Maneater Review

Oh here she comes, watch out boy she’ll chew you up, (she’s a) Maneater is now available for the Nintendo Switch!

Get ready to eat, evolve, and eat some more in Maneater, the game where you play as an enraged bull shark hellbent on revenge against the hunters who killed her mother.

Exploring the open seas as a shark feels oh so good. There are plenty of sights to see and people to eat so you’ll never run out of things to do.

Maneater plays a lot like a rogue-lite where the player ventures out into the open world devouring as much as possible, leveling up, and progressing the story until something or someone comes along and knocks the shark off the top of the food chain. This gameplay formula works for about the ten or so hours it takes to finish the main story, which isn’t too involved.

Most of the missions for each area of the map are relatively simple and grind heavy, such as eating ten of a certain kind of fish or tracking down all of the treasure chests in an area. You don’t have to do these extra missions to progress the main story, but they are the fastest way to level up your shark so, in a way, you kind of have to.

There are plenty of varied oceans and seas to explore as the queen of the food chain ranging from murky swamps full of deadly alligators to beaches by the city teaming with humans ripe for the picking. Eat people at your own risk, however, as the more mayhem you cause, the more shark hunters will come and track you down for sport.

As your threat level increases so too does the level of hunters who come chasing after you (think raising your wanted level in Grand Theft Auto). But hunting and eating humans is what this game is all about (it’s literally in the title) and it’s by far the best part of the game. As a shark, you naturally dominate humans swimming in your waters, but hunters on jet skis and pontoon boats can easily shoot you down so you will need to master your shark powers before reigning destruction on the beach goers.

Leveling up your shark is fairly easy; all you have to do is eat and eat and eat, but it is time consuming. Each thing you eat gives your shark different nutrients that you can save and spend on upgrading your shark’s organs or teeth to customize the perfect killing machine of your dreams.

On the Switch, Maneater plays extremely well. There were no performance drops while playing docked or in handheld. The framerate never dropped for me while playing in either modes of play. This is due to the fact that the game doesn’t have super realistic visuals, instead boasting a cartoonish style that is easy enough for the Switch to run.

That being said, Maneater is available on PC and next generation consoles where it undoubtedly runs and looks better with the only major benefit of the Switch version being that it’s portable. So keep that in mind if you are considering purchasing it for the Switch.

Maneater has fantastic B-movie-like monster noises when sharks and alligators chomp. This, accompanied by a soundtrack reminiscent of a certain 1975 movie about a rampaging shark makes the atmosphere of the game spot-on to the movies it was so clearly inspired by.

Maneater for the Switch is a great treat for fans of thriller shark movies and open world rogue-likes alike. There’s always something to eat or do, although not all the quests are as tasty as others with a good portion of the game being quite grind-heavy. Despite the repetition of gameplay, it’s still a great time to terrorize the coast as an all-powerful shark hellbent on revenge, now on the go!

Tony Matthews

Tony has been gaming ever since he could walk. Pokémon Blue Version helped him learn how to read. His greatest accomplishment is not just having played the entire Kingdom Hearts series but also understanding it.