New 2D PC Shooter: Aquaria Trailer

[Flack]

http://www.destructoid.com/2d-ain-t-dead-new-aquaria-trailer-29948.phtml

This looks pretty bad ass, actually.

[Snapple]

Reminds me of Ecco the Dolphin, which isn't a bad thing, mind you.

[calthaer]

That game looks wicked-awesome.

I just suggested to Manifesto Games that they carry it. If they do, I am purchasing it without hesitation.

IMO, the promise of newer technology in recent years has never truly been applied in the arena of 2D games. Maybe Aquaria will change that.

[Technosis]

Looks excellent! I especially like the deep sea "darkness" battle sequence. Hopefully an advanced demo gets released soon!

[cyberfluxor]

Looks good to me. ;)

*awaits the negative responses about anime-style games*

[Emuaust]

Looks good to me. ;)

*awaits the negative responses about anime-style games*

What? are there really gamespot readers here? LOL

[Jorpho]

Hey, look, it's on Steam for $15 until the end of the year!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/24420/

I might just have to shell out for this. Does anyone here have an opinion on it at this point?

[Iron Draggon]

oh, I am so buying that, ASAP... if you find anymore 2D PC SHUMPS, I'm in!

[Wraith Storm]

This looks incredible!!! And that music, Hell, I want the OST!!!

[crazyjackcsa]

Looks like Kolibri, arguably the best humming bird based shooter on the 32X.

Kinda neat

[shivers]

oh, I am so buying that, ASAP... if you find anymore 2D PC SHUMPS, I'm in!

SHOOT THE CORE (http://shootthecore.moonpod.com/)

[Iron Draggon]

SHOOT THE CORE (http://shootthecore.moonpod.com/)

oh yes, I know... that's where I discovered Drakojan Skies!

[swlovinist]

Looks great, thanks for sharing

[calthaer]

Jorpho, you are the man. Thanks for posting the Steam availability; I went and downloaded it immediately. I've been looking forward to this for forever.

EDIT: What can I say...this thing plays like a dream. This game single-handedly abolishes, in my mind at least, the theory that PC gaming is dead.

The controls are unbelievably refined and honed; they are remarkably fluid. As is perhaps to be expected, the gamepad is slightly - and it is really only by the barest of margins when I say "slightly" - better than the mouse. But the mouse controls are SO well implemented that I almost get the impression that 2D games were, in some sense, meant to be controlled with a mouse! They've taken the best controls from the flash games of this era and incorporated them into the game. If they only had an option to increase the mouse tracking speed, the mouse controls could be perfect. In fact, maybe that is there and I've just missed it so far.

The only other VERY minor quibble was that it was a slight pain to run the configuration executable to enable the gamepad when I went back to do so after plugging one in - there's no option to do so in Steam.

Other than that...this game is one that absolutely must be tried, especially by fans of classic 2D sidescrollers. The graphics, the music, the gameplay...it's really, really well done.

[Icarus Moonsight]

How are the system requirements? Any one notice any problems on a machine that's portable (mobile integrated gpu) and a few years old? I'm gonna go look and see if I can buy it. Looks awesome. :D

[calthaer]

I am running my game on a laptop that has an ATI Radeon X1200 mobile gpu; the main proc is a 1.9GHz AMD Turion 64 X2, with 2GB of RAM. There's virtually no slowdown when running this thing at max (1440 x 900) resolution - maybe a very tiny bit when I enter some of the largest rooms, but it really doesn't impact gameplay at all. I bought this earlier this year on clearance (the model was being discontinued).

So the system reqs on Bit Blot's site are kind of vague, but this might give you at least some idea of how it performs.

[Poofta!]

i've seen it on steam, looks intrigueing, kinda reminds me of braid. but i absolutely loath anime style jap stuff, dunno if i can get over that to try this game.

[unbroken]

I didn't hear anything about this game until I saw it for sale on steam this weekend. I decided to check out the reviews which turned out to be very good. I decided to throw some spare change for this game and was VERY pleasantly surprised. Have played about an hour into it and decided this is probably the best $15 I have ever spent. This game has a very nice warm feeling to it, graphics and music are very original. The combat is very interesting as well, instead of basic combat you use a song system similar to Zelda to use various attacks and magic. I recomend this game to ANY 2d fans or side scrollers. This game blows echo to the dust - long live 2d.

[GM80]

Long-time Mac publisher/developer Ambrosia is handling Aquaria for Mac (http://www.ambrosiasw.com/games/aquaria/). Out now, too.

[Jorpho]

Ahh, finished. Should have looked at this one earlier. Twenty hours well spent, methinks.

It is indeed a truly splendid game, one with a huge and varied world that generously rewards exploration. The many unique death animations are not the only thing it has in common with Castlevania.

But that said, I really couldn't stand the endgame - just a long series of bland, needlessly long tunnels, and by the time I reached the final boss I just resorted to a FAQ.

And the platforming sections are pretty nasty too. To be precise, there are many little bits where it looks like something should be possible if you just try it a few dozen times over, with no indication of what the proper way of doing things is. I was hoping that in the end there would be some sort of item to make them easier, but alas, no. Fortunately those bits are but a small fraction of the total game.

I was also hoping that at the end there would be some way of reading all the text in the game, but no, apparently I'm supposed to go manually apply some silly substitution cypher every single place that I go! Give me a break!

So anyway, is there a general FAQ for this game somewhere? I still haven't figured out how to get to the secret thing in the ice area.

[carlcarlson]

Any chance this could end up on XBLA? I'd like to give it a go.