Buy Aquaria, support 2D games and independent developers.

[Cless]

I was about to post this in the "Is 2D gaming dead" thread, but didn't think it was quite appropriate.

Anyone who likes exploration adventure games like 2D Metroid and modern Castlevania need to go buy AQUARIA, like, immediately.

The game just came out and I bought it on a whim. Didn't even go for the demo and I'm happy with my purchase. The graphics are high res and gorgeous. The soundtrack is a top contender for best of 2007. The undersea atmosphere is wonderful and the exploration is a lot of fun. It's quickly becoming one of my top games of the year. And at $30, it's only the cost of a new handheld game and is so far worth every penny.

Don't hesitate, but if you are, here are two mirrors to download a long demo:

http://www.ninj4comic.com/aquaria/AquariaDemo.2007.12.07.exe
http://www.battleforthecity.com/aquaria/AquariaDemo.2007.12.07.exe

Here are a few screens:

[Hen78]

Wow, looks absolutely gorgeous, plus I'm a whore for all things 'Metroidvania', so yeah, I think I'll take your advice and purchase . I may leave it until the end of this week, however, as I'll then be off work until next year (I need to find some spare time to download it as I'm still stuck on dial-up *sigh* - BT are supposedly still sorting out my Broadband).

Now, I don't have a problem buying digital downloads anyway (iirc, the last one I bought was Oasis) but this comment does seem like a nice additional incentive:

We'd love to do a nice boxed release or even a limited edition "special release" a some point in the future. If we do, we'll try our best to ensure that people who have already bought the game will only pay the difference. So don't wait!

Heh, with this and Endless Ocean, my gaming this Christmas may have something of an oceanic flavour to it.

[throughhim413]

That game did look really good.  I may have to buy it at some point.  When I first saw it, I could hardly believe it wasn't done by a big time studio of some kind.

[Cless]

The game hearkens back somewhat to the original Metroid (and maybe Zelda 1) in ways-- after a certain point, there are numerous branches and you can complete things in a non-linear order.

Bosses in this game have been great. The two I've faced are a bit puzzle-like because they are defeated by some pretty unconventional means. You have to analyze the environment and experiment to see if you can get some results. It can be pretty challenging. Don't be fooled by the fact that they seem to take damage just by shooting them in the head, or you'll wind up with sore fingers...

[Joseph]

That looks nice. They should make an XBLA or PSN version.

[Panda_Samurai]

It's... beautiful... WOW. I don't think I've ever seen 2D graphics that pretty. It's like... next gen Odin Sphere.

Spaceworlder, I agree wholeheartedly. In fact, I think it should be on both PSN and XBLA. The more sales, the better.

[Rhapsody]

The system requirements look a bit high for Chihiro (my current, rather slow PC), so I'll probably wait for the Linux port (which "looks promising" apparently) and try that on Chihiro's successor, Shizuku. The game looks great though.

[StIoachim]

I already played the demo, I'm waiting to borrow a credit card so i can buy it *¬*
As far as  the demo goes, I really liked it, one of the best gaming experiences in a long time. Another good thing is that allows different controls schemes (mouse only, FPS (wasd) style, and gamepad)

The requirements are not that high, I can run it nicely on Dycroft (Sempron 2500+ 1.4GHz, 1Gb Ram, GeForce FX5200 128Mb)

And yup, I hope the plans of a console release work

[bungiefan]

I already played the demo, I'm waiting to borrow a credit card so i can buy it *¬*

They take PayPal, so you can just link it to your bank account and pay them that way instead...

They say they're working on console versions. I could see this working well on the Wii.