Submerged: Miku and the Sunken City 9+

The iOS ecosystem is how old now and developers are still struggling to pick a control system that fits the pacing and precision needs of their game?

This would have been so easy to play with a left-look, right-move, center-interact screen control scheme. Instead it employs a one-touch Infinity-walk that is too finicky for finding your way around the narrow and mostly vertical island habitats.

You'll be walking into walls. You'll be climbing up and down when you want to go sideways. You'll be futzing around back and forth in front of an objective you can't quite click on.

You'll collect hidden upgrades for your boat because race car. You'll squint through the darkness of night because realism. You'll discover impressive landmarks and then drive on by because you can't do anything with them.

The thrill even of exploration is undercut by the artificiality of the environments, the irrelevance of the wildlife and the sameness of it all.

Overall assessment: It's too arduously gamey to really be a standout "walking simulator" type tone poem, but then the gameplay is too muddled and elementary to be much fun.

I hate to be so negative, because I love the idea of this title. I would love to see more low-key games focused on exploration and discovery, and on setting a mood and establishing a tone, and on telling quiet stories with feeling. Maybe my high hopes set unrealistic expectations but for me this one did not stick the landing.

See also: iOS version of Knights of the Old Republic which rendered an absolute classic nearly unplayable by foregoing a straightforward, proven movement scheme for some wackadoo touch controls that nobody had tried before and didn't make any sense.

Submerged is a fabulously designed game. Just the concept of exploring a flooded city via boat was fun followed by climbing all around the buildings to locate items. Go at you own pace - it's quite relaxing. Has a great mapping system. Every odd person complains of the controls, but I find no concerns...just a small learning curve like in any game and then hours of fun. Wish there were more games like this - if you liked the game "Nimian Legends BrightRidge", then you'll like Submerged as well. Worked fine on iPad Mini 4 (10.3.3).

Very repetitive, just drive a boat, find a. Spot to search, climb. Find a location marker or one of the few boxes. Found it boring. The same scenario over and over. Never did find out what the story was.