I think for the right person, Seabed can be an amazing experience, a masterpiece even… I, unfortunately, was the wrong person to read Seabed because this bored me to death. By the end, it just felt like a complete waste of my time, which is a rarity because even the most horrible pieces of media I’ve experienced have some kind of takeaway that makes it worth experiencing despite the bad.

For context, Seabed had been on my radar since the early 2020s, which I only got this year because it was half off on Steam. Seabed had always piqued my interest for being a yuri mystery and for its synopsis featuring Sachiko, a workaholic book-lover who seems to have dedicated a lot of her life to Takako, implied to be to an unhealthy degree; Takako, Sachiko’s childhood friend who is a homosexual in denial who is suffering from memory problems; and Narasaki, another childhood friend of Sachiko’s trying to help Sachiko with her hallucinations. It seemed like the perfect premise for me since I love romance stories that focus on couples balancing their romantic relationship (ex. Sachiko needing to learn that giving up her hobbies is unhealthy, Sachiko learning to balance time for herself & time to spend with Takako so her life doesn’t completely revolve around her, Takako realizing she IS homoesexual, etc.), combined with a coastal/beach atmosphere would give Seabed a unique vibe.

I got something different though. The story is instead more about Sachiko moving on from Takako’s death while staying at a western-styled mansion to recuperate from both the hallucinations and overwork, while Takako is moving on from breaking up with Sachiko at a sanitorium, which she’s staying at due to her memory problems.

Not what I expected, but this is still a very interesting blueprint for the story.

…Problem is the execution.

Firstly, the writing is boring. I’ve seen a few people compare the writing of Seabed to a book, but I can’t say I agree with that as someone who loves books. The problem is moreso to do with all the boring slice-of-life events. I like slice-of-life, but they don’t feel fun or interesting at all in Seabed. I think seeing Sachiko & Takako recount their traveling stories is interesting in theory, but the narration going into far more detail than it needs to describe everything does nothing for me. The workplace chatter at Sachiko’s workplace does nothing for me because the conversations are about the most mundane things. Really, all the SOL stuff is about mundane things that are over-explained to an aggravating degree.

This wouldn’t be terrible if these instances weren’t just filler most of the time. Most of Sachiko & Takako’s traveling stories add nothing, the workplace chatter feels like it could’ve been condensed with the foreshadowing it was going for, and it ends up dragging down the pacing to a brutally slow crawl. There were so many times where I asked myself “what did this scene add?!”

That’s not to say I disliked all the SOL stuff, I actually enjoyed the Christmas Party and the moment Takako ponders with a butterfly in the room was weirdly beautiful. Despite having filler at times, I enjoyed Takako’s & Mayuki’s interactions with each other. However, Takako’s chapters are notably too short, so these don’t last long.

Secondly, I just couldn’t get invested in the romance, at all. The story doesn’t do a good job showing Sachiko & Takako being romantic together since we only ever see them being together in a relationship when either traveling or at work, neither of which really show their romance well beyond when they kiss/hug nor add anything to their romance. This feels like it could’ve been an easy fix if we saw them at home together more, going out for a date or two, and so on.

Furthermore, their dynamic with each other is just dull. Romance tends to breathe new life into a person and romance can make people show a side to a romantic partner they don’t tend to show others or even discover themselves in some ways… I never once got that vibe at all with them. From when we see them as children, classmates, to adults in a relationship; their dynamic is the exact same. It felt like they just had a friends-with-benefits relationship, which, for a story all about the two moving on from each other, is a horrible sign.

Thirdly, Sachiko is a very boring character and her side of the story is just a pain to read through. Barring the 4+ hour prologue, which is far longer than it should be, Sachiko is the introverted book-lover who isn't a very sociable/approachable person but is a sweet person on the inside even if she doesn’t always show it. I’ve seen this type of character a lot, and she really doesn’t do anything special to make her not feel bland to me. She’s also supposed to be tired all the time, but she just came off as disinterested with everything. Now, this in itself ain’t a problem and realistically affects little (especially since it’s inaccurate, Sachiko is interested in a lot of things). However, the way Sachiko comes off as disinterested to me kills the romance since it comes off as if she’s tolerating Takako more than enjoying her company.

