Aquadine Review
Aquadine
Publisher: Ratalaika Games
Developer: Soft Colors
Genre:
PEGI: T
Comments:
So, first off let me say, coming into this review I knew absolutely nothing about Aquadine. I never heard from it, wasn’t on my radar or anything.
Let’s check out the official description: After his mother was hospitalized for an unknown disease, Robin Liyun works as a part-time gondolier to make ends meet, but under an alias named Ciel. As he finishes giving tours one night, a mysterious voice lures him to discover a beautiful mermaid. She dives underwater shortly after their encounter, which leads him to believe Ancient Aquadine was real.
His town was named after it out of respect for their sea deity Levios. Robin continues to live out his double life, while making new friends and learning more about the merfolk civilization. Umm ok, where to begin with Aquadine.
So, the style of this game is 100% a visual novel, so honestly, I struggle calling it a game as in there is nothing you do other than hit the button to advance the text, even then you can set it to do that automatically.
At one point at the end, you do make a decision which after it’s completed you are taken back to make the decision again and can make a choice of the 4 different options, so it is easy to see the multiple endings the story has. So, if you are expecting a walking simulator type story-based game, this is not it. But it doesn’t mean it’s not worth checking out if that is your cup of tea.
It’s like watching an Anime, the art is beautiful honestly with the hand drawn backgrounds and settings throughout the game you experience. The town of Aquadine is very reminiscent of a clean Venice, with all of the water ways and aqueducts flowing throughout the city. Being a near middle aged adult male, I had a hard time finding myself in the characters shoes as he is in search of love with the four different female costars. Honestly anime as a whole kind of escapes me, but the story is charming.
The characters sadly are not really voiced, they say some stuff here and there but are more commonly accompanied with a moan or random shout while the rest is just text on the screen. For some reason there is also a plethora of burping…. not quite Rick and Morty level…. but enough to annoy me a bit. It ran completely fine, and the music was a very nice addition as well, every song fits nicely in the background and accompanies the story and theming nicely.
Without giving anything away I will say it’s a well written story, however I am clearly not the target market here. But if you are a fan of Asian inspired visual novels or manga, then this might be right up your alley. It’s honestly pretty lengthy for the type of experience in and takes around 5-7 hours I believe to run through all of the options you have. I can’t knock it for what it is at all, the dialogue is broken up enough that it doesn’t feel like you are reading large chunks of text with no substance. It’s a very charming, well written, story acted out on your screen for you to enjoy.
A code was provided to Gamesreviews.com in exchange for this review
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Article By Kevin Austin
Kevin Austin has been in gaming journalism in one way or another since the launch of the Nintendo Gamecube. Married and father of 3 children he has been gaming since the ripe age of 6 when he got his first NES system and over 30 years later he is still gaming almost daily. Kevin is also co-founder of the Play Some Video Games (PSVG) Podcast network which was founded over five years ago and is still going strong. Some of his favorite gaming series includes Fallout and Far Cry, he is a sucker for single player adventure games (hence his big reviews for Playstation), and can frequently be found getting down in one battle royale or another. If it's an oddball game, odds are he's all about it.
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