Aquaria

This is the game that introduced me to the very concept of 'Indie Games', in the sense they're currently understood. Aquaria is a game very much in the style of the Ecco the Dolphin games by Novotrade. The game takes place entirely underwater, is highly atmospheric, and gameplay tends to focus on what I've always called 'navigation puzzles' - figuring out how to progress in the environment. While the influence from Ecco is obvious, it isn't exactly the same. Aquaria has its own unique look and feel, and by the end of the first segment you're no longer in a survival-esque game where you need to dodge enemies, since you're given fairly powerful combat abilities. The game is fairly short, but it retains a high quality of level design throughout; some parts of the last area will tax your brain, believe me.

This game is really impressive in terms of scale. The world is huge, there are many places, types of monsters, things to collect, spells and transformations to get, unusual situations... The undersea setting is also a fresh and rare one, especially for the genre, and extremely effective. There's also a sense of mystery — and melancholy rivaled by best Castlevanias. I played it extensively, but got stuck on a boss. So it gets hard. You can also get lost. Persevere.

This game looked ... weird, when I first got it. Playing the notes was weird, controls were a bit stiff, everything could have done down better. But, stick with it out of the starting cave, and the game completely blows you away. The environments are *insanely* beautiful, the voiceovers well done, the exploration is spot-on. Any Castlevania fan will immediately feel at home. The character improvement via new "forms" is done well, too, and there's plenty hidden things to find. Yes, it's from 2007, but the graphics age extremely well and I cannot recommend this enough.

This is a lovely and charming game. Beautiful graphics and music, engaging story, nice gameplay mechanics. The only issue is that some gameplay elements are not explained well, and also that a combination of open world game with respawning enemies can be frustrating if player wanders and gets lost and need to visit the same locations many times. If that happens to you, I really recommend you to read through online guide (there are many great Aquaria wikis on the Internet) rather than having your experience spoilt.