Wavetale

Wavetale was provided to us by Thunderful Games for review. Thank you!

The Dirty Paws are back and it is up to you, and the shadows below, to stop them and bring peace back to the decaying archipelago of Strandville. Wavetale is a story-driven adventure where, as Sigrid, you will skate across the waves and fight gloomy enemies. Using your net, you will traverse buildings, hookshot into pipes, blast yourself out of cannons, and more to make your way across the stretch of islands. You can customize Sigrid as well with different outfits and hats to really make her your own!

Wavetale was something I really didn't expect myself to enjoy nearly as much as I did. The combat felt a bit lacking since you're just whacking enemies until they blow up, but I can't get over how much I love skating on the water. It feels awesome to hold down the jump button to eject yourself higher than normal and hooking onto a continuous stream of pipes and cannons to traverse long stretches of water. While I had a blast playing, I think we should look more into the Steam Deck experience.

Wavetale: Max Performance

Due to this being an open game with a decent amount of buildings, I didn't expect performance to be up to 60 FPS. At max settings, I was getting an average 48 - 49 framerate with 22W battery drain and 85c temps. There were a couple moments this would dip closer to 40 with drain and temps would go higher as well. Luckily though, with a couple of tweaks, Wavetale can be much more playable!

Riding the Waves of Optimization

I went back and forth between whether I preferred battery life or a smoother framerate and, after playing for a bit, I had to go with smoother framerate. Gliding across the sea at a smoother pace was by far the more enjoyable choice. It did mean the battery would be draining faster (around 14W-16W in most spots), but the trade off was worth it for 40 FPS. I did notice some spots did drop to 38-39 at a TDP of 10, but these almost immediately bounced back so it didn't bother me in the slightest.

I did also want to make a 30 FPS build that focused on battery and further refined stability. I was able to get a TDP limit of 6 comfortably while drain stuck around 9W - 12W for almost 4 hours of battery. It didn't feel as great to me as 40 did, but it was still very comfortable and playable.

Settings and Testing Woes

When testing the game, I tried a multitude of different options to get it to work right. While the game does have some accessibility options, there weren't any graphical ones apart from resolution (which only has 720p and 800p). I decided to try to force the resolution down through Steam, which I could then use to upscale to save on performance, but doing this caused a lot more stuttering, so keeping it at native was the only option.

Otherwise, I didn't encounter any other issues in regards to performance.

Conclusion

Wavetale is really an awesome game. I can't say enough how enjoyable it felt to surf the waters and hook across pipes and cannons that accelerated your movement. The combat may be lacking in depth, but the game makes up for it with the way you move and traverse across the world. And on the Steam Deck, this will be a wonderful action-adventure experience definitely worth your time.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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