DAVE THE DIVER (2022)
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DAVE THE DIVER is a 2.5D adventure role-playing game developed and published by Korean company NEXON through its MINTROCKET brand. The player controls Dave, a professional diver, as he explores the ocean for fish during the day and serves up the fish he has collected as sushi at night. A free Godzilla DLC called the Godzilla Content Pack was announced on January 31, 2024, and released on May 23,[2] adding three new missions involving Godzilla and Ebirah and 20 collectible figurines. The DLC was delisted from storefronts on November 23.
Gameplay
DAVE THE DIVER combines elements of management, action-adventure, and role-playing games. Each in-game day is split into three segments: morning, afternoon, and night.
As Dave, the player spends most of their time exploring the Blue Hole, a miraculous ocean trench which is home to marine life from across the globe. Dave may use a harpoon gun, fishing knife, and other weapons and gadgets to kill or catch fish for meat, including a variety of hostile creatures which will attack him indiscriminately. The player can also discover stationary creatures and crafting ingredients which can be picked up simply by interacting with them, chests containing gadgets and upgraded weapons, pots with valuable cooking ingredients, and plants and ore which can be harvested with Dave's knife or a pickaxe. All the while, players must be watchful of their oxygen meter, which depletes gradually as time passes and in chunks when hit by enemies. This meter can be replenished 50% by using a disposable oxygen tank found randomly in chests, or replenished fully using oxygen reserves and clams found scattered underwater. If Dave's oxygen hits zero, he drowns and is forced to the surface, losing all but a single item of the player's choosing. Otherwise, Dave can exit the Blue Hole with his inventory intact by swimming to the surface or calling for an Escape Pod at designated stations. Upon surfacing, time will have passed to the next stage of the day, and any weapons collected will be destroyed. However, after three of a variety of weapon have been discovered, a blueprint for that weapon is unlocked and can be used to craft it for permanent use.
At night, Dave manages the sushi restaurant Bancho Sushi, which is initially staffed by only he and chef Bancho. The player must choose dishes to be prepared with the ingredients from their days' catches, and the food is automatically cooked as necessary by Bancho. The player then controls Dave, picking up the completed dishes and delivering them to the customers who ordered them, while also managing Bancho's supply of wasabi and occasionally removing dirty plates. Successful delivery of orders nets the player gold—which can be used to upgrade Dave's gear, hire and train new staff for the restaurant, and eventually upgrade fish farms and crop farms—as well as likes on the social media platform Cooksta, which are needed to increase the restaurant's ranking. At the end of each night, the player is also awarded Artisan's Flames (the amount depending on the player's performance that night), which can be used to learn new recipes.
As days pass and new areas are discovered, the player will be given missions, which tie into an overall storyline. This includes multiple boss fights, usually involving large ocean animals (e.g. great white sharks), oversized versions of other animals (e.g. a hermit crab that uses a dump truck for a shell or a massive mantis shrimp with boxing gloves), or animals with extremely exaggerated abilities (e.g. a Helicoprion that has teeth that spin like a buzzsaw). Other activities in the game include taking photos of certain creatures at designated spots, for which the player is paid gold by the character Udo; catching "FishMon," rare sea creatures who appear at specific locations each in-game week and are also sold to Udo; collecting "Marinca," trading cards that are awarded for catching or killing each kind of sea creature in the game; and playing minigames on Dave's smartphone, such as the Tamagotchi clone GYAO!.
A free tie-in DLC with the psychological horror RPG Dredge was released on December 15, 2023, adding foggy nights in which the player can catch aberrational fish to serve to mysterious Hooded Figures.
Selected appearances
Monsters
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Weapons, vehicles, races, and organizations
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Gallery
The crossover reveal for DAVE THE DIVER and Godzilla
Burning Godzilla
Burning Godzilla vs. Ebirah
Figures
Kaiju Codex pictures
In other languages
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Japanese
Videos
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Trivia
- NEXON previously developed the 2019 Godzilla mobile game Godzilla Defense Force, through subsidiary company Neople.
- The ancient king of the game's Sea People was named King Long, a possibly-intentional rhyme for "King Kong."
- After serving Michael Bang (a parody of action film director Michael Bay) at Bancho Sushi, the player will go on to receive two in-game emails about fictional upcoming movies, both of which involve giant monsters. The first, Octopolar, is about "a mutant monster that is a combination of an octopus and a polar bear" which "attacks the city." Its poster seems to parody that of the original Godzilla, with the monster firing beams while being engaged by jet fighters, and civilians cowering in the bottom corner. The other movie, Alleygator, is more reminiscent of American monster movies, with "a giant mutant crocodile appear[ing] in the sewer."
- The Godzilla Content Pack marks Miki Saegusa's first appearance in a Godzilla story since the 2012 comic book Godzilla: Legends #3.
- Miki's submarine resembles the Super X from The Return of Godzilla, the only Heisei Godzilla film in which she did not appear.
- According to Miki, Godzilla was last seen "fighting another kaiju" near Fukuoka, the setting of Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994)'s climax.
- Miki remarks that Godzilla fought Ebirah on Letchi Island "a long time ago", referencing the latter kaiju's 1966 debut in Ebirah, Horror of the Deep.
- Coincidentally, one of the fictional creatures featured in the game is called a Magma Turtle, a name shared with an unrelated creature from the Monsterverse.
External links
- MINTROCKET's DAVE THE DIVER webpage
- DAVE THE DIVER on Steam
- DAVE THE DIVER on the Nintendo Switch eShop
- DAVE THE DIVER on the PlayStation Store
References
This is a list of references for DAVE THE DIVER. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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