Buy Aquaria

Short Verdict: Wow. Aquaria is a stunningly beautiful metroidvania indie game published back in 2007, but it's still a pearl! I literally dove into it from the moment I started and I really had a blast. I'm very thankful to Jaws for not only trading it with me, but also for recommending it. If you like metroidvanias, indie games and pretty 2D graphics, don't miss this one for nothing! Oh, make sure you play it with a controller, since it's a lot better (except menus, which are easier to navigate with a mouse).

Pros:
Oh, where to start....

• Very interesting mechanic, where you can transform into different forms, each with its specialty and abilities that unlock more and more of the world
  
• A HUGE world for you to explore and swim around
  
• Has a great, deep story that pushes you to keep going
  
• Lots of treasures, costumes, energy boosts, pets, songs, ingredients and food recipes for you to collect
  
• I think it's safe to say that its difficulty level is absolutely perfect--not insanely hard, but don't be fooled by the cute graphics, this game is not a walk in the park either
  
• Very interesting boss fights--while they depend on your skills, they're first and foremost puzzles
  
• Being able to fill the map with customizable markers is not only a great feature, but also necessary if you want to master the game without looking (too much on) FAQs
  
• Absolutely gorgeous 2D graphics
  
• Awesome BGM with many different great tracks
  
• Great voice acting, even if you compare it to mainstream games
  
• If you're into it, there are even some interesting mods, mainly Sacrifice (a story-driven prequel) and Labyrinth (a small sequel focused on, you guessed, a labyrinth map)

Cons:

• Aquaria's world is so huge it might take a lot of time when you have to backtrack to explore old areas after acquiring new forms/abilities. There are travel turtles that carry you around (also seahorses you can ride for faster shorter movements), but I think there could've been at least twice as much turtles for a world that size. Also, being able to choose your destiny instead of having to cycle through them would be great. I didn't have to use them a lot, but it was kind of boring when I had.
  
• Controls for when you're out of the water are a bit too clumsy for me. Of course they should be a bit clumsy, since you're supposed to live in the water, but they could've been better.

Bought on / for: I actually traded for another bundle key/link I had. But this game is definitely worth its full price!

You like Metroid? You like Castlevania? You'll like this game.

There are many different collectibles and suits (or spirits) to collect to enhance and change abilities. Naija's original form uses her singing ability to open up plant life (for food and bonuses), to open doors and discover secrets. The game has narration via Naija. However, not much is ever handed to you or hinted at, you must explore on your own and find your way.

There's a fun little wall bouncing mechanic that makes traversing the underwater environments fast and fun. There's also a cooking mechanic to help heal or boost stats for short periods to help beat bosses. A lot of the time you can approach exploration and combat in different ways. And it does get tough. Later stages it can turn into bullethell segments that require planning and fast reactions. There's plenty here to keep a Metroidvania addicted.

