The Sea Eternal

I had very high hopes for this starting out.
One of Lynnea Glasser's previous works, Creatures Such as We, was what first sparked my interest in CYOA games (though it was later with Choice of Robots that got me seriously into them) so I bought this as soon as it was available. I ended up not doing my first playthrough for quite a while and by then the reviews had started to show up. I was surprised and honestly a bit disappointed to see the overall ratings. They caused me to delay even longer. All that aside, though, my actual thoughts on the game.
Firstly and most importantly: this was EXTREMELY engaging for me. I'm sitting here at 9am, with about 4 and a half hours put into navigating the story and then several more thinking about what I'd just read. That should speak for itself.
A lot of people mention how this is a "message" game and while I can't really dispute that it didn't feel that way to me. There were definitely some, uh, "PC" elements but they never detracted from the story. They were well couched in the themes and elements of the setting that they felt quite natural... most of the time. Though, as always, with this type of content your mileage may vary.
As for the actual writing and editing... top notch. I really don't think there's any argument here, whatever people may think of the content. I may not exactly at my best due to sleep deprivation (and if there are any errors in this: sorry) but I didn't notice any typos or anything of the sort. The writing was concise without being too brief and generally quite evocative. Aaaaaand speaking of concise... the length. My first playthrough definitely took less than an hour and the many half-skipped-over proceeding playthrough, totalling about 5 or 6, only ate up about 3-4 more.
Now, I'm far from done with this but already this isn't a bad amount of time for a CYOA game to keep my attention. My only real complaint is that I find myself unable to get a lot of the things I want to happen to happen. I don't know if this is a lack of freedom, overly harsh choice requirements or my own addled ineptitude but it's getting pretty annoying. I may have to ammend this section in the future, but for now it's... a problem. Not a huge one, but still.
Anyways I feel like I'm in equal parts rambling and entirely missing the point of a review so I'll wrap this up. Interesting, complex setting with generally interesting characters and some pretty seriously dramatic branching paths.
I give it a "pretty great" out of 10.
(Again, apologies for the probably massive number of typos and errors both grammatical and logical.)

It's difficult for me to say whether The Sea Eternal is a 'game' in the traditional sense or not. Unlike a visual novel, there are no graphics or music or sound effects, so if you expect a sensory spectacle, this is not for you. The gameplay loop, if you want to call it that, is reduced to reading, making a choice, and turning the page. The choices lead your character into certain diections, for example, "independent" versus "respected", and your stance with various characters. There are also achievements for several stepping stones in the story.
If all this sounds like a game to you, I can definitely recommend it. As you can see from my Steam name, I'm a big fan of merpeople (mermaids and mermen) and transformations, so the content was definitely up my alley. The writing is beautiful and incredibly immersive, there are strong themes of identity and and the price of immortality, and strong world building. It should also be mentioned that there is a strong current of LGBTQA+ friendliness, featuring at least one trans character and several characters of unusual and even uncertain gender. If this kind of content offends you for some mysterious reason, then The Sea Eternal is not for you. It's a great game to just lie back and relax with your tablet with, immersing yourself in the subtlety of the writing and surprising yourself with your own role-playing choices and the occasional achievement.
If I had one point of criticism, it would be that several important events are talked about as having already happened, going against the old writing adage of "Is this the most exciting part of your character's life, and if not, why aren't you showing us that?" Other than that though, the novel's numerous more action-oriented scenes do keep you on your toes.
I will definitely be on the lookout for more content by this publisher, as it seems to have been made with genuine love and investment in the subject matter.

I spent 6-8 hours playing through this game on tablet and bought the steam version just so I can write a review.
As a fan of choose-your-adventure games for a year, I rank The Sea Eternal as my number one favorite due to the emotional complexity the game delivers (my second favorite is Choice of Robots, due to its multidimensional characters).
The Sea Eternal is well written, typo-free except for one minor mistake, and has a very fluent flow. You play as a merfolk living in a mersociety. I love that the game does not bury you with tons of merfolk backgrounds in the beginning, but rather introduce you to the society through several dialogue choices scattered throughout the game. Many dialogue choices inform you of some relevant truth before you make the choice.
Character development is average in The Sea Eternal, but whatever it loses in character dimensionality, it makes up for with its huge plot. You are placed in the controversial world of merfolks in which the very concepts of your life, memories, and identity are a well plotted scheme. Throughout your journey, you will inspire younger versions of yourself to either fall for or avoid the scheme. I myself have had the misfortune of pushing everyone I care about down the cliff. But the fact that you will inspire others to fall despite sensing that something is off is just what makes The Sea Eternal so beautiful.
If you enjoy choose-your-adventure games with mind-blowing plots and don't mind melancholy, you should definitely pick up The Sea Eternal.

I really do enjoy these sort of ''games'' as these stories really add up in the world of story telling, and this world. As this story takes places in the ocean as a mermaid, I don't wanna spoil much what happends more. But I really love the idea of transgender character(s), lesbian lovers or just doing both genders. Or choose you don't give a single shit about love at all.
I would recomend it if you enjoy these sort of stories with a path to choose your own.
It's sure a diffrent twist then some random mermaid story, but very good.
-Little edit-
I wrote this late night, and forgot to add that some things are really forced into the game. As you can't really choose that way and just get pushed into the direction. otherwise it's pretty good only a shame they kinda force some ways.

While I think I would recommend this game, it also confuses me to a great degree. I am still confused by a plethora of choices and unsure how many achievements are meant to be found (and therefore how those endings or story pathways are able to be seen). Theoretically very interesting, though, I do love how you learn more about the story every time you play through it, you learn more about the world and the characters. It's really fascinating how you slowly uncover the big picture story behind everything in that way. I still feel like I don't know everything and I've been through it like 6 or 7 times!

Sadly, Choice of Games seems to get a lot of negative reviews that can basically be summed up as "wouldn't let me be an asshole" and "this story has a POINT" which tbf makes me like it MORE

A good game with different setting and plot of being a mermaid. A bit short but has good character developments and story pacing. It is not the best I ever played but it isn't the worst either.
7/10 A friend rebel because unhappy as immortal mermaid. Changed into human. Then chose to live with the mermaids immortally. Only math was more confusing than this.