Aquaria (video Game) - Reception

Reception

Aquaria was the Seumas McNally winner of the 2007 Independent Games Festival, and was also a finalist in the categories of Design Innovation, Excellence in Visual Art, and Excellence in Audio. The festival praised the game's "fluid controls, unique, non-linear gameplay, and vibrant hand-drawn storybook-style graphics". The game received praise from many different reviewers; Cam Shea of IGN called it "a stunning effort from such a small team", Richard Naik of GameCritics called it "an extremely high-quality product" and a fine example of the side-scroller genre, while Chris Dahlen of The A.V. Club termed it "not so much a retro adventure as a fresh take on everything that made the old 2D adventures great". Praise for the game was centered primarily on its visuals and atmosphere. Hyper's Tim Henderson commended the game for "a rare and genuine sense of exploration, wonder and discovery", and a review by Scott Colbourne from The Globe and Mail termed it "drop-dead beautiful" with a "deep and affecting story". Colbourne summarized Aquaria as "a game you can get comfortably lost in".

Other reviewers, such as Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer and Chris Holt of Macworld echoed the praises for the graphics and atmosphere, while Craig Pearson of PC Gamer UK added praises for the music and voiceovers and Suzie Ochs of MacLife praised the music and story. Other praises for the game came for its control scheme and for the gameplay mechanics, with Holt calling out the cooking system as worthy of praise. Though noting that the visuals and presentation of the game would be the first thing that players noticed, Nathan Cocks of PC PowerPlay claimed that "from a design standpoint, Aquaria is a triumph," with the right amount of complexity and level design that is "spot on".

Several reviewers, such as Bramwell and Holt, criticized the map system present in the initial version of the game as being confusing and difficult. Other reviewers had different concerns, such as Henderson, who critiqued the initial release version for "lack of widescreen support and being occasionally fiddly", or Naik, who felt that the control scheme was not as intuitive when using an Xbox 360 controller. Shea and Pearson felt that the game could have used more puzzles or a wider variety of quests and objectives to balance out the exploration and combat. They did not feel, though, that these downsides compared to the game's positives, with Pearson stating that "the good far outweighs what are, essentially, niggles."