Shark Riders has a very interesting visual style which sets it apart from other visual novels. That can be a good thing and a bad thing. While it is very unique I also found it hard to see all of the detail and some of the time I found it difficult to make out what was going on. There is also no music in the game which could of helped with atmosphere. There are retro sound effects at times but I actually didn’t care much for those, especially as the only sound in the game. The story was interesting but the game’s short run time doesn’t really explain much of it to you. You hear about rituals; about issues within your tribe; about events in your past but they are just passing mentions with no exploration into them. There are a decent amount of choices throughout , especially given the run time.

    I played Shark Riders on Linux. It never crashed and I didn’t notice any spelling errors. You can save any time you want and there are fifty four save slots.

Game Engine: Ren’Py 7.4.4.1439
Game Version Played: 0.5

GPU Usage: 0-6 %
VRAM Usage: 290-348 MB
CPU Usage: 5-15 %
RAM Usage: 1.5 GB

    Overall I would say that while I found this game lacking it gives me hope for the future projects of the developers. There was enough here that showcased their talent that with some minor tweaks and adds would make a good game. I finished my first play through in eight minutes.

My Score: 6/10

My System:

AMD FX-6100 | 16GB DDR3-1600 | Gigabyte R9 270 2GB | Mesa 22.1.4 | Manjaro 21.3.6 | Mate 1.26.0 | Kernel 5.18.14-1-MANJARO