Kind of like the initial impressions/critique thread, but I feel this one should be more about game reviews overall (positive and negative.) Plus Alec and Derek check this forum more often than TIGSource it seems, and I wanna see how they react to some of my thoughts...
I've been waiting for Aquaria for almost a year, since back before it was about to be released in spring of this year and then Alec and Derek decided to hold unto the game a bit longer and polish things up, and aside from a few bugs it definately shows. Aquaria plays, looks and sounds like a completely professional game. It's very rare I stay up all hours of the night to play a game these days, and the last game I did that with was World of Warcraft back in 2005 or so.
Everything about the games controls are intuitive and easy to get into, and moving around is as smooth as butter. Some people have commented that it's not so easy to move around with just a mouse, but you can use the WASD keys as well, which will shoot up your tactics and control to near perfect levels (once you hit the keyboard you can't go back.) That said, I can certainly appreciate and understand Aquaria's initial focus on mouse-only (and that switching controls is as easy as getting your hands into that old tired and true PC WASD/Mouse position.)
Casting spells and using skills is very easily done, which is good because I was afraid Aquaria would be like the various Zelda games where you're forced to remember every song table for every musical spell. The addition of color and line shape helps the mind remember just what your casting (S->E=gravity, SW->NW=energy form, W,E,W,E=shield, etc.) The colors are a bit hard to use at the beginning of the game, especially since every color has another shade that's very similar, and the shapes aren't as varied as they could have been. I find everytime I come across a singing colored plant I always choose the wrong color. This has become a problem for some players who are either colorblind (a good portion of the male population has a hard time processing blue/purple and other colors.)
Travelling is on the whole an enjoyable experience, especially if you're a Metroidvania fan. In fact, the game is exactly in that kind of 2d adventure vein of finding magical stuff to move other magical stuff to find the biggest baddest magical thing of them all to beat the big magical boss (that isn't a critique, I just really like games like that.) A lot of people complain about backtracking, but it really isn't that big a deal. Once you've reached the point where backtracking would be a pain you're able to travel back and forth through various means. Not to mention players can always make hot soup which increases your travel speed, and the ingredients are easily cultivated by any random school of travelling fish.
That said, the map can be a bit of a problem, especially if you're like me and give up on a puzzle halfway through the next dungeon to go exploring. You can only see the places you've visited and haven't visited as white on the map you're currently on. So if you pass up a tunnel and go to another map, you won't remember that you haven't explored that tunnel yet unless you go back to that map and check. Some way of showing where you've been on the entire map would have been nice (and keeping dungeon maps off of the world map, since most of them overlap other maps.) Also, the ability to put down nodes and make notes would be a praise-worthy addition, though not required at all.
The non-linear exploration, by the way, strongly reminds me of Metroid, Zelda and Castlevania, so +200 points to Alec and Derek!
Aquaria is a fun game that anyone can enjoy regardless of skill level, and despite being made by two blokes the game reeks of professionalism and serious game design, that said here's what Aquaria chokes and drowns at doing
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The quality of the art is at a high-high bar, but the animation in some places is sorely lacking. Should Naija fire her energy bolts she'll do nothing more than twitch her arm a little bit. A little spice to the character animations would have gone a long way, especially for Naija. The bosses, likewise (of what I've seen so far) are very stiffish, and don't appear too different (although I've only beaten the energy temple and deserted city bosses, so there's still hope for new and exciting boss designs) and this brings me to my next point.
The mini-bosses and other giant monsters that dot the landscape here and there between boss fights I find far more fun and interesting than the final bosses themselves, particularly the floating laser eye sacks and green dragon seahorse mini-bosses. Not only that, but the bosses themselves take a little while to figure out with no real clues, and can be a headache to try and kill (see: second boss.)
The voice acting, sound and musical score are all top notch and professional, but I found myself muting the music after a while on the first day because I had gotten tired of the looping main theme, and found the relaxing swoosh of the ocean to be soothing. Perhaps the musical score should have faded in and out a bit more in certain parts?
Also, there are minor graphical glitches people seem to be reporting. The only one I've found is in the second boss when the screen shakes and you're sitting at the bottom of the little alcove a few lines of pixels show up at the bottom of the screen. Aside from that, she's shipshape.
Lastly, the cooking system kicks ass... Seriously, I mean, I have like 3 pages of stuff and I find myself drawn to hoarding supplies like a pack-rack. I have 8 tough cakes, 8 veggie soups plus 8 hearty soups and 8 antidote/healing leaves... This coupled with my incessant need to explore has caused me to have recipes that benefit skills I don't even have yet!! +300 points to Griffindor!!
