backlog. If you want me or my community of gamers to give you feedback on your backlog list, then join us in the single Player Experience Discord server. Once you're in, feel free to share your video game backlog list our talk about good single player game experiences that you've had lately. The link to join the free single player experience Discord server is in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode, and I hope to catch you in the next one. Peace.