Maroc - 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - Hier 03:45

Aquamarine: Explorer’s Edition – Review

Sometimes a game finds you, instead of the other way around. We’re still not entirely sure how we ended up with Aquamarine: Explorer’s Edition in our library, although the answer is most likely a simple mix-up on behalf of publisher Dolores Entertainment. What we expected to be our review copy of Deckline turned out to be Aquamarine instead. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one? Let’s take a look at what secrets this unexpected title holds. Story The opening scene of Aquamarine is deceptively straightforward. We’re introduced to the Seeker, a lone space traveler, who explains how she ended up in the story’s main predicament. While orbiting an uncharted planet covered almost entirely in water, her starcraft is disrupted by a mysterious signal, forcing her to eject and crash land on a small island in the middle of the vast alien ocean. From there, she is stranded with only an amphibious survival pod as her companion. Her goal is to survive and eventually reach her crashed ship, which lies somewhere across the ocean. What appears to be a plain, by-the-numbers story setup turns out to be much deeper and more meaningful: during her trek across the ocean, the Seeker gradually begins to uncover fragments of the lost history of the planet (which she dubs ‘Aquamarine’, hence the game’s title). The narrative isn’t just about survival and finding a way home, but also reflects on the relationship humanity has with nature. Graphics The comic book-style art is without a doubt Aquamarine’s strongest and most distinctive aspect. Taking inspiration from psychedelic sci-fi of the 1970s and 1980s as well as the works of French comic artist Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud, Aquamarine has the air of a living graphic novel, with panels framing exploration and events. The art design is fantastic, with marine life that looks as familiar as it does alien. The soft pastel tones belie the harshness of this extraterrestrial ocean. As good as it looks, Aquamarine isn’t particularly taxing on the hardware, and there are no issues in terms of performance here, although there are some other issues to be wary of when it comes to gameplay. Sound Audio never takes center stage in Aquamarine. The game’s soundscape is meant to complement the game’s slow-paced, contemplative feel, reinforcing an atmosphere that encourages thinking and immersion rather than fast-paced action. There is no voice acting, and sound effects are sparsely used. Most of what you’ll be hearing as you’re exploring the planet is music. Said music is adaptive, responding both to the state of the world and your actions, rather than just looping the same tunes over and over. Different versions of compositions are used depending on what’s happening in the game, so the sound shifts along with the experience. Aquamarine’s synth-based soundtrack fully leans into the retro sci-fi aesthetic, taking inspiration from the likes of Jean-Michel Jarre and Tangerine Dream. While not particularly memorable outside of the game, it fits the overall aesthetic to a tee, contributing to the game’s dream-like atmosphere. Gameplay One of the first things that Aquamarine tells you is that the game is best played without distractions. We’re inclined to agree with this, although not for the likely intended reasons of atmosphere and immersion. This is a game that demands your attention and focus, as it throws a poorly-explained mix of different systems at you and mostly expects you to find your footing on your own. At its core, gameplay centers on survival, exploration and careful decision-making, all presented in a turn-based structure. You explore the ocean using your survival pod, diving from a small hub island into underwater areas to gather resources and progress toward your crashed starcraft. Every movement and action you take is turn-based, meaning each step consumes resources like energy. With only limited resources, you have to plan ahead rather than act in real time. The core loop focuses on survival. You need to manage limited resources such as energy, harvested from crystals, and food. Running out of either can leave you stuck or unable to continue exploring. As you search the ocean floor, you won’t just find resources but new tools and upgrades as well. Environmental puzzles break up the basic loop, and also contribute to environmental storytelling, often centering around the remnants of a lost civilization. While exploration is the game’s central mechanic, Aquamarine also introduces light farming mechanics where you cultivate alien plants from your island hub. You’re also tasked with studying the planet’s ecosystem, as wildlife and the environment affect your progress. The roguelike nature of the ocean makes it so that mistakes can carry lasting consequences, with the game autosaving at every turn and you only having limited ability to undo decisions. This should form a solid basis for an unconventional survival game. However, when we look at execution, Aquamarine starts to falter. This is a game that was designed to be played with a mouse rather than a controller, and moving your cursor with a joystick feels stiff and unnatural. The game’s UI is unintuitive too, and it doesn’t help that the tutorial is unclear, making it so that you’ll end up in situations where it becomes frustratingly difficult to understand what you should be doing. Not only that, but Aquamarine is prone to random freezing. Although the game’s tendency to autosave does prevent a massive loss of progress, it makes actually playing it a constant uphill battle. Adding insult to injury is that the so-called ‘Explorer’s Edition’ is already considered a v2.0 update that overhauls the original game. As much as we wanted to explore the planet, the unpolished gameplay mechanics made it so that we ended up giving up halfway to our ship. If you want to give Aquamarine a shot, then go for the PC version, as we suspect that won’t suffer from all of the same issues as the console port. Conclusion What went wrong here? As much as we wanted to give Aquamarine a fair chance, the game simply didn’t stick its landing. From the confusing and underexplained mechanics to the awkward control scheme and the game randomly freezing, this simply isn’t an enjoyable experience on console. It’s a shame too, as we did really appreciate the game’s retro sci-fi aesthetic and the parts of the story we uncovered before we ultimately gave up. If you want to embark on the Seeker’s journey, then do so on PC and avoid the console port altogether.