Aquaria - One Shot

Under The Sea!

I had no idea what Aquaria was before I started playing it, and I'll tell ya, I was pretty shocked! I kinda expected a neat, little underwater puzzle game...

Boy was I wrong!

Ok, that screen shot is a little out of context, but for the first scene of a called called Aquaria, I was thrown for a loop that it started on a bloody flying city! So, in a scene with no context, I was transported into the undersea world of Aquaria as the amnesia-ridden Naija (narrative cliches in abundance!). Once given control of Naija, I realised something...the game didn't tell me where the hell to go! And this was a common occurrence throughout my ten hours: I would wander around aimlessly until I found where I was meant to be, do what needed done there and go back to wandering aimlessly until I found the area where enemies didn't kill me in one hit or where my newly acquired powers allowed me to continue to previously inaccessible area.

Yes, Aquaria is a Metroidvania game, in the vain of Metroid, Castlevania, or, more recently, Shadow Complex or Guacamelee. For the uninformed, a Metroidvania game is one where progress is limited by the acquisition of different weapons or tools that allow access to area previously unavailable, usually with a lot of backtracking involved along the way. For example, I eventually gained the ability to travel against strong currents, allowing me to go to new areas. My problem with this was that modern Metroidvania game have gained standards that simply weren't present in Aquaria and the made the experience so much more frustrating in what started as a really mellow and relaxing game, which was sorely needed after Amnesia.

This kinda looks like Amnesia though...

I'll give it credit where it's due, Aquaria is a beautiful game. The environments, the hand drawn art and the use of music made me feel extremely engrossed in the atmosphere of the game and the world, in a similar, but still completely different way, to how Amnesia made me feel as if I was Daniel and in that castle with him. And the characters were very well written. Naija's plight was well established, as she was searching for a purpose to what happened to her and her people, and even side character with little to no lines were given a purpose in her story. However, the negatives were constantly there on the fringes, making me frustrated and a bit sick of the game.

A bloody gorgeous game

First off, I feel that the game could have been a lot shorter, maybe six hours, pushing to eight if you wanted to do all the backtracking for treasure and optional bosses. Secondly, while combat wasn't difficult for the most part, it certainly wasn't the game's strong point, but the game forces it upon on constantly for the last hour or two of the game, with makes progress drag to a halt since, while the enemies are getting tougher, you have no way of upgrading your core abilities, so you really get no stronger as the game progresses, you simply get more tools for fighting, most of which are impractical compared to pumping a fish full of energy blasts.

And maybe this is a result of being spoiled by modern gaming (though, Aquaria is not old by any stretch of the imagination, being released in 2007), I was infuriated by the lack of communication from the game, at a core mechanical level. The game never tells you all of Naija's different forms are mapped to the number keys, instead letting the player revert back to song form, and match the notes to change, which is very impractical at points of combat where switching quickly is key to defeating some bosses. I only happened to stumble upon this miracle when slammed by head into the keyboard in frustration and magically transformed in my fish form.

King Jellyfish!

Finally, I wanna talk about love...what, I can get deep and meaningful too! Mainly, I wanna talk about Naija finding love in Aquaria, in the form of a human. Yes, Naija, a fish-lady, hooks up with Li, a human. Anyone else find that weird? And it's not really explained too greatly either how Li ends up being able to travel underwater with Naija for half the game without needing to breath. And yes, to wrap it all up, they have a child...

Yeah...things got weird

In closing, Aquaria wasn't what I expected it to be. Expecting a underwater, puzzle game, I was greeted with a Metroidvania game that fails in meeting the standards of those set before it. Too much aimless wandering and shallow combat mechanics ruined what could have been a rich story experience, led by a deep main character, strong supporting cast, and a story with real emotional attachment to it. And the final moments kind of summed up my experience nicely: Naija sitting where I found her, alone on a rock, longing for adventure, much like myself, longing for a real adventure in Aquaria.

Plenty more fish in the sea

Next up...Atom Zombie Smasher!