What is the reason we fall in love with a game? Is it the visuals that are aesthetically pleasant and utilize some original style? Or is it the world, the story, the characters? Maybe the biggest thing is gameplay mechanics, or if we speak about metroidvania genre in particular the complexity of the vast map and its clever design, which makes nearly every path valid and interesting? That matters a lot if a developer can not only make a bunch of interesting locations separated by obstacles that require special abilities or items to pass them, but also performs a miracle of guiding you through it without showing direction with a giant red arrow on the map. Feeling not lost, but intrigued like a true discoverer traversing unknown grounds — that matters a lot. And Aquaria has all of that and more. It has voice and sound. Beautiful and soothing voice of the protagonist narrating events throughout the game being as clueless as the player. And a truly amazing soundtrack, which is not just some “accompanying music”, but a masterpiece on its own. It stands out like a pearl lying on the ocean’s floor shining against the background of dull sand.
And it has one fatal truly hurting me flaw, which makes me love this game even more. That must be stupid — to love something because of the defect, one might think. But this one is special. Aquaria ends on a high note with a cliffhanger of such enormous proportions, that the fact that sequel most probably wouldn’t happen ever makes me sad ‘till the present day. A craftsmanship of just two guys, it came out in 2007, and it has been 7 years since then. Bit Blot studio is effectively defunct. Derek Yu created wonderful Spelunky, and Alec Holowka composed a lot of wonderful soundtracks for a number of games and collaborated on various projects, ultimately launching the successful Kickstarter campaign for a Night in the Woods, which looks very promising. To tell you the truth, the story of an underwater journey is still very much satisfying, it closes script arch in a wonderful way, with a proper resolution and sensible ending. It’s just that final little itty-bitty glimpse, that promises more of Aquaria to come, that sticks to my brain. And I can’t let go. Among hundreds of games that I played it’s the one I easily can name as one of the most beloved.
But obviously that moment in the end wouldn’t irritate me if the game itself was mediocre. So let’s talk about it for a moment, instead of grieving the never-happening-sequel. You play as Naija. You can call her a mermaid, I suppose; except she doesn’t really have that fish-like scale tail and looks more like a green-skinned girl with flippers and strange ears. So, she breathes underwater and even is able to “sing”. This is actually the main form of interaction with the world. For the most part the heroine can’t affect game objects directly. Different tunes perform different actions like lifting or shielding. But they all change “form” of Naija giving her offensive, defensive and various other abilities. In order to perform a melody the player has to select the right order of color-coded tones. Technically you are bound to do it only once, when learning it for the first time. After that you can use it with a hotkey, but then you’ll miss the one tiny detail: tones actually change depending on the region you are in. And that may not be the exact detail that makes Aquaria so great, but it is a great example of how vast the game is. Honestly: you can’t just point a finger at a single thing here and say, that it’s the most important — they all are. From the glorious warm waters of near-surface areas to the chilling thrills of deepest abyss this game just doesn’t stop to surprise. A very simplistic beginning that reflects Naija’s life as “a simple creature” in her own words transforms and grows like an underwater life itself becoming more and more complex, throwing in more mechanics, more songs, more pieces of backstory. It simply isn’t possible to draw a line here. Where does the story end and the gameplay begin? Where does the world transform into a form of a narrative? It’s just one whole engaging thing. I guess this is the best possible result for metroidvania, especially the one which starts with a phrase “The Verse binds us, narrator and explorer; my story will become your own, and yours will become mine.”
But you don’t know what The Verse is yet, do you? That is the force that runs through all the Aquaria (yes, game’s world has the same name as the game itself), every living being contains small part of this power, and it can be guided with rhythms and music. This seemingly peaceful concept can deceive you in the beginning into the feeling that all of the game would be careless joy and swimming around looking at the beautiful scenery. Well, in a way it is, but as you path goes down into the darkness closer to the ocean bed the grim secrets of game’s world become uncovered. What starts as seemingly aimless journey started out of curiosity turns out to be an epic tale about extinct races, gods gone mad and ultimately finding out what this all was about… except that last tiny bit, of course, but you already know that, and it shouldn’t bother you for now. Because there’s a whole world ahead of you, don’t miss an opportunity to visit it.

Fans of Metroid-style games and beautiful graphics should pick up this gem. It's the proper length, and contains just the right number of puzzles and hidden secrets to make even a $20 price-point viable. At $10, it's a steal.

It's one of those Metroidvania games that reminds me of everything I love about the genre. Definitely worth buying.

I've been playing this on and off for years now (since 2008!) and finally knuckled down to finish it this year. The pacing as with many of Zelda\Metrodvania games, can be a bit iffy in places but once more 'forms' are introduced it becomes much more interesting. With a unique art style and atmosphere the game delivers highly in presentation. The bosses are spectacular and genuinely creepy as well as challenging. Highly recommend to fans of the genre and exploration fans.

Gorgeous visuals, a lovely soundtrack, and a fun, fluid contronl scheme make Aquaria a joy to play.

I had to go back to this game again - it's very Legend of Zeldaesque but its not very formulaic and the setting is quite unique. Well worth the low price it is at now.

Aquaria is a beautful underwater game that feels very much like a mixture of Ecco the Dolphin and Super Metroid. If you're not familiar with the Metroidvania styele of game,s it involves avast, open world where the player is given, generally, very little direction of where to go, with the only obstacles being environments or passages thta the player cannot explore due to needing to unlock abilities, find items, leanr amgic, or what have you.

Aquaria does this through songs, which lets you transform into other forms giving you new abilities, like energy blasts, faster swimming, or the ability to project light into darkness. The world is larger than I expected, and comprised of several distinct areas that run the gamut from the Kelp Forest, to a Sunken City, to the Veil, which should be seen in game to be properly experienced. Luckily, the game lets you put down as many checkpoints as you want, to let you mark down places you can't quite get to yet, or areas you might want to come back to later. If you want to collect veeyrthing, you'll be backtracking quite a bit.

Music is a focal point in the game, and so it's not surprising that Aquaria has fantastic music. The graphics are pretty for what they are, and the bit of voice acting in the game is good as well. Most of the songs seem to ebe a variation of the game's main theme, which becomes a point touched on in the game's plot later.

