Aquaria Review

Aquaria first caught my eyes a few years back, when I still owned a Mac and would consistently see what games Ambrosia was developing/porting. Since then I'd learned almost everything about the game, bought and consistently listened to its amazing soundtrack, watched parts of its development and release through the developer's video blogs, even used its source code as a basis for some of Sorrowsong's engine, and yet I still hadn't actually played the damn thing. Who would have thought that it would take four years for me to actually play the game?

The game's main menu.

As most familiar with the game already know, Aquaria centers around a singular aquatic humanoid creature, Naija, and her quest to discover her purpose and who she is in a world devoid of any other intelligent life. The entire game takes place in a beautifully-crafted underwater world, which is not only expansive but full of life, detail and many secrets to discover.

I'm not lying when I say the world is huge. This is the full game map.

It's so hard to decide where to begin, seeing as there's much I want to talk about. So, let's start exactly where Naija does.

After a cryptic and enticing intro narrative, the player is introduced to Naija

The player first meets Naija resting in her hidden cove. Through her dialog, we learn that, as far as she knows, she is alone in the world. This sense of loneliness will resonate throughout most of the actual game. Everything in Aquaria is bright and seemingly full of life. However, no other intelligent lifeforms exist in the world aside from Naija. It's amazing just how well conveyed the sense of loneliness is. It's almost oppressive, traveling through this massive world and yet never encountering anything else but simple sealife. This is the first point of praise that I want to heap onto this game. Too many games nowadays lack emotion. They are dry, cookie-cutter and feel so detached from the player that it's more like you are watching a movie instead of playing a game. If I remember correctly, the game's programmer, Alec Holowka, was in a rather lonely state while making the game, and wanted to convey his feelings through the character of Naija. He succeeded in a way few developers could have.

After getting acclimated to the basic controls, the player learns of Naija's main ability: singing. In the same way games have you execute combos to cast spells, Aquaria allows you to cast spells by having Naija sing songs. Most of the spells are simple melodies (although there is one later on that, to my enjoyment, echoes one of the main motifs in the soundtrack in a beautifully haunting way) and easy to memorize, giving Naija a plethora of abilities (and later forms) that can be used for combat, discovery, exploration and main story progression.

The singing UI

Aquaria gives you a good hour to explore its beautiful environments and ponder the exact reason for Naija being there before the player ever enters combat. Many say this downtime and lack of excitement turned them off to the game immediately, but it just drew me further in. The mystery of the game grew thicker and thicker as I discovered Naija's empty home, the surrounding waters, and many areas of the game that seemed inaccessible. The slow beginning really gave me a feel for how much passion was put into designing the game. Everything, from the background art to the music to the OpenGL engine behind it all, was full of life and detail.

And then the player is introduced to combat through use of the "Energy Form", one of the many forms Naija will learn to aid her in her journey.

Naija fighting in her energy form.

Combat is extremely fluid and fun. It takes a bit of practice to get used to fighting whilst floating around in water, while also trying to dodge enemy attacks. It definitely has a decent learning curve on it, but that's another thing great about Aquaria: easy to learn, difficult to master. The hardest part later on in the game is when Naija has multiple forms she can switch to. The player needs to know exactly which form to use in each situation and the song to sing to gain that form (the game offers hotkeys for each song, but I felt like that was cheating), which can be quite daunting at first. It takes a while to get down but the game slowly introduces each new form to the player and gives you plenty of time to acclimate to it.

The Sun Form allows Naija to light up dark areas and can be used against certain enemies

that are sensitive to light.

Aquaria is ostensibly non-linear and fully open world. However, the game cleverly enforces some linearity. Rocks block the path that must be lifted with the Bind Song, which can only be learned after exploring a certain cave. The Bind Song allows Naija to lift obstacles out of her way, opening up a few more areas. Areas even further out are blocked by strong currents of water, which require Beast Form to pass, etc. As Naija learns songs, the amount of explorable world available to her slowly increases. This funnels the player into the main story without them even realizing it (I sure didn't), since almost every Form acquisition is part of the storyline. I was driven forward by the desire to explore and discover the game's secrets. I not only got satisfaction from that but also from the fact that I was learning more about Naija and the world she lived in along the way.

