Dave the Diver

Dave the Diver was provided by MINTROCKET and EvolvePR for review. Thank you!

Get ready for an adventure RPG where getting addicted to the gameplay loop is quite common. Dave the Diver will put in the role of Dave, a professional diver who took on a new job. During the day, you will put your diving to use and capture fish, as well as gather resources to complete missions and improve your gear. As night falls though, you will need to help man the sushi restaurant. Set the menu, enhance the meals, and wait on customers to make money and fund your expenditures. All of this while discovering the secrets of the Blue Hole.

I can’t remember the last time a review has been put off a little bit due to how addicting the game can be, but Dave the Diver definitely did. This game is phenomenal, the two styles of gameplay weave into each other in fantastic ways that highlight each one’s importance. The diving not only brings the fish you will be serving, but you can find new weapons, artifacts, gear, and complete missions to keep the interesting story going. Then we head to the sushi bar management where you will be setting the menu, waiting tables, and giving drinks to keep the money flowing. The more money you make, the more you can upgrade in both the restaurant and the diving.

Cover all of this with a gorgeous pixel artstyle with smooth animations and you get an addicting experience that’s very pleasing on the eyes. And then we have the fantastic humor injected in as well. There have been a good chunk of food enhancement cutscenes and dialog that threw me on the floor laughing. Dave the Diver is a fantastic game that I loved gameplay-wise, though when it comes to performance on the Steam Deck, that’s where things get a little iffy at times.

Dave the Diver - Steam Deck Performance

At nights, manning the sushi restaurant had no drops and runs flawlessly, which is fantastic. There were no issues I had during the night time, but diving was another issue. At first, I didn’t see many issues and diving was going well at a solid 60, but as I got deeper, that’s when trouble started brewing.

Going down into the depths of the waters brings in much more complex backgrounds, which end up taking a toll on the Deck. The framerate will start to fluctuate, getting close to the 50 FPS range. This can feel a bit jarring as the framerate dips, so setting the refresh rate to 50hz and using 50 FPS solves this for the most part. There are some areas that may dip to 48 with a 17W drain, but this isn’t that bad overall. 50 does feel quite smooth when it’s set correctly, so I’d definitely recommend keeping it this way.

Dave the Diver doesn’t have many graphical settings, really only resolution and that can’t be changed, so we are stuck with the default settings in-game. We can force the resolution down through Steam, however, the game looks arguably worse with minimal performance increases.

You can also bring it down to 40 FPS, which will be completely stable, but not as smooth. Personally, I preferred the smoothness and the few sacrifices were worth it, but if you want something fully stable with slightly better battery, bring the refresh rate and framerate lock to 40.

The game doesn't support 16:10 resolutions, but it supports cloud saves and Gamepad controls.

Conclusion

Dave the Diver is a fantastic casual adventure/management RPG that oozes with humor and a great visual style. Both of the main elements of the game are fantastic and really complement each others well, emphasizing making each affect the other in meaningful ways. Performance on the Steam Deck could be a bit better at lower depths, which is unfortunate, but it’s totally playable otherwise. Even with this, I would recommend the game due to how addicting the gameplay loop is.

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