Review | The Shore: Enhanced Edition

The Shore is finally launching on PlayStation in a shiny new Enhanced Edition, that improves visuals, and takes full advantages of modern hardware. Now, that would sound like a worthwhile upgrade had The Shore not already launched on PC over 5 years ago, where PC players could already take advantage of 4K resolutions and higher frame rates. The Shore: Enhanced Edition focuses on a man named Andrew looking for his missing daughter on a small island that is known for its accidents and strange occurrences. It has an interesting story at its core, but does Ares Dragonis offer enough for new players that what is already on offer?

Things I liked!

• Nice Graphics | The Shore: Enhanced Edition is a pretty game. The lighting is especially well done, and it gives off an authentic, grim looking beach front that sets the overall tone of the game. Waves and water convincingly lap at the shore, with pebbles and wildlife being present. Huge ocean rocks stick out from the sea and sand that feel realistically accurate, all textured nicely. The fog in some of the scenes also looks incredibly convincing, especially when seeing Cthulhu walk past in the distance. I stood there for a few minutes watching him walk off into the distance before getting covered by the fog.

• An Interesting Story | The underlying story in The Shore is structurally sound which focuses on a guy named Andrew. Andrew, a distraught father is left searching for his missing daughter on a mysterious island filled with cosmic horrors. Throughout the game, extra story plots around the island are told through messages found in bottles from those who have tried to leave the island, and by those who have succumbed to their sanity breaking. It’s an interesting way to deliver the story, and build lore. Environmental story telling is present in some places, but it is mainly told through voice overs from Andrew.
  
  
• Music | Music is strong with a good sense of dread in all the right places. When witnessing eerie moments, heavy thudding, orchestral music is placed in the moment to give the player that extra emphasis of being in the moment. It fits the theme well for a Cthulhu game with its epic reveal moments for some of the big creatures and downright weird story plot points. Sometimes in games, I will shut music off entirely because I find it detracts a lot, but not in this case.

Mixed & disliked!

• Very Short | The Shore: Enhanced Edition clocks in at around five hours. This was my first time playing, and if you are like me and don’t bother with the additional content and just focus on the story, it should be done in around four hours. However, this time I decided to do everything and get all trophies in the game. There are Fourteen trophies to get in total. It is an easy platinum to get, but the run time is a little short in my opinion.
  
  
• Lots of Bugs | My biggest frustration with The Shore is that the sheer amount of bugs that were present has me wondering why it is in this state so close to release. Geometry errors, UI bugs, audio glitches, and enemies that got stuck or just didn’t do anything were all present a week from release. The geometry bugs were fairly bad, with more times than I could count being able to clip through walls, and even fall through the map just to be teleported back to the same point. One especially bad part was just before the boss where I could clip outside of the wall and run around him. I had to fall off the map on purpose just to be able to teleport back to him. Thankfully the “kill z” volume used in the level placement does kick in quickly. Subtitles were clipped off outside the black bounding box which makes me think they were placed manually by hand instead of scaled properly, and what made this extra frustrating is that voice lines can be so quiet sometimes, you have no choice but to read.
  
  
• Audio & Sound | Usually audio design isn’t too much of an issue but I found that the voice acting in The Shore was very hit or miss. Andrew isn’t too bad, but the sound mix is. Sometimes I found that the main protagonists volume levels were inconsistent, and this was mainly down to plot point narration versus extra lore. For example, walking along to the next part in the story, lines were delivered well, and volume was perfect, but reading a message from a bottle the audio was much quieter in comparison. This was extra hard to listen to given that the ambient sounds were coming in either just as loud or louder. Couple this with the subtitle issue mentioned above, and the whole presentation starts to fall apart. The ending area has you listening to Andrew and his wife exchange dialogue, and the issue here was that Andrew’s wife was recording the audio on something less professional than the other actor. This creates another awkward moment where you are really taken out of the immersion of what was up until this point a good story.
  
  
• Terrible Enemy AI | There are a few points in The Shore where enemies are introduced, and while they do add a breather from the walking sim/exploration heavy gameplay, they don’t do more than chase you with a single intent. Sometimes enemies have multiple states, or add some sort of dynamic to a chase scene. In The Shore, it’s simply, run here and they just stop. The first enemy chases you from the shore that it rises from into a cave before just stopping. The second enemy chases you from the mouth of a sea creature into one of the corridors on the right before stopping, and finally the rest of the enemies in the game just chase you but you can stall them by using your triangular shard at them. All enemies are faster than you as well, so unless you know where to go immediately, you will be killed and the forced to restart the encounter. Towards the end of the game, I found some instances of enemies just getting stuck on geometry which took away any and all threats that the game offered.
  
  
• Disappointing Final Boss | Towards the end of the game, there is a boss that births enemies and walks around after you. These enemies can easily be avoided so you can just focus on hitting these illuminated pods that stick up from the ground. These are all placed in a circular fashion around the arena, and once all of them are turned off, the boss fight ends and you wake up in the final area. It was very lacklustre, and having my ass handed to me prior by much simpler, faster enemies, I expected more from a boss fight.
  
  
• Miserable Ending | The overall ending was disappointing, and without going into spoilers for anyone that is hoping to play it, it all boils down to listening to exposition that you activate by clicking on remnants of your past. As I said, I won’t go into what actually happens here, but past this, if you were expecting something more substantial, you may leave feeling a bit miserable. There are no post credit scenes, and nothing to do afterwards once you have completed the game.
  
  
• Poor Puzzle Design | The Shore states that the game contains puzzles, but apart from one section towards the later end of the game, I wouldn’t say these were puzzles. Most of the time, you click on an object, and then click on the adjacent object which then completes said “puzzle”. There was a room with a bunch of heads laying on the floor at one point, but that was just simply finding the symbol on the head that matched the body to complete that part. The only “real” puzzle I found was in the room with the Shaggoth enemy, where you have to focus beams of light to allow you to teleport. getting this wrong resulted in your death, but after three attempts, it is figured out.
  
  
• Sanity has no Meaning | In most eldritch horror games, especially those focusing on Cthulhu, sanity is amongst those that are focused on, and go hand in hand with what the eldritch god can do to a human. Sanity is heavily implied in The Shore, but is never anything more than a simple line of dialogue like, “get out of my head”, or a widget on a screen of different symbols that suggests you are loosing the plot. However, The Shore makes it so that there is no managing of your sanity. This is a completely missed opportunity in my opinion, and observing some of the eerie scenes could have been implemented that affects the player. Examples like finding the monolith on the beach, or seeing the ghosts on the island could have affected you in some way.

How long did I play the review before publishing? 5 hours
How long to beat the story? 5 hours
How long to Complete the game 100%? 5 hours
How many Achievements did I earn before publishing? 14/14
You’ll love this game if you like these | Dredge, Soma, Sunless Sea

CONCLUSION

Score: 35/100

The Shore: Enhanced Edition feels more of the same on PC, with it being more akin to a port than additional upgrades. The entire game is still filled with geometry bugs that leave you falling through the map, badly anchored UI design which has subtitles creeping outside of the box, and poor enemy AI that will leave you frustrated rather than impressed. The Shore: Enhanced Edition provides a decent story at its core, but is let down by its abrupt ending in the closing chapter leaving you wondering if the whole ordeal was really worth it in the end.

Aaron

Gaming is in my blood.  Be it handheld games, Xbox, PC, Switch or Playstation, I am all over it.
I make my own games as part of my profession and love playing co op games with friends in my spare time. Avid dog lover and camper van enthusiast.