It has to be said that fish are very under done in the modern day games market. Unless we are trying our up most to catch the slippery little blighter's ala Bass Fishing then they really don't get a look in. The last big fish hero that I can recall was James Pond but he has since gone so far undercover (or is that underwater?) that almost no one will remember him should he ever resurface. It has to be said that niche games do find an audience in the Japanese market and bless their cotton socks they've given us a new fish one. OK so you don't actually play a fish and there aren't any main characters played by fish but it does have plenty of fish in it. In fact there are hundreds of the things and not a chippie in sight either.

Everblue 2 sees you resume the role of Leonardo (Leo to his friends, so everyone) this time in the Caribbean seas still with your old friend the aging Zuccho aboard the Falco2. Of course you buddy would go and forget to check the weather in the area and there would just happen to be a big storm that will of course nearly but not quite completely wreck your boat. So to a near by island called Valentir you head and limping into port you discover a small island with a decent sized community on. Your reason for being in the region concern the long held family quest to find some ancient stone tablets buried under the seabed but as you are now stranded upon this island you had better find some way of earning some cash to pay for the repairs to your boat. As luck would have it the island is packed with locals needing the aid of an experienced Scuba diver to locate and or retrieve something for them and luckily you just happen to be a world famous Scuba diver. So far it's all been rather convenient really. You quickly attract the attention of a young woman / girl called Ellis who just happens to be part of a group called the amigos whom all just happen to be Scuba divers to. Though dubious about your frankly nakerd diving gear they accept you into their little gang and proceed to bring you up to speed with local events and the island in general. You quickly find that there is another organisation diving in these waters who of course are irresponsibly scavenging the ocean floor for artefacts and items for huge sums of money whereas you and your motley lot are doing it in a far more eco friendly way and for the sake of helping people. You of course make you money from scavenging on the side. As so the game goes on with you still keeping an eye out for that elusive stone tablet whilst you busily go around doing odd jobs for others.

OK so maybe it obvious that I feel the storyline for this title is a bit weak but that is basically because it is. The shame is that the rest of the game did little to rescue the already sinking feeling I was beginning to have. The RPG element comes from your time on the island which is spent navigating through still screens populated by a number of different characters that have at most 5 separate animations but most are restricted to 1 or 2. Using your cursor to select the characters will give a short dialog box of text to read through and that's about it. Some of them will be very helpful others are well let's just say they're less so. There are a few shops that you can visit that sell a number of different items or offer different services for no small amount of money. To navigate from one location to another you just simply click on the right arrow at the edge of the screen and you will find yourself at the desired location. The islands inhabitants at all the important locations will take you all of 30 minutes to get to know and then that's the land exploration exhausted. New locations will become available but only for specific missions are they of any real interest. The rest of your time on land will be spent discovering that people have need for a scuba diver and then going out to do what they want.

Of course the game spends most of its time underwater but this is not the saviour to the title either though it does salvage its score from almost crash dive possibilities. Switching to first person perspective you swim around looking for items or locations. Locations are by far the hardest to locate even if they happen to be the size of I don't' know say a ferry! You can spend hours looking for one of these and never find it thanks to the graphics style in use. Instead of things becoming vaguely visible at a distance and then more clearer as you got closer things just tend to appear, not a problem unless the clipping distance means you see about 10 metres ahead at all times. This is supposed to be the Caribbean, the water is supposed to make glass jealous but no you constantly feel like your swimming around with a misted up mask on. Easier to find thanks to your magical sonar are items such as bolts, hammers, glass marbles and DVD-ROMs. This wonderfully little device emits a pulse and you simply swim in a circle until you get a pong instead of a ping and away you go in that direction. The closer to your target you get the faster the pong's become until your sonar / compass dial flashes at you and you press X to find out what you have been hunting. You can't actually see anything on the sea bed even when directly over it according to your sonar but rest assured its there, just press X. Depending on which module you have installed in the sonar depends on what it will detect, metal, glass, clay nothing seems beyond the all seeing ping pong device. So most of your time will be spent chasing sound waves around trying to locate different items. There are other things to do though, as mentioned at the beginning the fish. You can shoot them, well with your underwater camera anyway. Snap away to your hearts content and then take the camera to have its film developed at the local store. The pictures you can sell or keep for yourself. At the same time you can get any items you have found appraised so you know what it is, any locked container undone and also sell you're scavenged finds for some cash.