The game has tons of optional content, areas, and bosses, which lets you find either new optional forms, new costumes for Naija, the adventurer, or simply little trinkets that sit in your home that make the place look nicer and sometimes add little creatures to the area. The little touches like thsis bring the game from being good to much better.

Combat gets very 'shmupy/bullet helly' at times, and sometimes boils down to chugging healing items (which are made through a very robust recipe and cooking system - actually pretty neat!) and blasting away as fast as your right mouse button will let you click.

If I had any qualms with the game, it's that it feels like the fast travel is just few and far enough between to where you do a lot of swimming around, but if you get good at wall-boost chaining (and you will) a lot of this is mitigated. There's also a few moments where how to proceed is not immediately apparent, and it's only after i tried everything that i realized what the hint telling me what to do was actually supposed to be. The game also runs off of a save-point system, with no checkpoints in between, so a feath can force you to replay a bit more of your previous progress than you might like. This isn't a huge issue typically, though there is one optional boss that's quite a trek from a save point to get to, and isn't very easy to top it off.

Finally, the last problem: The game ends on a huge cliffhanger, and we will never see a sequel, more than likely. Oh well.

Fantastic game, and I would heavily recommend it

A mix between Zelda Ocarina of Time, Metroid & Ecco the dolphin. 10/10 Fan for life

Great music is also worth mentioning, had to buy the soundtrack ^.^
The next best thing to playing N64 Zelda Games

Everything about the game is perfect, the only problem I had with it was trying to figure out where to go next, but easily fixed with a brief look at a walkthrough to point me in the right direction.

It was described as a calm and relaxing exploration game, and while the soundtrack and beautiful scenery are relaxing, the enemies do present a challenge. There is a lot to keep track of: songs, physical forms with different abilities, food, items... But things don't get out of hand. It's faster to switch forms and play songs with a mouse and keyboard.

It's Castlevania with fish. If that alone is not enough, this fantastic indie gem offers a huge, detailed world spanning all manners of watery locales from icey shallows to a pitch black abyss and easily, *easily* one of the best soundtracks in videogame history, no exaggeration.

A metroidvania style game. Swim your way through a huge map that you will visit the same locations multiple times using your different powers that you've learned over the course of your adventure to unlock new locations. Magic, action, and casual gaming bring a good mix to this 2D animated game. While I recommend this, I must warn you, the game ends with a "to be continued." However, no sequel is likely to ever be made. The story does end well though, so you will not be let down by playing just this one game.

A beautiful game that begs to be exlpored. That is the best reveiw I can make for it because its true.

Aquaria's an absolutely astounding game. Novel gameplay and absolutely stunning graphics, the world is really brought to life and the areas feel really ♥♥♥♥in' huge! It also helps that the protagonist is super cute.

Chill underwater metroidvania.

I originally played Aquaria on the iPad 2. I wasn't really a big tablet/phone gamer, but Aquaria looked fascinating, and I love me some Metroidvania, especially when it's done right as so many devs fail at. I was never really into PC games until I found out about Steam, i loved the idea of having an Xbox Live Arcade like system, and I had always heard of it but never knew what it was until recently. I was surprised to find how many games I loved that were on here, and when they do deales on things, it can make you want to buy a bunch of stuff. I HAD to buy Skyrim Deluxe pack even though I have it on 360 and with all DLC, I wanna see what kind of improvement my new PC will make.

Anyways as for Aquaria, if you like Metroidvania games, this is the game to buy, it takes place underwater but like any real Metroidvaniaa style game you have to power up and collect items to get to certain areas you've passed. It was so easy to control on iPad, I imagine the PC would be just as easy if not more so.

I want to recommend this game because it is wonderfully crafted, the underwater world just looks fantastic and the soundtrack is also great and rather relaxing and suits the game very well. The only problem is, I found the game got very boring. I got hooked after the first 5 minutes and was thinking "this is amazing, this game is so cool", but after another half an hour of playing, I started to get bored. I'm not sure if this is because I've only played a short time and haven't unlocked a lot of things, but I just couldn't stay hooked on it.

The actual gameplay and controls are different to most games, and a little average at times when I found myself clinging to a wall when I didn't want to be there.

Another downfall of the game is the mostly black area that surrounds your screen and the game world a lot of the time. I get the point of it, you're swimming through caves and everything, but I didn't like it, it got in the way of, and ruined, the game world a little too much for me.

Overall I'd say that if this is on sale, -%50 or more, maybe pick it up and give it a go, you might enjoy it more than I did.
6/10

WHY HAVEN'T YOU PLAYED THIS YET

There's something fishy about this game, but water load of fun I had playing it.

A gorgeous underwater metroidvania game with a great soundtrack.