Saltsea Chronicles Critic Reviews

A crew searches a watery world for a missing friend in this evocative game of exploration and conversation.

Saltsea Chronicles will doubtlessly win over players of cozy indie games and tabletop RPGs this autumn. The story is involving, challenging and builds out the tale of a missing leader – and partner, and friend – with elegance. The sunken, oceanic world runs on radios and astral plane sailing for technology and prayer - the characters simply do not always get on, despite their shared quest. This is a sophisticated adventure, taking the medium of the narrative game to new horizons.

Your search for your missing crew member will take you to some intriguing places in Saltsea Chronicles. This narrative-focused adventure will hook you with its gorgeous art and its expertly-written prose. Action-heavy this is not, but with the choices you make having real weight and the mystery of the story keeping you on your toes, there’s a good chance you’ll find it impossible to tear yourself away. And when you’re done, you’ll probably want to jump straight back in to experience it all again, seeing what other paths you could have gone down.

This isn't a game about saving the world, but rather achieving some peace within it.

While I won't deny that Saltsea Chronicles has a slow pace that often leaves a little to be desired, this indie adventure game does have its moments.

Saltsea Chronicles is a poignant nautical adventure about the distances between us and what we gain from crossing them.

Saltsea Chronicles was a bizarre experience for me. I admired the quality of the writing, maturity in language, and world the developers sought to craft, but I was frequently bored and eager for something to happen. I couldn’t even call this game slice-of-life, which one could argue is a genre where nothing ever happens by definition, but at least slice-of-life stories are poignant and heartfelt. Saltsea Chronicles just felt flat to me, but I am certain this game will hit some beautiful notes for folks who are tired of melodrama and intensity.

Even with a bit of open exploration, Saltsea Chronicles is essentially a visual novel – a character-driven, story you read on screens of charmingly beautiful backgrounds. It’s a stress-free piece of interactive media that invites players to help write the unfolding tale, but those looking for deeper gameplay won’t find any swashbuckling, seafaring action in these calm seas.

There is so much I adore about Saltsea Chronicles. The characters, the setting, the look of the damn thing. It's all absolutely wonderful, and I would gladly make several more roundtrips with the De Kelpie crew without batting an eyelid (although I will make a stop at cat island Los Gatos every. Damn. Time. Mark my words). It's just… that ending. It's a sticking point I can't quite resolve, causing that dreaded FOMO net to creep back in and loom eerily around my shoulders. Perhaps that's the point. Perhaps my desire for a heroic and triumphant final flourish simply doesn't fit within the confines of what this ragtag bunch of ordinary folk can realistically achieve. Perhaps, it's a story for another time.