My Giveaway

[SamuraiMegas]

I might be interested, but that game doesn't interest me. I'll let someone else grab it.

[Ivo]

I have this one from the 1st Humble Indie Bundle and wanted to play it. I too will let someone else grab your offer - and see if I can install it and play my own copy and provide a review as well.

[GirlGamer55]

Interested but that type of game isn't usually my style. I do like indie games just not tiny ones like that.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

Aquaria is fairly large. Give it a try.

[Gunstar Green]

It's like Ecco the Dolphin meets Metroid. It's pretty cool.

[GirlGamer55]

By small I meant the character is tiny. I dislike games where you can bairly see who your controlling (that doesn't apply to 8 bit games, because it was all we had back then).

[Ivo]

I have been playing Aquaria (by the way the character isn't that small in the screen) and really enjoying it so far. Someone should take the deal.

[SamuraiMegas]

I've got 10+ NEW games I have to beat, so I'm not taking anything unless it's a game that truly interests me. i might end up snagging it anyways though if no one does.

[Ivo]

Aquaria has been snapped up and we shall await for its review.

Next up is NightSky. Anyone interested?

I also already have that one.

Also haven't finished Aquaria myself yet, want to write a review for it. I'm really liking it so far.

[Ivo]

I didn't get Aquaria from the OP, but I finished Aquaria it today and here is my review. We can see what the poster that was gifted thinks of it as well.
I include no screenshots.

This game is reminiscent both of Ecco the Dolphin and of Metroid for obvious reasons to anyone who has played those games and Aquaria. Swimming around also made me thing of Nights, something that was remarked by Mozgus in 2008.

I'm just guessing, but given the presence of the floating water "bubbles" above the Veil, I think the creators drew some inspiration directly from one of the Ecco games. Or maybe it was a coincidence

I really liked the game. It has a good story, beautiful 2d graphics, excellent music and I really like the controls when using keyboard+mouse. With the aiming on the mouse, it makes me think of Abuse a bit.
I mostly used the Keyboard to move, although some (optional) parts you really want to use the mouse for moving.

Any part where there are jumps out of the water

There are also some nifty puzzles in the game, several of which within the boss fights (of which there are a few). I liked the song interface, I never got to play the old adventure game Loom but it made me think about that game; likewise, when using the songs in real time under pressure from enemies (for changing form, puzzles or abilities) were to me reminiscent of Black & White or Arx Fatalis gesture recognition controls for spells.

The crafting (cooking) system is also interesting - you can prepare healing or boosting items and they do come in handy, particularly during some of the trickier boss fights.

The game is also loaded with secrets to keep you busy if you want a bit of extra exploration.

As far as criticism I have a few.

The mouse control for swirling sucks (rotating the cursor around you while holding a mouse button), and the mouse control for changing back to neutral form (press L and R button at same time) form and for dashing (double clicking) are also flawed. The in-game messages should tell you about the key instead of only the mouse equivalents (R to rotate/swirl, X to go to neutral form, Space to dash - I found all much better than the mouse equivalents). The song interface operated by mouse though, I found it great as I mentioned above.

In a game of this type I think players expect to be able to "fill out the map" (and get a completion %) - I really don't recommend trying that on Aquaria. You do fill out parts where you already traveled but I think it is impossible to highlight all the map.

Particularly the Veil, even if you wall jump and take some high altitude dives, Naija would have to fly to cover all that sky to the sides.

The organic layouts of most of the map make sense for an underwater setting though, and given some of the optional parts (spoiled above) I don't know if there is even a way this could be implemented without sacrificing some other things, but nonetheless it bothered me a bit.
The map does mark a few things for you automatically but it could be much improved. There is very limited zoom capability, and I don't see why the map could not be designed to avoid all overlay - which in some parts gets confusing when there are parts from other sections "underneath" the section you are traversing even though they have nothing to do with it.

Still on issues of completion, there could easily be a % for the colored "plants" you sing to pop (some of which are hard to reach) for dedicated players to know if they have found them all, recipes for some reason have 13 pages but when you get them all there is only a single one on page 13 which could make one think there were more - this would be very easy to address by removing a particular duplicate recipe (there are two ways to make Veggie soup).

I think the main issue I had with the game was that essentially all forms other than the Energy form (the first you get, naturally) are mostly useless during a huge percentage of the game. That sort of includes the neutral one as well, including the Shield song also mostly obsoleted as soon as you get Energy form (I hardly used it, but maybe I should have used it more often) because you just kill the enemies faster than shifting back into normal form to sing it.
Basically, you shift into the forms mostly to overcome the specific obstacle that it is meant to address, then you go back to Energy form right away - even though some of the other forms are not defenseless, they really lack in offensive power and given that the game is full of enemies you will spend a LOT of your time wearing out the right-mouse button, clicking away shooting fireballs (now that I think of it, it is a bit as if you were playing Diablo 1 with a Sorceror with all the clicking).

I found it very cool whenever you needed to change forms under pressure, but this happened only in some specific boss fights with some puzzle elements.

The Beast form has some interesting offensive uses, although ramming into enemies to devour them is clunky in most cases - much props to the optional Jellyfish boss though, a good example where the Energy form simply does not cut it but the Beast form does. Due to the speed boost, and the general presence of currents in many areas of the game map, you will also spend a lot of time in Beast form. You can also effectively run away from most of the regular enemies, even without being in Beast form.

But all others are rather underwhelming. The "Veggie" form serves for some puzzles and for traversing (although it can attack - if your enemy is close to a wall), the Fish form serves for some hidden items, shortcuts and maybe some game progression - I don't even remember - and the Spirit form likewise is needed solely to access some treasures and to clear some specific obstacles in the game story-line. They are all required to clear the game (possibly not the Fish one, can't remember), but I think that abilities in Metroid or SoTN style Castlevanias tend to be generally more useful beyond letting you access some secrets. Although there you also have some examples which serve *only* to clear specific obstacles, I guess.

As an upside, I really liked the design of the Dual form - which is to some extent the upgrade of the Energy form, but of course you only get it when you are really close to the end of the game and it is a bit of overkill for regular enemies anyway. Charging up the blasts is very satisfying though.

Overall I really recommend the game - on the PC, with mouse+keys - particularly for fans of the games it reminds me of, or to fans of dual controls in general (to my knowledge there aren't that many 2d games with keyboard+mouse aim that aren't straight shooters).