Narumi Nitpicks: SeaBed

SeaBed 

The moment where I firmly realized how much this VN has an impact with me only came a few weeks later as I was playing a Raising Sim made in RPGMaker. Seabed uses royalty free stock music for its BGM. When I heard one of the tracks play in that Raising Sim, I just sat there stunned, unable to do anything else. The track doesn’t even play in any of the pivotal moments, it played mostly during the first half of the game. And even then memories of the VN just flooded me and I was unable to continue. That was how much Seabed meant to me.

Seabed is a mystery/drama/travel diary centered around the stories of two women and how their relationship fell apart. Presentation wise it is extremely dry. The VN is written as if it were an actual paperback novel, i.e. it’s mostly descriptive (very dryly written at that) and dull without taking much advantage of the medium it’s in. So not much dialogue or voice acting or the like. It’s in the NVL format too which I do so despise. The story does get pretty slow at points and I’d be lying if I didn’t try to keep myself awake at certain points. The artwork is just okay at best, and as I said earlier the soundtrack is entirely stock music (maybe with a few exceptions).

And yet despite all this, I thoroughly enjoyed myself to the end. Over the many hours or so I’ve grown enraptured by the main characters and their plights, as well as the mysterious circumstances surrounding them. And in spite of its slow pace, I can’t help but keep clicking onwards to see what bits of story lie ahead.



Of course, no spoilers in this review, since of course, a majority of my enjoyment comes from experiencing this tale fresh. But you know the mark of a good story when you can tell what’s coming and still get emotionally invested when it actually happens for real. The prologue is fairly lengthy, but offers a good preview on what to expect from the rest of the story thematically.

And that stock music comment I made earlier? It turns out if you play the right music at the right moment, it sticks in your brain forever. I can’t listen to generic stock vacation music anymore without thinking of this VN and tearing up.

Sometimes creepy, sometimes relaxing, sometimes boring, and at the tail end of it, genuinely heartbreaking, Seabed ended up captivating me on all fronts and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good read.

And yes, I bought the game (again) nearly immediately once the Switch preload was available.

9/10



Oh and if you’re wondering. It's this BGM.

I still get goosebumps listening to it.