Sirensia ~ A Date Beneath ~

this was an amazing expansion of gorgonia's plot and world!! :D

(SPOILERS)

i love sequels where the main character isn't the same as the previous game, but their story does continue the plot from the previous game. it makes the world feel bigger, and it's a really cool way to expand on the lore and worldbuilding. learning about more things about this world, and seeing how it connects to other games from the same universe, was really awesome to see!

but the plot doesn't just do a good job on expanding the worldbuilding, it's also really intriguing on its own two feet. neil and marina are really endearing characters; i love how kind marina is and how determined she is on her quest to help her sisters, and neil... honestly he was just super relatable lol. the characters being so easy to endear yourself to made me really want them to succeed (making a compelling motivation for the player is surprisingly hard haha, so i really admire how much i wanted everything to go well! :>). speaking of the characters; i love how pretty much all of them aren't just "all good" or "all evil", they're just people in harsh circumstances (except hydros and flameryn, those two can go die-). the sirens tried to prevent the fate that was assigned to them, cynthia didn't want to give up and gave in to the curse, marina wants to help the other sirens even though she abandoned them for so long, even the goddess who made the curse in the first place regretted her actions... the fact that the characters make risky choices makes the story feel a lot more real and alive. (btw i didn't know where to put this but the notes on every room were REALLY cool and did an incredible job in giving context to the situation and showing each siren's personality)

the focus was clearly on the story and not the gameplay, but there were a lot of little segments i really loved! the chases were really frantic, and i love how the characters sometimes jump ahead, legit startled me when it happened for the first time haha (i feel like the last chase with cynthia didn't give me enough time to process that it's her, since when it started i thought it was medyuu and thought that i had to get captured to progress the story... probably a me thing lol). they felt really fair too, which is pretty complicated to do for chase scenes. like if i got captured, i knew it was my fault and not the game's and i got a little better with each try. also, the desktop at the beginning??? soooo cool haha, completely took me by surprise.

i really liked the visuals! not uncommon for a daybloom project game but yeah, everything was really pretty and the designs were really good. love me some pixelart with big pixels. the UI? absolutely gorgeous. the bubbles and light effects when you're underwater? gosh darn beautiful. the character designs, especially the goddesses'? super creative (learning about their concepts and development in the bonus room was really interesting!). even small things like the characters moving slighty left and right when they move (great attention to continuity from gorgonia) help make the visual presentation pop absurdly well.

overall this is was an amazing and really compelling continuation of gorgonia!! i'm someone who tends to get lost with lore and big universes lol, but this world is super engaging and i can't wait to see what comes next in it!! :D (i hope neil's memories can be restored T_T)

(p.s. I'M IN THE SPECIAL THANKS IN THE CREDITS WHAAAAAAAAAAT :O thank YOU for making such amazing games!!! <3)