Naija happening upon her homeland's throne room.

One of the reasons I have to heap mountains of praise on Aquaria is the fact that--for the longest time now--any time I play a game I rush through it. Most recent games have elicited an "is it over yet?" reaction from me because they get stale, fast. Even games that try to entice you with achievements and secrets don't give the player enough reason to go out of their way to discover these things. Aquaria never told me there were secrets everywhere, it never forced me to find them. I wanted to. The game is structured in such a way that, without even knowing in, the player is rewarded for exploration. Treasures found around the world add on to Naija's home in interesting ways and give you more backstory. Aquatic pets can be acquired that give Naija special abilities that songs cannot. The world itself is just so breathtakingly beautiful that I wanted to see it all. I didn't need a story to force me to do it or some "achievement" for seeing it all. I didn't want my time with Aquaria to end. I wanted it to last as long as possible, and I found every excuse to stay just a little bit longer.

 Reaching the ocean's surface feels just as good to the player as

it must to Naija.

I couldn't put the game down. I played it over the course of two days, almost 16 hours each day. I got lost inside its world, inside the cryptic and mysterious story, inside the fluid and intuitive controls, inside the beautifully haunting music, all strung together by a singular motif. Everything about the game wanted me to stay inside of it and never come out.

As Naija discovers the remnants of more and more civilizations within Aquaria, she learns of each race's sad fate. They have all been wiped out or gone extinct through certain circumstances, leaving Naija completely alone. These stories were told in an ingenious matter, normally involving the spirits of said race communicating with Naija and subtly leading her to where she would find the truth. This normally involved a few puzzles, most of which were excellently crafted. A few left me stumped for the longest time, and required a decent amount of thought to figure out.

Aquaria has many interesting features besides exploration and combat. One of the most enjoyable is the game's cooking system.

The main Cooking UI

Throughout the game Naija collects both recipes and ingredients that can be combined to make food that gives various benefits (and disadvantages), including health regeneration, added defense and added power in Energy Form. There is a plethora of ingredients to acquire and dozens of recipes (I believe the number of recipes is near 100) to use. The coolest thing about this system is the fact that the player does not need to have a certain recipe to make an item. Items can be combined and experimented with freely, and Naija will learn new recipes as the player finds the correct combination of items.

When I finally made it to the game's final boss battle, I was really bummed knowing that the game would end soon. I made sure to do absolutely everything I could before entering into the battle: I had all the treasures, pets, areas explored and a plethora of food items prepared for what I knew was an intense fight... and damn it was intense.

Did I just step into Touhou?

Each boss fight was uniquely scripted and challenging. However, this one took the cake, and I had absolutely no problem with it. Nowadays most games have cookie-cutter boss fights that take 10 seconds even on the hardest difficulty. It was such a breath of fresh air to finally be challenged by a boss fight, Secret of Mana style. Every boss fight was extremely enjoyable and I loved figuring out each boss' weakness and exploiting it. This all culminated in the epic 4-stage final boss fight, leading the player to the game's outro, which left me absolutely speechless and begging for more.

I seriously cannot give this game enough praise. If I didn't know beforehand I wouldn't have been able to tell it was an indie title. Actually, yes I would have. While the game oozes an extremely polished look and feel, it is still very obviously indie. Why? Because it's so different from the modern video game. It's something fresh, something a large company would never try for fear of losing profits. It has a handcrafted feel to it, something most games don't. It conveys a personal message, something only possible when the game is given love and absolute passion (again, that's essentially impossible when you have a team of hundreds of people). Aquaria is a prime example of how to make a game and do it right, and if you haven't played it yet I urge you to try it out for yourself. It's only $10 on Steam and regularly on sale. Hell, I would have payed $25+ for this game. It's that good.