MarineVerse Cup is an ambitious game by developer/publisher MarineVerse. It attempts to replicate the thrill of sailing on a yacht or dinghy in VR, managing the direction of the wind and the tightness of your sails. By perfectly navigating the wind, you should be able to race other players globally to represent your country and rack up serious speed.
Having never sailed before, I was hoping the game would explain sailing to its users and provide a dynamic and fluid form of gameplay. That’s to be expected, right?
Well, it’s complicated.
The game, as it stands, is obviously ambitious. However, it is not optimized. I can safely say that I haven’t learned much about sailing besides how to flail the controls until the kph (knots per hour) meter goes up. The game IS willing to explain the terminology surrounding the sport of Sailing, but less so to explain the actual gameplay and controls. Moreover, what it does explain it says in more sailing terminology.
MarineVerse Cup is also rife with surprising decisions and softlocks. The teleportation feature allows you to move freely around your boat. However, there is little reason to ever move around. Moving around can frequently put you into a position where you can no longer reach any other teleport spots, leaving you stranded. As an example, moving to the front of the yacht left me unable to activate the teleporter back to the main deck for minutes until the game finally had mercy and sent me back to the wheel. Similarly, the dinghy’s height is set to match that of an actual dinghy, requiring players to either sit on the floor or lose 3-4 inches of height to avoid becoming quantumly entangled with the main sail.
The different sails on the boat can be controlled with the thumbsticks, or by grabbing them with your controller’s grips, or by selecting a white marker on top of them with your pointer. While this makes the game accessible, it becomes overwhelming fast. Moreover, the thumbsticks are the most responsive means of controlling your boat. With that in mind, I’m not sure why you would ever control it any other way.
The graphics, much like the gameplay, is an unbridled “meh.” The water texture is somewhat passable and ignorable until it abruptly becomes lighter blue and clips through your boat in the middle of the “easy” race mini game. The stars that are collected during this mini game are also basic in design and simply collide with your boat like a buoy before levitating out of sight with no fanfare or noise.
The narrator is annoying. There, I said it. I mean no offense to the talented voice actor, but the lines given to him are uninspired, repetitive in delivery and usage, and are just barely different from what is actually shown in the text boxes. If you want to go sailing with an obnoxious semi-Australian man, I recommend seeking out friends or family before donning your VR headset.
In the positives, there is a cat. This cat is responsive to your hands and will act as though you’ve pet it. However, it then begins to speak and attempts to drag you to an unknown mini game or reward, which somewhat ruins the impact and immersion. Moreover, the cat refuses to work with you until you have completed a seemingly endless list of tasks. By the time I completed all the cat demanded of me, I was so frustrated that I gave up entirely on my feline friend. I can only assume the cat did the same.
As a few final critiques, the teleporting system (as mentioned before) is clunky and unresponsive, often requiring multiple attempts before actually teleporting. The menus and UIs, while not needing to be extremely stylized, are exceedingly basic. Finally, the game requires a total reload to move between some screens and states that should be simple to do within location. I noticed moving between the main menu within the boathouse and the actual selections required a transition between two instances of the same area.
I would give rank MarineVerse Cup 6 out of 10 on concept and novelty. The premise behind the game is unique and compelling, but the game needs substantial changes before it can truly be described as fun. As it stands, I believe it is not currently worth the $19.99 price tag.
Check Out the MarineVerse Trailer:
For more information, visit: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2465388190184288/
Gaming is a passion that I, like many other people, hold near and dear to my heart. As an aspiring Game Writer and general Storyteller, I enjoy looking into the vast worlds and deep stories of every game I can. Then again, sometimes bad guys just need a good pummeling, and I am more than happy to provide!
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