The cast on Sachiko’s side, Narasaki, Nanae, Lily, and Kosuke were all mostly boring too. Narasaki was interesting at first, but her habit of over-explaining simple things & going on forever about subjects, like with memories with Sachiko, at times made it painful to read through her dialogue. The story treats Narasaki as mysterious/elusive, but it feels forced because Sachiko just… Refuses to be suspicious of Narasaki. How do you not find a doctor staying at the exact same mansion at the same time suspicious? Nanae was kind of neat, but I wasn’t a fan of the direction her character went. Her character feels weirdly incomplete since they never go back to how she was when drunk beyond her giving a quick apology about it.Lily was whatever, neat character, just not enough screen-time for me to care about her. Kosuke was good though, I like Kosuke.

Sachiko’s side of the story just feels weak a lot of the time, even major events sometimes come off as way too low-key to the point where they just feel whatever.

Although, I actually ended up enjoying Takako’s side of the story. I thought the Sancitorum was kind of cozy, and Sanae & Mayuki were fun characters. Mayuki even ended up being my favourite. It sure would be a shame if it turned out that none of it was real and that the Sancitorium was just a place in Sachiko’s head this entire time… You ever wonder if a game ever just fucking hates you? Of course, I’m over-embellishing, but damn man… Seabed took the only segments and characters I enjoyed and told me they weren’t real. The story tries to explain what matters is that they’re here, and similar twists have worked well for me, but it just… Stung here because it makes Takako’s side of the story feel like complete filler and downright meaningless. I know there is the phone call with Sachiko to justify Takako-in-Sachiko’s-head’s journey, but that’s not enough man…

Fourthly, the drama. A lot of it goes nowhere or the destination ends up being very uninteresting or otherwise just heavily anti-climatic. I’m good with stories that don’t want to resolve things, and Seabed is a story all about a lack of resolution. While I respect the idea, I’m not a fan of how so many things adopted this philosophy.

Fifthly, the mystery. Or more so, the answers to it. Before the answers, the overarching mystery was actually really interesting and I liked how the reveals went. The story always gives time for the reader to figure stuff out on their own and it even holds itself back by not making certain reveals too dramatic. It’s neat to finish a session and think on what the story’s covered, only to realize a piece of dialogue has more significance than you first thought. The mystery had me genuinely invested because it felt like the next chapter would either strengthen or destroy my theories.

Although, the answers to the mystery overall ended up being weirdly underwhelming. To me, my theories made the mystery seem much grander in my mind. I was thinking: parallel universes, merging realities, different timelines, time travel, and etc..So finding out it was “Takako’s Sanitorium was in Sachiko’s head this entire time” is, uh… Really anti-climatic given the scope the story implied.Definitely doesn’t help that some of the answers to the mystery are over-explained to be more confusing than they really are. In fact, I’d argue the mystery is mostly easy to understand, and a huge pet peeve of mine is when simple things like this are feigned to be more complex than they are.

Finally, the theme of moving on and grief. There are other themes regarding disease, memory, and more, but I’ll just cover the two themes because this review is way too long already, lol.

Moving on is the theme that left me feeling… Confused. Sachiko’s side goes somewhere with it, but feels too heavy-handed. As soon as Nanae had the twintail sprites, it felt like subtly was thrown out the window. Takako’s side feels more natural, but doesn’t feel as though it goes anywhere with the theme.

As for the grief theme, it didn’t really do much for me, although this isn’t something I can completely blame on Seabed. I just handle grief in very different ways than Sachiko & Takako. Not to say I can’t emphasize with the both of them, their circumstances are tragic and grief isn’t something that just goes away in a week or two, hell that type of shit doesn’t go away in years, especially for the slow, inevitable death of your romantic partner & childhood friend and the breakup of someone you’ve loved since childhood respectively. With better writing, I think their grief could’ve been extremely compelling for me.

And that’s about it for the story. As for the art, it was great, character designs are awesome, the backgrounds work (although there can be a clash of styles between the 3D & water-painted backgrounds, but nothing that hinders the experience), and the royalty-free music is pleasing (although a few tracks got on nerves).

In the end, I hate that I hate Seabed because it seemed so promising. Yet, it felt like everything went against it. It feels like I’m missing something. Yet, the story was easy to understand. What few praises I have for the story are back-handed compliments. And ultimately, Seabed simply wasted my time as I got nothing out of reading it.

I don’t think Seabad is a bad VN, in fact it seems to be a very compelling piece of anti-fiction/subversion for those who can vibe with it. In fact, a lot of my problems with Seabed appear to be deliberate. If this review was under a purely objective lens, this would be where the review would have a twist where I go into how Seabed is brilliant because of these things and how Seabed is unlike anything else because of it. However, Seabed was simply too miserable of an experience for me to even try.

Seabed is very much an acquired vibe, and it hardcore failed my vibe check.