Review: Dave the Diver

I first sat down to play Dave the Diver expecting a few hours of casual fishing fun. 30 hours of game time later, I’m realizing that Dave the Diver goes much deeper than you’d expect from a $20 title. Its writing is hilarious, its art is simple but gorgeous, and its gameplay scratches my exploring/collecting itch in a way that’s supremely satisfying.

Dave the Diver was developed and published by Mintrocket, a brand-new subdivision of Nexon. Though Dave the Diver is the first game from Mintrocket, Nexon has a long history of mostly free-to-play online games like Maplestory and Blue Archive. Dave the Diver is neither free-to-play nor online though, and it offers a complete experience for the price of the box.

Dave the Diver (PC [Reviewed], Nintendo Switch)
Developer: Mintrocket
Publisher: Mintrocket
Released: June 28, 2023 (PC), October 26, 2023 (Switch)
MSRP: $19.99

Dave the Diver’s premise is simple. You are Dave, a professional SCUBA diver currently enjoying a tropical vacation. Suddenly, your best buddy Cobra calls, inviting you over for the best darn sushi of your life. Unable to resist, you hurry over to find that there is no sushi…yet. Cobra wants to open up a sushi restaurant, and he needs your help to manage it and catch fish.

From there, the gameplay is an addicting loop of exploring the Blue Hole, a mysterious undersea region full of fish from around the world. You’ll work with the sushi chef Bancho to add new fish to the menu, manage your restaurant to improve its rating, and even do some farming. While all this is going on, there is an overarching story involving an enigmatic lost civilization of Sea People.

The story is silly, yet endearing. The game as a whole doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it’s not afraid to exploit clichés or use over-the-top visual gags. It’s full of references to internet memes, anime culture, and hilarious writing all around. The cutscenes are true works of art and I refuse to skip a single one.

Each and every one of the NPCs is memorable. Bancho is technologically inept, but a master sushi chef. Duff, your weapons dealer, is a basement-dwelling anime girl superfan. Sato, who collects trading cards based on the fish you catch, is straight-up an adult Ash Ketchum. I didn’t have to look up any of these characters’ names. I remember them all because I love them all.

Diver by day, restaurateur by night

You’re able to do two to three diving trips each day: once in the morning, afternoon, and evening. These diving excursions are used to gather materials, cooking ingredients, and of course, fish. Fishing is done primarily with a harpoon that can be aimed in the 2D space around you. As you continue playing, you unlock various types of weaponry to dispatch larger, more aggressive creatures. There are also nets and traps, giving you some flexibility in what method you want to use to capture your quarry.

The Blue Hole is ever-changing though, with different landscapes every time you dive and random items found in each chest. No two dives will go the same way. Dave the Diver isn’t a roguelite, but it might help to go in with the same “take what you get” mindset that roguelites encourage.

Your oxygen meter doubles as your health bar, and taking damage drains your oxygen. Return to the surface before you run out, or find one of the many oxygen canisters scattered around the Blue Hole. If you run out of oxygen underwater, Cobra will rescue you, but you’ll only get to keep one of the items you acquired during your dive. It sucks to lose a bunch of fish, but I’ve never felt pressured to load a previous save because of it.

Any fish you take back to your restaurant can be served to customers in the form of sushi or other, fancier dishes. I enjoyed designing my own wacky menu based on what ingredients I have and my customers’ tastes. The restaurant opens every evening to serve customers and earn money. As you get busier, you’ll be able to hire employees to help you with cooking, serving, and acquiring ingredients.

The diving portion and restaurant management portion of Dave the Diver work together to create a wholesome, satisfying gameplay loop. You explore and fish during the day and run your restaurant at night, making more money to buy more upgrades so you can catch ever more exotic fish. I always grin when I see that I’ve beaten my all-time sales record or caught my biggest fish. But I know that I can make more money and catch even bigger fish. And so I hop back into the water even though I really should stop playing and go to bed.

That’s not all, though. There’s so, so much more to Dave the Diver than just diving and running a restaurant. You can open a fish farm, a vegetable farm, and a seaweed farm. You can race seahorses, gamble, play rhythm games, and even raise a Tamagotchi-like virtual pet. Each of these events are introduced gradually over the course of the story, preventing you from getting overwhelmed at the start.

Most importantly, you don’t have to partake in these activities. Sure, farming will help you get more ingredients for special recipes, but you don’t regularly need to keep up with your farm in order to progress the story. If the management aspect becomes too much, it’s perfectly fine to ignore these extra mechanics until you actually need them.

Deceptively simple, supremely satisfying

My one core criticism of Dave the Diver is that a few of its gameplay elements are poorly explained. There were a small handful of moments during my playthrough where I wasn’t sure how to properly pour a beer or why my seahorses were seemingly disappearing. Still, these issues were infrequent and easy enough to overcome. The boss fights and puzzles are generally fairly easy for those with video game experience. Dying to a boss respawns you at the start of the fight, allowing you to try again immediately. There are a couple of puzzles that don’t spoon-feed you the correct answer, which I appreciate.

In a world full of fear and uncertainty, Dave the Diver is here to offer a lighthearted story and engaging gameplay. It doesn’t try to follow trends or emulate big AAA titles. It doesn’t have an in-game shop to try to get you to spend more money. It’s simply a silly, fun game about a diver named Dave, and I can’t put it down.

Also, you can pet the baby whale. 9/10 would pet again.

_{[This review is based on a retail copy of the game purchased by the reviewer.]}