From indie team Thunderful Games here we have the watery Wavetale. The studio consists of indie developers Image & Form and Zoink—they merged into Thunderful in 2020.
This launched in December 2022 so we’re a bit delayed getting to it! As we’d wanted to take to its water-based stuff for quite some time. Now we have, the result is this is a most spiffing time of it indeed—really good!
Surfing Those Magnificent Seas in Wavetale
Wavetale is available on PC, PS4/5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. We got the Steam version as it’s been on sale and was only £6 (huzzah).
When it launched the reviews weren’t exactly great. The excellent Nintendo Life, for example, handed it a 6/10. So we went in with quite low expectations here, yet Wavetale bowled us over within its first 30 minutes. In fact, the first hour goes from sedate to fast-paced and melodic and it’s really something.
There’s a beauty, almost watery flow from one puzzle to the next.
You take control of the young lady Sigrid in the land of Strandville. Your grandmother is present amongst various others, with the goal being to stop a benevolent steampunk force taking over the land.
There’s a slow opening collect-a-thon 10 minutes you’re really pushed into the main action, which introduces players to the control system and game’s world. Behold!
Its gameplay style is similar to Heart Machine’s indie gem Solar Ash (2021), with peaceful but fast-paced sort of in-game skating from one area to the next.
The difference here is the sheer amount of water onscreen, which looks beautiful and also very satisfying to just cruise along atop of like some surf dude.
Our initial concern it would be collect-a-thon heavy soon disappeared as what followed really just had us swooning in wonder for Wavetale.
There’s a breathless following hour where you’re traversing giant sky constructions, zipping around with a grapplehook, and also just riding the waves (Sigrid can, essentially, skate along on top of the sea).
Whilst there’s nothing revolutionary going on with the gameplay, it is done to a very high standard. The desire to keep exploring is there and the flow of the areas is brilliant.
As the story unfolds during play, and on-screen instructions are clear, it’s intuitive on how to move from one area to the next. And we thought it was a total joy!
Problems? Well, the combat system isn’t amazing. But it’s there. Some of the collect-a-thon requirements can get a bit “Oh, this again”. But the game is only three hours, so that ’90s game mechanic never outstays its welcome. The three hour thing may bother some gamers, of course, but as we’ve pointed out before—indie games are short.
The asking price tag of £20 some would argue is too high for that game length, but this is a high-quality title (at least in our opinion) and worth every penny.
It’s a lovingly crafted game and clearly a lot of effort has gone into it.
Wavetale is stunning to look at, the score (which we’re covering in a moment, further below) is brilliant, and there are just so many great little touches. For example, there’s an option to customise Sigrid’s clothes, hair, and accessories. You can get a Reni hat in amongst that. Boom! We’re sold.
The game isn’t perfect. But for what you get we really had a fantastic time with this, a major highlight being the beautiful animation of the sea. Which you spend much time surfing—it is glorious.
Sea Sounds—The Noises From Wavetale
Wavetale has a gorgeous score and this was provided by Swedish composer, sound designer, and producer Joel Bille.
He structured the score to evolve with the in-game action (a common tactic that’s been in use, thanks to technological advances, over the last decade). It works supremely well here as the game escalates quite rapidly in its heights.
The score does have its melancholic moments but, on the whole, is an uplifting time of it with really soaring numbers.
He provided an interview to GoNintendo in late 2022 about this work and the dudes running that site noted it was one of the year’s best game music scores. For his processes he told them:
“I rarely work within concrete genres or direct references, I usually end up with a huge playlist of references, this time around 8 hours long. It’s a wide variety of genres, but one that stands out is a lot of Norwegian trumpet based sort of noir-mountain-jazz. It’s a thing!”
The Flugelhorn is also ever-present as the lead instrument.
We’ve seen that instrument used to great effect in FAR: Lone Sails (2018) and its sequel Changing Tides. For sure, the Flugelhorn seems to be ideally suited to water-based or more chillout focussed titles. You heard it here first!
It took Bille a year to piece the soundtrack together.
All that hard work paid off as it complements this underrated gem of a game perfectly. The score plunges (in a good way) it to impressive, murky depths from which the players emerges beaming and delighted.
