Song of the Deep

An enjoyable undersea adventure overall, and we expect it to last about 6 to 8 hours for most players. The serene music sets a relaxing pace for you to search out each nook and cranny while the friendly narration bolsters the storybook tone. It strikes a nice balance between making sure you never feel lost, while providing ample room to experiment and explore. Don’t fret over this sub’s creaks and groans. There’s much to see beneath the waves.

This is a colorful metroidvania game. It's a shame that the level design is just as subpar and frustrating as the enemies in the game itself. The art direction is also a strange mix of 2D and 3D elements that ends up feeling inconsistent. A good effort but there are much better games in the genre.

The presentation is enjoyable and the puzzles and discovery of new powers are genuinely exciting. If you can look past repetitive combat and backtracking and are willing to live with a few technical hiccups along the way, Song of the Deep is enjoyable but flawed, with some unrealised potential around the narrative meaning it was a missed opportunity.

Song of the Deep is a soft and tender faery/mermaid tale in the form of a Metroidvania game. It offers a strong atmosphere and beautiful graphics, but suffers some gameplay issues and is maybe too easy for gamers who need a real challenge.

Sometimes, it's nice to play a game that doesn't ask too much of you, one that allows you to relax and simply enjoy being in its world. If you can forgive its technical hiccups and learn to adapt to its loose controls, you'll have a whale of a time.

Insomniac Games Should have taken some risks with Song of the Deep's gameplay: the combat system is basic and some puzzles are out of contest. The game is a "simple" metroidvania, though a solid and pleasant one. Song of the Deep fails to deepen the genre's formula.

Despite some technical shortcoming and not always well-thought-out logical puzzles, Song of the Deep is worth checking out. There an unique charm in little girl's heroic adventure in world known only from her father stories, backed up with solid gameplay.

Beautiful, charming and touching, Song of the Deep provides an enjoyable, worthy adventure despite its issues.

Song of the Deep could have been downright outstanding, but there’s enough flaws here to bump it back down into the realm of simply good. If you’re looking for a title with a touching story and gorgeous art-design, you could do a lot worse than Insomniac’s underwater metroidvania adventure.

It’s a beautiful, lonely world and the Ghibli-like aesthetic works incredibly well in its favor. However, some control issues and harsh random difficulty spikes hurt it by slowing down the experience.

Annoying puzzles aside, Song of the Deep is an excellently put together Metroidvania with a sweet tale to tell.

Song of the Deep is a very beautiful game with an interesting story, but it doesn't take risks on the gameplay.

Despite its sparkling surface, Song of the Deep could use a bit more polish. That said, it hits more than it misses, and I can easily see myself coming back to its sprawling world every few years or so.

Luckily, Song of the Deep’s combat and beautiful presentation, showing cutscenes as colorful storybook illustrations accompanied by narration from an Irish-accented speaker, push the game a fair distance above its failings and make it a journey worth taking for anyone who enjoys Metroid-inspired games or action/adventure games with interesting stories.

Takes on too much water to cruise comfortably, but it's bailed out by a few brilliant moments. [Sept 2016, p.81]

Song of the Deep is a meandering lesson that not every reflection of Metroidvania has to be a grand odyssey. By that measure it's a serviceable decent into the great unknown with a handful of neat ideas. It's also too oblivious of its own limitations to leave a distinct impression in a crowded field.

At its best, it’s an entertaining way to spend a few hours in a wonderfully-built ocean world. At its worst, it’s a cheap. uninspired and frustrating slog.

Insomniac Games is obviously doing something else, like PS4's new Spider Man, and this Song of the Deep feels second-tier in every aspect, from its visuals -not to be confused with art- to the combat segments and puzzles, nothing we haven't seen already and underwater levels. Even so, in the background there is a nice story that makes you keep moving forward through it's not so lengthy gameplay.

Insomniac's Song of the Deep is a beautiful Metroidvania robbed of much of its potential magic.

Song of the Deep has a sweet and appealing core at its center, but small frustrations make it difficult to appreciate those qualities.

Still, Song of the Deep's mix of combat, puzzle-solving, and exploration generally lands somewhere around "fine," even if it waivers between aggravating and enjoyable in the process. And although the game tests your patience more often than your skill, its engrossing world and excellent story keep the experience afloat through it all.

If you're a fan of the Metroidvania genre, Song of the Deep isn’t a bad pick up, but it might be worth waiting to see how good Head Lander is if you only have money for one side scroller this month.

What Song of the Deep does have in heart, it just can’t quite make up for it’s wonky physics and sloppy mechanics.