One man’s fish is another man’s poisson.
I’ve long believed that, following books and films, video games are the best medium in which to tell a story.
The portable nature of the Switch offers it a platform to do everything the likes of Kindle owners wish their device would do, from live-action sequences to point and click adventures to tackle either in the palm of your hands or blown up on the TV. That’s the market corner which Nightmares from the Deep 2: The Siren’s Call occupies.
Those of you who played through Enigmatis 2, another point and click adventure from Artifex Mundi, will find Nightmares from the Deep 2 to be an almost identical experience. Again you negotiate your way from scene to scene, taking on a small range of different puzzles including hidden object games and more intellectual games like tile-sliding.
Also again, you’ll be finding key items in one location and opening up the next part of the story by using them in a situation which you came across earlier. You know the drill; find the alcohol for the boozed up local who occupies the local bar, and he’ll give you the information that you need. If you find yourself stuck in terms of where to go next, you have two helping hands at your disposal: one is to hit up on the D-Pad, which directs you to the exact point on the exact screen where you’ll be able to find a new item, or where something might have been updated since your last visit which will enable the story to progress. Alternatively, hitting left on the D-Pad brings up a map of every area you’ve visited, with exclamation marks scribbled all over the ones which have new things to offer. This is all scaled back when you up the game’s difficulty, but in a game like this the smaller challenge of having the hints accessible is a more enjoyable insurance option – you don’t have to make use of the assistance, after all.
So the gameplay is all the same, but it’s of course the story which is the new offering here. Like in Enigmatis, the story is one of fantasy: a curse has been laid over a port town after its mayor made a deal with the demon of the deep sea, Davy Jones. As a result, the townspeople have been turned into fish-like people and the mayor has gone completely insane, demanding to take control of a mermaid-like siren in order to wield power over the mythical kraken and therefore wreak havoc with unyielding power.
Unbelievability aside, following the game’s story is fun for the short romp that it is. You don’t need to know anything at all about the first Nightmares from the Deep game – this is an isolated adventure, and while you can get through it from start to finish in just a few hours, it’s very easy to have a good time with it. This game does little that is new, but it’ll never be detrimental to include it in your collection. Perhaps pick it up when you see it in an eShop sale – these fantastical point and clickers each feel that way.
Nightmares from the Deep 2: The Siren's Call
Summary
Another fun point and click from Artifex Mundi, Nightmares from the Deep 2 is short but entertaining. It’s not something you’ve never played before, but it does what it does well.