Saltsea Chronicles

Saltsea Chronicles has a fascinating story, with beautifully written characters and great art. An insightful look on how an anarchist society deals with its problems, together with great narrative. I love it so much, truly a lovely game. I love Iris, they're so cute! And Kittick too, as well as their relationship! I love how many queer people are in this world, and how naturally they're presented. The communities we get to know are well written, and Spoils is really fun too. There are fresh mechanics for choosing your path through the story, with a great save system allowing for forking without needing a full replay. I hope we get to see the crews next steps someday! The folks Die Gute Fabrik deserves all love and support in the world, I hope they can get back together. I'm always left wishing I could live in their worlds. They're very different games, but I'll do this one comparison: When compared to Mutazione, Saltsea Chronicles features way more and longer dialogues. While this does get a lot better after the first chapter, the previous game from the devs feels more balanced in this regard, giving you more natural-feeling dialogues and time to chill in between with gardens as well as more movement freedom. I love dialogues and the story, but chapter 1 was quite overwhelming. As I said, it did get better afterwards tho. (vague spoilers ahead) I deeply dislike what happens in chapter 9, and feel like it's a very unwelcome addition to what can otherwise be considered a "cozy" game. Luckily the path I chose resulted in Kittick being unharmed (unfortunately at expense of another character I liked (I like the whole crew), but one I was less deeply attached to), but had I chosen the path that resulted in their demise I would certainly have immediately abandoned this otherwise great game. The related subjects could've been explored in a way more distant from the crew.

A superb narrative game where I really connected with the characters and world. I really love the art style here. There is not much in the way of "traditional" gameplay but if you are looking for an great story with compelling characters this is the perfect game to scratch that itch!

Saltsea has a much more episodic format than Mutazione. I was initially skeptical because I liked playing one character and building relationships over time, as you do in Mutazione, but Saltsea won me over. The writing is good, the characters are good, the emotional beats land. The art style is distinctive but a bit sparse. You can jump between chapters, but there's no way to automatically advance dialogue, so it's difficult to see every plot thread. (This might be as intended?) Card games aren't really my speed, and I found them an unwanted distraction when I had the chance to play during the storyline, but what I played of it was fun.