Your time underwater is limited to the amount of air in your tanks and the number of hit points you have remaining. Spend to long underwater and your air will run out and I will not insult you by telling you what happens next. Also you will suffer a loss of hit points if you go beneath a certain depth to represent the cold getting to you or if you scavenge too much weighing you down and therefore tiring you. This way there is a more serious side to your underwater escapades especially when you decide to embark on an adventure inside one of the numerous shipwrecks in the location. From inside you will have to make it the open ocean before you will be allowed to access the option to ascend to the surface.

Aside from the general on land navigation around the island and the basic communication with the locals the element of role play comes in the completing of quests for other peoples whose belongings are now underwater or for items they have interest in. But this element does not comprise enough of the game to make it a true RPG, instead it becomes more a simple adventure game. There is no combat but this is not necessarily a bad thing, the only real threat lies in you not being able to get to the surface in time or you being stung by something poisonous or eaten by a shark (yes that old chestnut!). The interactions with people on land leaves a lot to be desired even for a mediocre role play game and as I said you will spend most of your time simply bringing to them the little trinkets they want for which you will receive a seashell of gratitude from them. The photographic work of the fish servers as little more than a distraction form the mundane repetitive nature of the game play and is not that long lived.

Graphically this game is a gem, as long as you are underwater. The island screens and character animations are more akin to something you might expect from a PS1 or even in some regards from the days of the SNES. Once underwater though you are treated to a feast of colour, animation and atmosphere from the wonderfully rendered world. It's still nothing ground breaking and in truth we have all seen the PS2 do better but none the less it is a beautifully created world. The small sections of the game that take place within a sunken wreck are bar far the most atmospheric being almost chilling and there is certainly a feel of urgency to remove yourself from them when you air and or hit points get low. Fish look and move naturally enough but not brilliantly, the coral worlds over which you usually glide are vast and colourful but to the watchful observer will begin to seem repetitive. Truly the graphics to this title are a delight but only once your submerged which means that half of the environment is a missed opportunity.

The sound however is possibly one of the most annoying things I have ever experienced short of the lamentable Mall Tycoon on the PC (and its music was so bad it became good). The over happy, joy joy island soundtrack makes you want to run around the island with a machete having a right good seeing too to any and all music or sound producing devises you might find. In fact it's often a relief to get underwater just to lose the sound track. Unfortunately the underwater audio experience isn't much better with only the sonar ping or pong and the looped breathing sample to keep you company. Other sounds are done in a similar fashion and can do nothing to resurrect the score.

The control setup for this game is, once underwater, far from intuitive in the extreme. Feeling very clumsy at first and then only slightly more palatable once your into it you feel more like your wearing a submarine than a wet suit and still receiving the benefits of neither. Some of the features are implemented very well though. The sonar is easy to use and to respond to as is the collection of artefacts from the ocean floor. The photography is also very well done using a dual pressure method on just one button which I have to admit impressed me very much. There are no options to re-map controls and so like it or loath it your stuck with it.

After several days of playing this I feel like I have not so much disliked playing this game more that I have disliked that it was such a promising opportunity lost. The graphics are very well done and have a sense of belief surrounding them. The idea behind the storyline is not ill-conceived just very poorly executed and the RPG element that could have brought so much interest has been woefully underused and misdirected. The controls though not the easiest to master are not unusable and with time I can see them becoming more comfortable but if as much insight had been placed into the overall control as had those few little touches like the camera there could have been nothing to say save to praise them. The sound however is something I feel that could not be saved, there is no speech the music is annoying and grates after only a short while and the underwater game was an opportunity lost for some first class ambience flavoured score work. Because of the potential there I hate to blow this ship out of the water but it really can't be helped, it is not a great game and I would struggle to call it a good one. It will pass the time and will appeal to younger players but no matter will have a terminally short life span. You would be better off renting this one first.

Reviewed by AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).