Highwater Review – The World Has Gone Mad Again Here, But in a Different Way

Simple premise: an environmental disaster has flooded the world. Its inhabitants survive in makeshift settlements outside the city of Alphaville, where things are still more or less OK. The inhabitants of Alphaville send a rocket to Mars, where humanity must find a new beginning. And the main character Nikos and his friends decide to take advantage of the opportunity and leave planet Earth. But the journey to Alphaville is not easy for them, on the ship they are relatively safe, but as soon as they get to dry land, they are faced with battles like from XCOM, but slightly different.

• Platform: PC, Switch, PS5, XSX (tested version) and S, Android, iOS
• Publication date: 03.14.2024
• Developer: Demagogic studio
• Publisher: Rogue Games, Inc.
• Genre: tactical turn-based strategy, adventure game
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Data for download: 2 GB
• Play time: 4-7 hours
• Price: 570 CZK (Xbox)

Mobile game? Nice to watch and listen to

Highwater came to mobile last year, thanks to a Netflix subscription. But it’s definitely not a mobile game, there’s no other way to put it. You won’t have to worry about controls, bland noise, or lackluster graphics. While it’s a typical low-poly, it doesn’t hurt the experience in any way, and especially in the second half of the game, the style stands out due to the visually imaginative locations, such as when it comes to their colors.

If there was one place where the developers could have had greater ambitions, it was the size of the game’s “map.” No one is accusing Highwater of being linear, but the width of the corridors through which the player moves on his boat is really very limited, and any exploration of the environment is out of the question. The same goes for the islands that Nikos and his friends visit on their own. There is a lot to find, but the locations are mostly tiny and serve only as temporary battlefields.

This is not to say that traveling around the world is not fun. Even thanks to the aforementioned visual aspect, there is a lot to see and listen to. On your travels, you will be accompanied by a radio station that not only slightly expands your knowledge of the world, but also, above all, plays very interesting music. Unconventional melodies are a pleasant addition to the cruise. It is just a shame that they are interrupted during cutscenes or ascents to land. This happens often, I have never traveled long enough to listen to a song in its entirety without rap.

HCOM? More like a puzzle

The only real gameplay in Highwater is combat. A turn-based tactical game that will remind many of XCOM and similar games. General rules of the game. Characters move around a chessboard map and need to defeat enemies in a certain number of actions. The variable is the lives of both sides.

But that’s where the similarities end. Not only are Highwater’s combat more intimate, but it’s also more of a puzzle game that makes heavy use of the environment. Encounters are predetermined rather than generated, and the developers often want you to take advantage of specific situations and locations. So you’ll have to throw enemies into the water with a fishing rod, knock over trees or poles on them, lure angry bears into your path, or let them get scalded in an electric field. It’s not always the case, but in most cases, brute force alone won’t get you anywhere.

This approach has its pros and cons. Firstly, it doesn’t contribute to replayability, but that’s a simple fact rather than a complaint. It must also be said that the game doesn’t explain much, and finding the right key to success can be quite a chore at times. On the other hand, once you get the hang of it, the fights aren’t that difficult. The variety of enemies and, ultimately, friends, deserves special attention. You’ll encounter not only three different human factions, but also robots and a variety of animals. Nikos’s group will also undergo changes during the game, which will also add tactical possibilities.

Do it a little differently

So far I’ve mostly praised Highwater, but it’s time to get to the parts that didn’t impress me so much. The world itself is interesting. It doesn’t give you a huge insight into its laws and history, but you get a basic overview. People are sort of – but literally – splashing around in a lighthouse, and you’ll meet a lot of characters you’d rather see locked up somewhere so they don’t get hurt outside. The game doesn’t shy away from a lot of clever cultural references and humor, which also hints at things like the growing use of artificial intelligence in art.

I was expecting perhaps a slightly more serious atmosphere, but I can’t blame the title for that. However, I found the story and its narrative to be a bit flat. All the problems that arise for the characters are immediately resolved, all the moral questions that haunt the protagonist are swept off the table. If Highwater was 100% a “fairy tale,” so be it, but it remains halfway through that, and in my opinion, that doesn’t bode well for the outcome.

The dialogue that appears in speech bubbles is very simple and seems to shorten everything that is being said. Maybe it would be too much to read, maybe it would be tedious and annoying, but in this form the characters’ speeches seem extremely truncated. In the end, I fought the urge to skip the dialogue because I learned little from it anyway and even got a little lost in the action.

A pleasant journey, but once was enough

The journey of a group of friends in search of a new life is entertaining. The combat may not be for everyone, especially if you’re looking for more chess-like gameplay than the logic puzzles on offer, but it’s ultimately good. The same goes for the atmosphere, which is dominated by the imaginative soundtrack. The story and narrative no longer have the same force, which sometimes feels almost overwhelming, which is a shame because the world is well-built. Technically, Highwater is solid, and worth it for a single playthrough, at an affordable price.