SIREN

Alright. The Sirena Expedition is done and dusted. This was a pretty quick linear platformer with some secrets sprinkled in throughout the game. There is also a second playthrough you can unlock, but I was satisfied with simply playing through the base campaign once.
The PSX style is something I've noticed being used a bit more frequently these days, and it definitely works well for games that market themselves as horror or as horror adjacent. I would describe this game as the latter. Horror adjacent. To actually call this a horror game seems like a stretch. I noticed mention of cheap jump scares in the one review I read prior to buying this game. There are no jump scares. Not sure where that writer got that notion, lol. So, with the things this game isn't out of the way, let's chat about some of things the game actually is.
This is an atmosphere heavy mystery where you play as an Aquanaut, exploring some sort of facility at the bottom of the ocean that nobody knew existed, and so once found, the company you work for obviously wanted to get some boots on the ground, so to speak, and check it out. That's what you are doing. Very quickly, you realize you aren't alone as giant eyeballs start appearing in the facility, watching you as you progress, lol. Eventually, you fall out of the facility and into an abyss, where you gain some abilities. Namely, the ability to communicate with these weirdo eyeballs and the ability to swap places with crates located throughout the facility.
The crates are the central puzzle mechanic in the game as you move them around and swap places with them in order to gain access to different parts of the facility. So, I would jokingly call this game a ladder simulator (and there are in fact some ladders in the game), but crates to climb on instead. Generally speaking, your jumping and climbing around will either immediately grant you access to new areas or will give you access to levers which will grant you access to new areas.
Beyond that, there is the occasional branching path or secret area as mentioned previously, and accessing certain areas, secret or not, will unlock story exposition. That exposition is voice acted, as is your expedition liaison, whom you will communicate with periodically. Both were actually excellent, and one of the two is actually the developer himself. Nicely done IMO. The PSX visual of course are fairly simplistic and yet pop. Quite effective use of that style.
I mentioned that I didn't really feel like going back and trying to unlock the second playthrough, but I did watch bits of it on YT after wrapping up my playthrough. The voice acting for that second campaign is kinda annoying, lol, so there is that. It does reveal extra story though, which is always nice from a world building perspective.
There were a couple moments where I got stuck on an object and had to fire up my manual save (there is one manual save slot available along with checkpoint save slots btw). I'll show a screenshot of one such moment below. It was otherwise a bug free playthrough for me.
Anyway, I bought this the other day as the Halloween sale began here on Steam for $1.49. That's an excellent price for this experience in my estimation. I had fun with the game overall and it does not overstay its welcome at around 80 minutes-ish. I think it's worth your consideration.
If you found this review helpful and would be interested in supporting my Curator group, Robilar's Reviews, it would be appreciated. Cheers.
Also follow IndieGems for more reviews like this one.

A short and atmospheric delight, cool plot that didn't lean into the usual deep-sea Lovecraftian tropes and pleasantly surprised me with tight Klonoa-esque platforming.
Puzzles are straightforward but unrestrictive; I usually ask "Is there a good reason why I can't do this?" when it comes to playing with movement or puzzle mechanics. If the game doesn't let me do something for no good reason, I lose respect for it.
This game very much respects your time, allowing you to teleport to pathways and platforms in the background rather than have you backtrack - it realises that there is no reason why you wouldn't be able to do so, so it simply lets you rather than force you into needlessly restrictive railroading. This may sound minor, but this intuitiveness is a huge plus as it is indicative of thoughtful design, and design that respects your time.
The artstyle nails the quirks of PS1-style 3d graphics - the wobbling textures, the filter, the draw distance and fog, even the way the bubbles look, and it looked absolutely gorgeous on my steam deck at 90fps, which I played it on in its entirety in roughly an hour and a half.
Definitely recommended, hope to see more from the devs in future!

Interesting premise but wore very thin in the second half - if the game was any longer, it would have very quickly overstayed it's welcome with the half finished sentences and dramatic i m p l i c a t i o n s
Consider it a good proof of concept and something to bang out between longer games
Hopefully devmans refines their work further and see more depth in the next title

a slow-paced game about trudging through the depths of the ocean, looking for answers. very nice atmosphere and perfect to play in a single sitting.

It's pretty neat, I loved the atmosphere, great music, solid voice acting and the way the story slowly unfolds was good.
The gameplay is fairly basic, block pushing and some platforming for the most part, it's fine and does its job.
The game is very short, as the store page says, and whilst there are some hidden things to find it still won't take more than a couple of hours if that.
Overall though yeah I'd recommend this for people looking for a short slice of underwater horror.

Its a beautiful game. The atmosphere was incredibly soothing and the voice acting really added onto the experience.
I hope to see more from the creator in the future.

The Sirena Expedition is a short/sweet game with well designed puzzles and a story that grips you from the start. This is not a horror game, but there are a few good jump scares, the music and sounds of the atmosphere make this the perfect spooky game (pun intended) for Halloween.