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| Re: Aquaria Review with Screenshot links -Rough Draft- by Mischief Maker 3D 01/02/2008, 9:08am PST | ||||
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| Aquaria just came out a few weeks ago and it's hands down one of the best indie games in years. In a nutshell, it's a cross between Metroid and Ecco the Dolphin with incredibly beautiful production values and designed to be playable with the mouse alone. The sheer amount of content, both in game size and production values, are equivalent to some recent zelda and castlevania releases and all the more impressive because it came out from a 2-man team. Even if you generally avoid indie games, the amazing art direction alone is reason enough to give the demo a try.
The premise is that you're a white haired not-quite-mermaid with amnesia named Naija. Two guesses what your initial motivation is. So you go off to explore a huge underwater world with spooky caverns, giant sea monsters, and sunken cities liberally peppered with tempting passageways you can't yet enter and tantalizing items juuuust out of reach until you gain the proper tool later on. The tools in this game are songs that utilize the power of The graphics are in 2D, drawn in watercolor, and animated in a paper doll style. The music is very-good with a final-fantasy-esque sound to it. It is impressive, both for the little touches, like inoffensive schools of individual fish swiming and moving around and reacting to your actions, and the sheef variety of areas you visit, from clear ocean water to overgrown kelp forests to spooky deserted cities populated only by giant metroid-looking jellyfish floating silently in the darkness. The gameworld itself is huge and varied and it's very easy to get lost out of curiosity. Again, the sheer amount of content it impressive, the main dungeons are huge, you can collect remains from fish that you kill to cook into healing items, you can collect pets that fight by your side like Symphony of the Night familiars, you can participate in optional mini-games like racing, there are even hidden bosses to fight for cash and prizes. The biggest complaint to be leveled at this game is the scarcity and terrible placement of save points (Why are game designers so enamored with the concept of saddling Hard-Drive-equipped PCs with console limitations?). You can enter a huge unfamiliar area filled with hostile monsters and the only save point is hidden on the opposite end of the area in a hidden alcove guarded by all manner of nasties. Sometimes finding the damn savepoint is a bigger challenge than the puzzles in a cave. While it's easy to get lost in the beautiful and varied art direction in the game, it's also easy to get lost due to incredibly vague, or even nonexistent clues as to where to go next. This is alleviated somewhat when I discovered by accident that hitting "Q" brings up a full map of the area you're currently in (the minimap is zoomed in so close it's practically worthless and there'seems to be no way to open the map with the mouse.) Finally, while the mouse-alone interface works beautifully 90% of the time, in hectic combat situations and boss fights where you're desperately dodging, singing songs to switch between forms, and trying to aim and attack, you're better off using WASD to handle movement and free up the mouse for other tasks. From the graphics to the sound to the content, this game is clearly a labor of love. Give it a try. Image links and captions |
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Aquaria Review with Screenshot links -Partial Draft- by 01/01/2008, 6:41pm PST  Re: Aquaria Review with Screenshot links -Rough Draft- by 01/02/2008, 9:08am PST You fucker. by 01/03/2008, 6:48pm PST I tried this by 02/09/2011, 3:48pm PST |
