Review by Jon Donnis
Call of the Sea is a first-person adventure from Out of the Blue, published by Raw Fury. You play as Norah, voiced by Cissy Jones, who travels to a remote island in the South Pacific during the 1930s to track down her missing husband, Harry, voiced by Yuri Lowenthal. There's no combat here, the focus is on exploring the island and working through puzzles.
The setting is the first thing that stands out. The island looks beautiful, with its bright colours, strange ruins and hidden corners that keep you curious about what's next. The presentation has real character, and Norah herself is a big part of that. Jones gives her a voice that feels warm and believable, and the story carries both mystery and emotion as it unravels.
Most of your time is spent solving puzzles. They come at a steady pace, usually clever and well thought out, and when they click they feel rewarding. The game clearly has a lot of care behind it, both in how the puzzles are built and in how the story pushes you forward.
Not everything lands perfectly. Some of the puzzles are tough, even with the hints available, and a few times I ended up checking online to figure out the solution. That can be a slippery slope, because once you've done it once it's tempting to do it again rather than wrestle with the harder sections. Playing on a Nintendo Switch Lite also showed up a few technical hiccups, with some stuttering in the animation, though it was never enough to ruin the experience.
Call of the Sea isn't the sort of game you'll replay often, but as a one-off adventure it works well. The combination of its striking island setting, its story full of heart, and a run of puzzles that mostly land makes it worth picking up if you enjoy thoughtful puzzle-driven games.
I score Call of the Sea a solid 7.5 out of 10.
Out Now on multiple formats
And on Nintendo Digital
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