Mark of the Deep is another video game that really scratched my itch for dark fantasy pirates. It’s about a pirate crew whose ship sinks and they wake up on a cursed island full of sea monsters. And the main character is the only one who can rescue everyone and break the curse!

This game is a zelda-like in that it’s a top-down action game where you explore various dungeons. There’s also a bit of metroidvania in there since the map is a series of interconnected areas and you need to unlock abilities to reach the next area. And then there’s the souls-like aspect where resting at checkpoints refills your health and potions but also re-spawns all defeated enemies. And the story is told through obscure pieces of lore that you can easily miss, just like in a souls-like. However, this game does a couple things to make the souls-like aspect much more bearable in my opinion (as someone who’s terrible at souls-likes). First, there is no corpse run. If you die, there’s no real consequence other than restarting from the last checkpoint. This also means all game state is preserved when you die. If you unlock a door or flip a switch, that door is still open and that switch is still flipped if you die. This makes everything so much easier. Also, there is no parry in this game. You can only dodge roll, but you’re invincible while rolling. So you don’t have to dodge to escape an enemy’s reach, you only have to be rolling while they’re attacking and you’re safe.

This game is still difficult though, mostly in figuring out where to go next. The only map available is an overworld map showing you which regions are connected to which other regions. But within any given region, it’s a labyrinth and there is no map. Sometimes it’s very difficult to remember where you were when you last died after being thrown all the way back to a checkpoint. The game does a good job of unlocking shortcuts along the way so you don’t have to backtrack too much after a death, you just have to remember where you were.

Because each region is a labyrinth, there are a lot of branching paths. And there are some paths you can’t access immediately. This means after unlocking a new ability you have to figure which path led to (what you thought at the time was) a dead end. This is the most frustrating part of the game to me. And it’s compounded by the fact that this game isn’t very popular so there aren’t any walkthroughs. Well, there are video walkthroughs on youtube but those are impossible to use when you just want to figure out where to go next. Fortunately, the few times I actually got stuck, the Discussions page on Steam always had someone explaining what I needed. Without that, I probably would’ve given up on this game because it just isn’t worth exploring every branch in an area, especially when some are hidden and non-obvious.

Overall though, I fully enjoyed this game. The gameplay was fun enough to keep me going and the aesthetic was exactly what I was looking for. I really think it’s worth playing and I wish it was more popular (so someone could write a decent walkthrough).
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1933370/Mark_of_the_Deep/