Aquaria - First Impressions
Written by Jake on December 11th, 2007 and posted in Game News Tags : 2D, action, adventure, downloadable, Indie, pc
Well getting hold of the demo proved to be a challenge because the bit-blot site was down (probably overloaded), but it seems to be fine now.
My first impressions in a nutshell are “It looks great but it’s fairly boring”. Now I’ll explain a little bit…
You play as Naija who is a female humanoid underwater creature on some kind of journey of exploration (metaphysical). The game struck me as vaguely similar to the classic Ecco the Dolphin which I loved on the Sega MegaDrive years ago. You basically swim around a seemingly endless maze of underwater tunnels full of fish, jellyfish and coral, plus the odd mysterious temple etc. Swimming is accomplished by just holding the mouse cursor in the direction you want to go, but it’s a bit slow and so you can click the mouse to do a quick thrust to move faster (past danger etc). Naturally, being an impatient sort of person, I ended up clicking constantly in order to move around faster - this felt a bit tiresome.
At the beginning of the game there is no clear aim, you just swim around and look at stuff. Then some weird shadow creature swims past you and you get a glimpse of some crazy enemy infested cavern that you must battle out of. This apparently spurns you on to find out more about the world. However you are not told what to do next as the game seems to favor the supposed holy grail of gaming - “open endedness”. Well this didn’t work for me as I just found myself swimming around exploring and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do next. I found my house, found a weird cavern, learned how to do some new stuff and then after about an hour of very infrequent “rewards” and no clear goals, I stopped playing and went to bed. Oh and I didn’t get to shoot a single thing - it severely lacked action at the start but I’m sure there is plenty later on. I may well try it again to find out if I can “get into it” as this game is certainly hyped all over the place (like the emperor’s clothes) but basically it has failed to grab my attention despite the awesome graphics (yes they are really polished and nice!). To put it in perspective, I found Stand o’ Food *way* more addictive and rewarding (in the short term).
OK I’m gonna give you a few bullet points I noted when playing the game:
- It’s $30. This is an unusual price tag for an Indie game. Guess they are aiming not to have to sell it on portals.
- It seems to be PC only (at the moment).
- It won the IGF 2007 Grand Prize. Wow! Seems like I’m going out on a limb here then with my first impressions.
- It’s a bit poofy (no offense intended L.T.): You sing to cast magic, you cook seafood, and you decorate your home with nice things that your find on your travels. I actually don’t mind this at all and I enjoyed the singing a lot (I performed little solos over the game music) but I get the feeling it could put off more hardcore action players, which leads me to seriously question the target market. If aimed at lady casual gamers, will they get put off by the action elements? If aimed at action gamers, won’t they get put off by the less “macho” elements? Time will tell I guess. I hope it does well simply because it must have been a huge effort and it’s clear lots of love has been put into it, and it’s a kind of a “torch” or showpiece for Indie developers to aspire to.
- There are lots of places of interest that don’t show up on the map and you can’t make notes on the map, so I dread having to try to remember where they are later when I get the correct power up to access them (Metroid style).
- You can’t press Escape to exit the map! This annoyed me as I kept on pressing it to go back to the game.
- You can’t zoom into the map far enough and the zoom seems a bit slow with the mouse wheel.
- Most times when I called up the song interface my mouse was in the wrong place and started singing a note that I didn’t want straight away until I got used to moving the cursor to the centre of the screen first.
- It has Save Crystals instead of allowing save anywhere. I hate that sort of thing. I’m a busy guy and can’t be trailing around looking for save crystals when I have to stop playing suddenly.
- The character’s voice is fine, not annoying at all, which is a relief.
- Music is very nice although a little repetitive.
I could go on but that’s it for now. So to summarise: It looks great, sounds good, is fairly original, but the bit I played wasn’t very action packed/rewarding and the interface has some flaws. I should probably play it some more to give it a “fairer” review but then if other games don’t make me want to play beyond one hour then I don’t buy them or review them either… Oh the demo doesn’t time out after one hour by the way, it’s just limited as to where you can explore I believe.
Anyway, clearly don’t take my word for it. Download it and try it for yourself and please post comments here so I can see what you think. Thanks!
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Agree? Disagree? Have your say...
I finished the demo last night, and I have to disagree.
It has a slow start for sure, but man o man once you get a few “powers” it’s pretty amazing at least from as much as the demo lets you do.
It took me a good solid 6 or 7 times to beat the first real boss.. it’s definitely challenging and not poofy.
I think it definitely has clear goals. I would encourage you to give the demo a whirl again, I think you’ll be surprised. I really was and I can totally see why it won IGF last year.
Holy crap this is a cool game. No wonder it won the IGF 2007 Grand Prize. Probably mostly because it’s original and not a clone.
Thanks, yeah if I find time with all the other games vying for my attention. I bet it probably does get better as many people have said so, but I feel they’ve got the “interest curve” wrong for the demo, which will cost them a LOT of sales.
“but I feel they’ve got the “interest curve” wrong for the demo, which will cost them a LOT of sales.”
