Evading a furry demon fish representing Kay's depression is more exciting than miserable, and ascending a dangerous dilapidated skyscraper while your furry chameleon dad rampages up top is tense and a little dizzying, but not horrifying and hurtful. It's almost all like this: rigid action opposing the emotion propped up by art and narration. The visuals are analogous to theme, but, again, the action is something else completely, turning a somber, crucial character moment into a rote series of chases. I feel seen, but only for a moment, because then I'm thrown into another stodgy action sequence where I use pieces of the wolf shell (ego) to melt ice (emotional barriers) while demon girls (demon girls) chase me across icy cliffs. Here's a hamfisted narrative platformer with huge, flashing analogies for depression telling me it's OK to ask for time and space to heal so I don't hurt anyone close to me in the wake of all that inexplicable emotion. Physical abuse, suicidal ideations, and trauma are brought to the fore and held there, firmly. It's such a specific kind of sad, wrapped up in anger and self-deprecation and love-something I don't see so explicitly represented in games often. It's exactly how I feel from time to time. Kay just wants to take care of him and he wants to put on a strong face, but he also wants to die. They've missed each other, but anytime Kay hugs him, the white shell falls away to expose the pitch black monster beneath. Things almost come together in a late game act, when Kay's former boyfriend manifests as a majestic white wolf. It's a game about isolation and misery, but Sea of Solitude didn't evoke sadness or disorientation in me for more than a few minutes at a time. She's talkative, cracking jokes or placidly explaining her emotional state as if I don't have eyes and ears capable of putting it together myself. She's too curious and unperturbed to feel at risk or emotionally fraught. It undermines her greater character arc, which depicts her coming to terms with these nightmares over time. Early on, she watches a blackened leviathan hurl itself across the sky and her first reaction is to say it looks sad before moving along. I just didn't buy Kay as a character when her default reaction to encountering a terrible beast for the first time wasn't abject horror. It impresses visually, but loses momentum whenever a character speaks. Sea of Solitude is surreal and creepy, a story that plays out like a waking dream, leaping from one monster to the next in a series of fables about Kay's inner and outer life that don't wrap up in a neat, storybook manner, even though its bright, starkly contrasting pastels would look right at home in hardback graphic novel.
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