Dave The Diver - Sink or Swim, Then Cook

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Ok, so another game that blows my expectations away, and then keeps repeatedly doing that on and on. Nothing has the right to be this good, yet it somehow is. I never fished a day in my life, now the Aquatic life called to me, as I swim to the seas with a belly, while pulling over 30KG cargo each time.

To me, this title has a grounded premise....to an extent. Inserting later sea people, giant lobster monsters, maybe some PG-13 eldritch stuff, rare fish that aren't supposed to exist IRL, and a black sushi chef that pushes himself to make culinary perfection with anime montages. I kept playing this, to a point that I skipped breakfast and doing laundry.

I think a collectaton like this has ruined other games for me. Don't think the caliber this has reached can easily be topped by any other from the early days and ones that will come later on. On a single day, I've seen almost everything I thought I could, yet it keeps throwing more stuff to do.

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Looks like our Korean friends has the credit flex on the intro, am sorry to say, but I skipped halfway through this. Still, they deserve to espouse such things. The music was nice enough to make the intro and end the obese MC who returns to his career of deep sea fishing.

His penpals, both Cobra and Bancho (the black guy) are running a Sushi restaurant, and they need his help to capture rare fish under the sea. Also, helping the other guy serve food for the customers afterward. So it's basically a mash of two different genre of games put together.

Dave unfortunately is too nice, not the kind of guy who can say no, and that is foreshadowing for other shenanigans he'll get caught into. Speaking of, the first time I went fishing in the sea, capturing fishes using the harpoon isn't easy at first. Because the tiny indicator needed me to squint my eyes, and......wait a minute, that is proxy racism.

So yeah, the way the swimming mechanics work is catching fish either from melee attacks, in this case now, a knife, and a harpoon. The latter is more effective at it, and also turns out I can find projectiles firearms like bolt guns underneath to kill fish and take them. That would be bad, since it would reduce their overall freshness quality. I mean, makes sense, gun residue can stick into fish.

Also, the ocean is ruthless at times. If I stay for too long or take damage, I lose oxygen. When that goes to zero, I lose all the fish and items I've collected under the sea. I need fish to help Bancho cook food and make money, I need items for making newly discovered weapons and upgrades.

Now the fishes, rarer fishes are hard to damage, I had to do whatever it took, but while also mitigating damaging the fish to capture it. There are chests and boxes which contain upgraded versions of the weapons, I went from tapping the A button capturing fish to tilting the analog repeatedly, some had shock effect.

I can dive in only twice a day, the evening is where I have to go to the restaurant and choose the menu, before serving the food. There are options like enhancing each sushi, and then adding ingredients to create variations of them. The customers are very vocal about the restaurant experience, my man Dave is having me run to each of them, while slowly losing their patience.

Yeah, losing their patience before leaving, which wastes the food, and the more I keep serving food, the more it's noticed in the game's version of Instagram, makes the restaurant popular, then more customers show up, and then more pressure. I'll be honest, this guy goes swims in all places of the seas, twice, and then works his butt off serving food, how is he still alive and functional?

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Oh, and ah, speaking of being a very helpful sort, Dave gets multiple requests from various people. These are either main quests or side, actually come to think of it, the vast majority of the quests given are integral to progressing both story and upgrading my character's arsenal.

There's this lady who even requested that she gets served a freaking shark, I had to battle the damn thing, was weaving back and forth, thankfully all my stuff got upgraded so a fair fight it was till the damn thing died. My first battle without doing so got me easily killed. So I put my gold into where it needed spending.

So I finally got her shark served, and what do you know, after missing out various customer orders, and how impossible it felt to deliver their food, I finally got a chance to hire someone. All thanks to the tutorial this lady gave, after it was unlocked doing her quest. There's another guy, and it's probably the main story, where he wants me to help him find the sea people.

So I did his favor, and Cobra introduced me to a guy who can make my weapons, I mean, am talking about sleeping darts and multi-barrel bolts. Ha, even at limited munitions, these things do so much taking out the big fishes whom are exhausting difficult to take down after going 70 meters deep in the ocean

Ah yes, the sea people quest. Yeah, these guys exist. Of course, a game like this where a guy works double shift on swimming has to deal with a sea monster, and finding mermaid civilization deep within. Even after hiring help, these spoiled, impatient would-be customers can't wait longer and spoil the food.

And now I got some environment groups attacking us, for well blowing a bomb inside the maroon life. Cobra just assumes they are under the pockets of big corporation, and their business competitors. Who knows. But is it because of these things going on that keeps making me want to play the game?

No! Well, they are quite the incentive, but the real meat is being the better fisherman. I am helping my restaurant grow, growing my list of fish types found with the help of a middle-aged dude dressed like Ash-Ketchum, the archaeologist helping me get charms to use, and my gunman with the power of anime waifus, making deadly arsenals, and my man Bancho, pushing his culinary skills to his limits.

This dude, THIS GUY, THE MAN HIMSELF, has animated montages of him intensely chopping ingredients, brooding with the Japanese aesthetics around him. He is the chef, he's not just a chef, this guy is the one to continuously enter the fishing grind, and look for the good stuff. That, and well, he also needs help with more hiring hands I could find. But this guy is an absolute maestro, the more stuff I could find including seasoning and sauce, the greater the fish, more the money too.

It's both a collectaton RPG, and a restaurant sim, one where I can enjoy the experience of low pixelated aquatic life, brimming with charm and colors. The one I don't think I can find where I actually live. And the quests keep coming, more stuff to find underneath the sea, more to upgrade myself. I never fished in my life, maybe one day that'll change. I have this game to thank for that.

Great characters, a bit of BroForce humor here and there, and an overwhelming repeated feed of dopamine to come back one more time. There's very little to nitpick and have discomfort with, the deep sea has a lot to offer, including rescuing Dolphins from pirates. Now, that's one way to feel great about one's job.

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