Ecco The Dolphin For Skill-Tree Nerds
There were some derisive snorts when Shelldiver appeared on Game Pass, but I’d argue it’s the perfect game for the service. Sure, it’s not a day-one release of The Blood of Dawnwalker, but it checks pretty much every other box that I personally have: it’s a game I probably wouldn’t have played otherwise; it’s absolutely fab; it consumed me completely for the four hours it takes to finish it; and I’ll never play it again. Tick tick tick tick. Pure Game Pass gold.
Of course, you don’t necessarily need to have a Game Pass subscription but the recommendation prevails. Shelldiver is a pocket rocket of an indie game, and I encourage anyone with a passing interest in levelling characters up, Spelunky or incremental games to find their preferred way to get their hands on it.
Shelldiver’s Going To Have A Problem Marketing Itself
It’s hard to glean what Shelldiver is from promotional materials. You would be within your rights to think that Shelldiver is a fishing sim or a spiritual cousin to Ecco the Dolphin, but neither are quite right. Shelldiver is, and I’m estimating here, about 40% a fishing sim that plays like a mining sim, and the remaining 60% is basically Skill Tree: The Game.
For each ‘run’ in Shelldiver, you are choosing a location in which you want to fish. This is the 40% that I mentioned above. You’re whisked to an underwater location that is not much bigger than a few game screens. It’s a claustrophobic fish-tank full of jellyfish and rotating rocks.
You have two tools to ensure the run is worthwhile. The first is your bubble gun, and this is used to capture the jellyfish (science-accurate: turtles do eat jellyfish). Your bubbles whittle away at the jellyfish’s health bar until its resistance falls and it is encased in a bubble. It can now be captured. It’s not your traditional fishing mechanic and feels more like drill-mining.
A Spot Of Zero-G Mining
The other tool is a plasma gun and it clears the rotating rocks. It takes a while to charge, but once it’s going it carves into the rocks with glee. Once you’ve properly leveled it up, the plasma-beams can chain together to create a network of lasers like the one featured in the original Resident Evil movie. It’s great fun. All of the rocks pop, and you get a shower of resources to take home with you.
All of this is done while swimming, which separates Shelldiver from similar games like Spelunky and Steamworld Dig. The act of swimming isn’t all that complicated, as you’re mostly just pushing the right stick in the direction you want.
Once you’ve filled your storage with jellyfish, it’s time to head back to camp, where you can sell them to a shop and take the resulting cash to your skill tree. This is where things get meaty, as the skill tree is disproportionally huge. I mean, it’s just way bigger than is needed for a game of this size. You can finetune and improve absolutely every aspect of Shelldiver, from the number of jellyfish that appear, to the speed of selling them at the store. If there’s a lever for improving your turtle, Shelldiver pulls it.
The Skill Tree That Keeps Growing
After every run, which isn’t a particularly long process, you’re able to buy something like four or five upgrades in the skill tree. Which means that you are constantly improving AND feeling like you are improving. Differences are noticeable in every run. You can be struggling for air in a level, buy some upgrades in the skill tree, and then not struggle in the subsequent run.
It’s hard to convey just how silly the skill tree is. Each node can even be upgraded multiple times. Shelldiver begins to take on the aspect of an incremental game or bullet-heaven title, rather than a fishing or mining game. Enjoyment comes from moving about this tree, and finding branches that can be upgraded, only to find that the branch leads to even more branches, sprawling into the distance.
I really get a kick out of this. If you’ve ever enjoyed tinkering with skill trees and Materia in hulking RPGs then you may understand why. But Shelldiver also does a fantastic job of spraying fireworks about the screen with every purchase, and occasionally handing you unlocks that change the fundamentals of the game. There’s little better than hopping into a run, only to find that you are now surrounded by exploding pufferfish, drone seahorses and starfish turrets.
The bonkers degree of depth in the skill tree does take a little bit of a toll. At the end of my time in Shelldiver, I found that I was unlocking nodes simply because I could. I wasn’t even reading what I was unlocking: I just saw a shiny green node and bought it. I’d find out what it did later, when I was in the run itself. But that felt like a disconnect too far. I genuinely wanted to know what I was buying, but there was so much of that ‘buying’ after each run, to the point that I grew numb to it.
Makes The Materia System Look Tiny
Perhaps that’s on us, though. If you want to spend time micro-managing your turtle, you absolutely can. Each direction in the skill tree has a different function, and there’s strategy and joy to be had in which one you head for. You might bemoan the lack of power in your plasma-gun and head to that section of the tree, only to find that it’s not a problem next time out. In the later game, you are even constructing buildings on your island, so that you can automate most of the processes.
I blasted through Shelldiver in a couple of days. I don’t think I had much say in the matter: I was locked into the skill tree, determined to push through its fog of war and find yet more nodes to purchase. I get obsessive, though, and I love my incremental games, which Shelldiver begins to resemble. If you find ‘numbers going up’ to be a bad excuse for video gaming, then Shelldiver might not be for you.
But if you’ve ever spent too much time tweaking your skill trees in RPGs, then – by golly – have we got the game for you. Shelldiver may look like a swimming or fishing sim, but it’s mostly a mining game strapped to the most overblown, intensely satisfying skill tree you will ever encounter. It tapped into the most addictive and compulsive elements of my personality, and it may well do the same to you.
Important Links
Take The Plunge With Shelldiver On Xbox Game Pass – https://www.thexboxhub.com/take-the-plunge-with-shelldiver-on-xbox-game-pass/
Download from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/Shelldiver/9N51NR4GX891?wfExp=382A
