Incredible, atmospheric experience and a work of art.

from the design standpoint Aquaria is a Metroidvania 2D game with big underwater world to explore. Those ideas aren't that special on paper, but the strange mix of climactic locations, fitting music and hand-drawn graphics makes this title not only joy to look and hear, but makes so much impact on the player that after you finish the game you will know that is one of the best indie games out there yet to be recognized by most of gaming community.

The story is simple, but it is told extremely well by the voice of the main protagonist as you play the game. It starts out interesting, but it ends up strongly heart-touching. The plot is slowly revealed through the game and the next surprise around the corner will be bigger than the former. Also, in my opinion, Naija is one of the best written female characters in video game industry up to date.

Aquaria is an open world and you must figure out most of the gameplay mechanics all by yourself. Some tactics for beating some bosses are kind of tricky, so this isn't the game for people that are not so fond of the more exploration-oriented games. The start of this game isn't as fast as you would want to, but if you will give it some time you will be hooked straight to the finish. Game is around 12-20 hours long and there are lots of non-mandatory things to find. This is not a small game by any means.

Aquaria had a bad luck that it came before the Braid's indie games boom. Don't miss this one. It's a powerful gem hidden in the sea.

A relic from an era of £15 Indie titles that your average gamer would never seek out because they were usually hidden away on the developers home page without much aplomb.

Now Steam is chock full of titles and Humble Bundle/Indie Royale throw them out two to the penny. The golden era of the Indies has arrived!

Unfortunately this title and many others like it are left in the dusty past, forgotten, unloved. Give it a go and you'll be rewarded with a charming little foray into an aquatic wonderland the likes of which haven't been seen since the clicks and whistles of Ecco the Dolphin dazzled you on the Dreamcast.

I wake up in a wonderful underwater world. It’s magical, large and full wonderful things to discover. I have no clue how I got here or why I am the only one besides the normal sea creatures. I am Naija, a beautiful mermaid-like woman, trying to discover the past and find out what happen to everyone else.

Aquaria is a 2D underwater adventure where you need to recover your past and find out what happen to everyone else. All other intelligent life seems to have been wiped out and you can’t remember anything. What discoveries and treasures will you find on your large adventure?

You will discover songs that will give you special powers to help you on your journey. You can get one that will shoot like a fire blast, another which will let you swim against strong currents, or one that will let you light up deep dark caverns. You can earn these by fighting bosses or finding them in hidden caves. You will also need to learn recipes that will help heal you and give your powers a boost. These are all found when dropped from defeated enemies or plants you can pop by certain music tones.

It’s a beautiful world of varieties of sea creatures that range from friendly to violent. Everything looks really colorful and vibrant. The world under the sea is very large and when you think you’ve discovered everything you discovered another huge area. You’ll have plenty of backtracking to find all the hidden secrets in the old-school Metroid style. Get a new power and go back to a previous area to access new areas.

There wasn’t really any problems with the game in my opinion. I do wish the final fight was a little better but it wasn’t really an issue. I also wish I was able to zoom in on the map a little more as sometimes it was hard to see where I needed to go. Those are minor issues though and never pulled me out of the experience.

Aquaria is a low priced indie game that is superb and wonderful to play. You have a good story with a twist, beautiful world to explore, fantastic music, and many hours of enjoyment. I sank 24hrs into the game and enjoyed every minute of it. There’s also some mods you can download to add more to the game if you’d like.

Bear Rating 9.5/10

This was one of the earliest indie game I played. It was a wonderful experience, proving that underwater games can be good. The world is fairly large and there's a lot of diverse art and environments to explore. It's a pretty relaxing and low-key game, but you do face some quick-paced action encounters.

I hate giving up on games but this one got to a point where it just wasn't compelling anymore, both in story and gameplay. It started off great, though, which makes being a quitter all that much more disappointing. Finding and crafting items was fun-ish at first but it became more of a chore as the story went along. I still could have dealt with this, but for the items you needed to really help with boss battles you had to trek a long way to get to a bigger stove required for crafting certain items. And the story really only progressed when you beat the bosses. In between them it was just swimming from here to there and farming items needed to craft other items. Yawn.

I might-could revisit this game in the future. I think I might just not have been in the right frame of mind for a platformer at the time I chose to play it.