These days, I find that true open world western RPGs are a better fit for me than non Soulsborne/Zelda Japanese RPGs. Playing Maneater and its cheap Expansion to the very end within a week is confirmation of the growing chasm between myself and modern JRPGs.
I shouldn’t have enjoyed Maneater as much as I did, but I did find myself immersed on the title. So much, in fact, that I stopped playing Eiyuden Chronicles for the duration of the game.
My Kid Discovered the Game
My son has watched all the Jaws and Meg movies, since he is infatuated, if not obsessed, with Sharks (including Jaws toys). He found the game on Youtube and then begged for a download of the game when it showed up on Game Pass.
As I downloaded the title I thought to myself, “Oh great another generic shark game! Yay!” Needless to say, I couldn’t have been more wrong! Maneater is a simplistic, but incredibly enjoyable action-RPG.
Become a Shark!
While my kid, and I, would have preferred a White Shark as a protagonist, we were left with the less cooler (and less iconic) Bull Shark. A true RPG, you start with a small bull shark in a swamp area. Our avatar is susceptible to Croc attacks, and in the early stages you will find yourself running away from confrontation with said reptilian threats.
Gaining levels aids our shark in attaining size, and enhanced stats, not only that but certain thresholds in levels will allow our shark to go into his Teen, Adult, and Elder stages.
By the time your bull shark becomes an Elder coupled with leveled up “Mutations”, your Shark avatar will dwarf Great White Sharks in size. In fact, only Sperm Whales will be larger sea animals. The much feared Orcas will quickly become playthings for our abomination of a shark.
Man Eater allows you very early on to live your Jaws fantasies, but in the late stages of its game it turns your Shark into a bionic weapon capable of decimating Naval armies. So yes, in true RPG fashion you start as a young vulnerable bull shark, and end up as a Super Saiyan Goku Shark by the end of the game’s somewhat pedestrian story.
A Story Filled With Funny One Liners, and Pure Shark Carnage
The Story of Man Eater is inconsequential to its enjoyment or to its detriment. It is there for the sake of being there, and for the sake of “Shark statistical Progression”, but the narrator does a great job in injecting some humor amidst the water carnage.
The entire thing feels like a parody of shark, and other action movies at times, and I found it funny. My kid missed most of the dark humor, he just wanted to roam around the open world as a shark, and personally I just wanted to keep playing the game in order to keep evolving the shark’s look and super powers.
Never once did I care for its villains in either the main game or its paid expansion. They were just another NPC that I had to eat on my way to beating the game.
I wanted to punish the game for delivering such a poor story, but at the same time, what else could have been done in a fast paced open underwater world like this where carnage and shark progression are your only goals? In someways, the paper thin, and somewhat cheesy story is what made the actual game enjoyable.
Great Controls, Combat, but Poor A.I. and Easy Difficult Mars the Proceedings
For kids, Maneater is quite the easy game, provided that they have the patience to get through the early stages of the game. By the end of the game, there were very few things my son couldn’t smash with the Bull Shark, and the only time he had any issues (which I had to step in to help) was in defeating the last boss of the paid expansion. The expansion is moderately more difficult than the main game, but that isn’t saying much in the grand scope of things.
Given the game’s rating, I would have expected much more challenging experience. I was left disappointed on that end. The game’s A.I. is poor. Especially human A.I. Beach goers will scream “Shark!”, at the sight of our Jaws impersonator but the rarely run more than a few steps (yes, in higher levels our shark can “roam” the land masses for a substantial period of time) on dry land, and many times they don’t even attempt to swim away while on water. While Maneater possesses next generation features such as ray tracing, it firmly remains a PS4/Xbox One era game. I wish I could have seen more realistic resistance from human NPCs.
On the other end of the A.I. Spectrum we have the human shark hunters. These hunters are stupid as well, but have marksmanship skills that would make Jerry Miculek proud. If our Shark is within range of their firearms and cannons, these hunters rarely miss their shots, no matter how deep and how fast you can swim until the shark is out of the range area of the Shark hunter’s guns. This is not very realistic, but then again, neither are our Bull Shark’s abilities.
Thus, many battles take an attack, flee (in order to heal), attack, flee, and attack, flee approach that gets incredibly repetitive and cumbersome towards the back end of the game.
Yes, enemies get more numerous, powerful, and we even get some helicopters (which our shark can take down) as the game progresses, but despite our shark getting new attacks I found myself repeating the above pattern over and over with great success all the way to the last boss battle of the game’s paid expansion.
Unlike other Action-RPGs, I never felt like I had to practice, or master any timing system in order to have success in the game. Despite all of this, the pure mayhem, and fast pace of the combat is consistently fun. The game’s runtime is also short enough (20 hours). As such, the combat never got a chance to grow stale on me.
Dumb Fun, But Worthy of a Free Play Courtesy of Game Pass
The only reason I even got into this game was my kid’s obsession with Sharks. So, at first glance the market for something like this isn’t necessarily there. Though lo and behold the 2020 game has sold 14 million copies world wide so far which makes it a much more successful venture than Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth combined (under 10 million units). So, again, what do I know? Maybe there are more shark lovers out there than I previously imagined.
I would recommend this title for players looking for an easy weekend action-RPG romp involving sharks and marine creatures. Who knows? You might like it so much (now on Game Pass) that you might end up buying the game’s paid DLC “Truth-Quest” for only $14.99 like I did.
Gameplay: 8.0
Dumb A.I. and an overpowered Elder Shark makes Maneater an easy undertaking. The shark controls are excellent. I was doing triple back flips (jumping out of the water) and other Sea World worthy stunts with ease. The open world is divided into sections and traveling between these sections is fast and easy (even without using the game’s fast travel function). These sections are well designed with plenty of hidden loot, and sea monsters to fight.
Graphics: 8.0
On Xbox Series X with Ray Tracing on, the game looks fantastic. I have little to complain about here. The expansion has flat texture work on its villains, perhaps, a sign of the lower budget and shorter release deadline of it.
But in terms of underwater visuals, and creature design the game does the job, and runs smoothly for the most part. Given that there aren’t many options out there for an open world shark game, Maneater is a very attractive game for what it is.
Sound: 7.o
I don’t recall much of the game’s Music. I would say it is average in that category, but the game’s Narrator is solid gold. This, along with the very well integrated sound effects, makes the game a pleasing aural experience
Story: 2.0
There is a revenge story here. Perhaps, the developers wanted to tip their hat to the fourth Jaws movie. Either way, I never cared for any of the villains, and much of the story here is filler to get you from point A to Point B. However, there are plenty of references to pop culture in here (if you look for them), and some of the older gamers will appreciate this type of effort.
Overall: 8.0
I had fun for 20 hours or so, and then the game was done. Which is fine, not every open world game needs to be 100+ hours long. If you ever wanted to roam an open world with a super bionic shark, this is the game for you!
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