No I think you’re probably right on that.. There does need to be some more hand holding in the demo I think.
Their target demo seems to be people who played a lot of console games in the 90’s. Anyone who liked Super Metroid, the newer Castlevania games, Ecco, or Nights will find this to be genius. Right now, I’m about 7 hours into it, and it’s my candidate for indie game of the year. Derek Yu’s art is probably the best indie game art I’ve ever seen. Offhand, I can’t think of a better looking indie game. I disagree on the interest curve, I found the demo almost impossible to put down, played it until the sun came up.
Yes you are probably right about the target market as being 30 something males who liked computers and who probably play mainstream games and like retro games (this is me btw). The question is, will this market spend $30 on the game? Some will, but I bet quite a few will pirate it unfortunately. The art is fab for sure, but maybe my attention span has been shortened by playing too manu casual games (or by having kids)
The 30 something assumption might be correct. I am 34 and bought the game yesterday. I would never buy a Diner Dash - like game. I am curious if targeting the market of hardcore gamers will be a viable business decision for the developers.
I think the issue is that at first appearance it doesn’t look like it’s aimed at hardcore gamers. It looks more like a casual relaxing free exploring game, so people that are looking for “hardcore” gaming may play 5 minutes then stop, whereas the casual people will play until the action starts and it may get too hard for them.
However the game is pretty brilliant and I bought it and don’t regret the $30 price tag.
Just some thoughts.
Yes that’s true. First i was thinking, too: Boring, there’s nothing to do than swim around.
Blueskied: yeah exactly, it seems an odd business decision. Maybe it was done for “art’s sake” - the old Indie classic? Time will tel I guess (wonder if they’ll release any sales stats)
I think people are forgetting how slowly a lot of classic exploratory platformers start out. If I remember right, some of the Metroid games had a lot of just wandering around sans action (doesn’t SM start with Samus exploring a derelict space station?) before the “meat” of the game began. Anyone who’s going to buy Aquaria is knows enough about it to know it’s not just randomly swimming around. (not to mention all the menu option cues about pets, cooking, auto-aim and such) The game takes its time and doesn’t compromise, which I prefer.
As for the $30 price, it’s half the price of a console game, about the cost of a DS game, and only $10 more than most casual indie games with less content. I think the price is perfect, it conveys the quality of the experience and reflects the direct download delivery method.
What about people that don’t know about what aquaria turns into because they’ve perhaps seen an advert or link, or been told by a friend? They might play it and not persevere. I guess that’s my only issue - the pacing of the demo. I’m sure the game really is great once it gets going as so many people like it and have said so. But evidently I’m also not alone in my thinking. Hope they can release another demo to address this so that they can enjoy the sales the game deserves.
I just bought a Castlevania game (used) for DS for £15 and it’s GREAT. Straight away there is action and upgrades and exploring and it’s very addictive. It’s a game that got the curve right for me at least.
I know this is heresy to many gamers, but the Castlevania games on the DS never grabbed me. My partner has all of them, and I’ve tried them all, several times, trying to get into them. Too busy, too tedious, too maze-like? I’m not sure. Everyone compares them to Metroid, but they never really approached the mood and feeling of loneliness and vastness that Metroid did. The Metroid games felt like real places, the Castlevania games feel expressly like video game obstacles. It’s a fine distinction, I suppose, but one that’s important to me. I suppose the Castlevania games remind me of Ghouls and Ghosts and such, whereas Metroid has enough “space” that it doesn’t feel to me an arcade game.
I guess that’s why I think the demo is perfect: at its core, Aquaria is not as busy and packed with enemy battles as SotN and Dawn of Sorrow, and that’s far more my preference. If the demo started out with Naija blasting enemies left and right, that’d be false advertising! People’d buy the game, and then they’d perhaps be disappointed that the whole thing didn’t play like Robotron. Aquaria of course has its share of fights, but it’s telling that the main form of the main character is (so far!) non violent.
I’ve honestly been waiting years for a side-scrolling exploration game that nailed the Metroid vibe, and this is it. The sense of space and beauty never lets up. I suppose it’s what you value in a game, obviously the Castlevania games are expertly made, and great at what they do. I just don’t like playing them.
I got so exhausted of fighting things in Castlevania, the action quickly turned to tedium.
Good point. I’d actually never played a Castlevania game until Dawn of Sorrow, but I’m finding it great fun. Yes, clearly it is a very different game from Aquaria and you are right that the world it’s set in just feels like a computer game world - especially the fact that the enemies reappear ever time you reenter a room! The metroid games I’ve played have only been the 3D ones on the Gamecube (and one 2D one on the GBA) but they do have a different feel fur sure. Actually, come to think of it, the enemies reappear in certain rooms in Metroid too. This sort of thing makes a game feel less realistic to me.
Wouldn’t call it done “for art’s sake”. You can feel that the developers made the game according to their gaming preferences. They had a vision.
At least 3 people from this thread alone have bought the game, so might be a financial success,too.
I’m about to buy two or three more copies as Christmas presents.
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