Finished Dave, some thoughts [Spoilers]

[Swanky]

Just finished Dave the Diver and overall I really like the experience.
Really loved the relaxed experience of the dives vs the controlled chaos in the bar each night. Story is good, loved the variety of quirky characters.

There's a few balance issues regarding charms, dash speed and a few bosses, but nothing too serious. Never felt I had to throw my head against a wall without reason - I always knew what I was doing wrong and needed to change.

The speedcharm is probably the most necessary item in the game, permanently increasing dash speed is a must have for many situations and from what I've read I'm not alone with the opinion. It would be better to increase the general dash speed by 30% so that it's always active and have the charm do something else, like decreasing o2 consumption when dashing. This would also solve many issues with "unfair" bosses.

Could have done without some of the minigames, GYAO! being the worst offender by far. Knockoff Tamagotchi without the charm - it's just a hassle. Having it have additional cards is just the stinky cherry on top.

The one thing bugged me the longer I played however is becoming very apparent with the opening of the branch - the level of micromanagement is becoming insane at this point. While it fundamentally works, the amount of keeping track of what fish and ingredients you need to fish, facilitate & send in between the two bars, fish farm and farm is really, really bad by the end.
To that end I would love to see some QoL features being implemented in the future:
- Favourite dishes that are pinned on the top of the list for easier findings
- Selectable list of things to keep a look out for when diving, so I don't have to go through a handmade list of a dozen fish and ingredients I need to get for the evening's sushi opening. The current list of Fishmon / Marinca Cards list when pressing Dpad up just doesn't cut it.
- Selectable dishes for the branch with the option to autosupply those every day
- A better overview of what and how many dishes were sold each night. The wooden boards above the bar don't get noticed too much in the chaos of the openings and they're gone once the bar closes so it's hard to keep track of how many customers you had and how many dishes were sold and how many were thrown away
- Many tutorials are just plain bad. They don't explain that you can dispatch your staff in the waiting room, for example, they don't explain if your staff needs the same skills for wasabi refill, drink serving and cleaning for the branch... That's just two examples but the list goes on.

[Rhaane]

Im nearly to the end and never once used the 30% dash charm. I do however ALWAYS use the quick dash one that takes no O2 to use. Ive also almost never used the O2 draining dash mechanic. Often I forget its even a thing. Aside from bosses that I had no clue about since I did all of it blind, I have had no issues with non "encounters". Only if I screwed myself by not being prepared with O2 / escape plan and such.

That example aside. I dont think youd have a good time if you played with neither of the movement charms. Youd almost have to search for scooters which would be a huge pain.

EDIT - I could actually do without the entire charm system and instead you get perm upgrades, could even make them weaker. Like perm 5% harpoon damage, perm 5 or 10% gun damage, perm 10-15% dash, perm "quick dash", perm less damage from poison.. and so on

[Jeff]

Yeah I always had to have the +30% speed charm on, effectively limiting my charm options by 1.

They could add a forge or something to permanently add a charm to your character and destroy it.

Maybe it could add 3 total, first for 10k, and then second and third could be only for super endgame goals if people get bored, could cost 100k and 300k to add them permanently to your character.

[Dragonfive]

My biggest gripe with the game are the menus. I'm fine with micromanagement, but the user experience when navigating any menu is properly terrible and making it a lot less enjoyable than it should be. Navigating your inventory without filters when you're underwater feels hella clunky, the fish farm could definitely use an option to sell/butcher all fishes BUT TWO of all kind, only being able to move ingredients to the branch one by one is a hell and a half of a task...

Menus and UX is really the biggest flaw of the game in my opinion. That and the insane button mashing in an otherwise pretty chill part of the game.

[Rallianto]

Really great game, but needs a lot of quality of life improvements.

- Branch
You have to select each ingredient individually and send them.. there are ~200 ingredients
You can't use mouse in the UI (The entire Brand UI needs rework and make it simple to send/share ingredients)

- Fish farm
Again, you have to select each individual fish and send them, there are hundres of fish, takes forever

- Farm
Too complicated, too many fertilizers
Too easy for plants to fail
(Tip: If you use 1 nutrition each day, plants never fail)

- Combat
Player does not immidiatly react to input, makes him feel unresponsive when using weapons and aiming

- Post game
After beating last boss, I have no incentive to keep playing. Give us a reason to keep the sushi bar(s) running