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Everblue Review
Mark Simons
00/12/0000
Grab yer flippers and jump in to take a look at this interesting diving role playing game.
Everblue is a rather interesting title that really doesnât fit into any existing genre, and coming from Arika â“ who developed some of the Street Fighter games itâs certainly unexpected. You take on the role of Leonardo a young man who hopes to become a rich successful diver. Yes, diver, as in flippers snorkels and water, Everblue is a game based around off shore diving that features shipwrecks, coral reefs and assorted wildlife. The exploration of wrecks and the ocean floor is fused with an RPG style over-world and various other gameplay elements crop up. Initially this odd hybrid sounds very quirky and perhaps may not grab you, but persevere and you may be pleasantly surprised.
The pace of Everblue is rather relaxed; the diving elements are very slow to begin with as a result of being under water and your character not being developed at all. You soon get taught the basics of scavenging underwater and with your best buddy you will be swimming around finding antiques and various scrap objects that you can sell off to characters in order to purchase new equipment. You meet other characters in scenes that are presented in a pre-rendered isometric view. Sadly the graphics here are not impressive and the dialogue can seem very un-natural, but the sentiment behind what they are saying comes through and you can appreciate the plot as it slowly builds up and becomes more interesting.
You have RPG elements in the sense of dialogue exchanges being rather similar to that style of game and the way in which you level up and gain stamina and skills through diving. By getting better equipment through searching out higher value objects the developers have created a gentle learning curve that sees you constantly improving through a combination of new purchases and various tasks that you are set by characters you meet.
The underwater elements are handled quite nicely although they are by no means spectacular. Controls are nicely done allowing you a good degree of freedom and the use of sonar and navigation via landmarks and maps takes a bit of time to learn but is deeply satisfying once you actually get into the swing of things. There are two main elements to the diving, swimming around in the ocean and exploring wrecks. When you are inside wrecks you have to pay close attention to the route youâve taken as you have a stamina bar and oxygen bar, and when one of them runs out, well, you meet a watery grave. Therefore you have to remember the way out of the wreck so that you can surface in time before you run out of stamina or oxygen.
Graphically Everblue is disappointing, there are some nice little tricks with the shadows that are cast by your torch when inside wrecks, and a nice little blurring trick that makes it sort of seem underwater, but for the most part you are under-whelmed. The draw distance underwater is rather low, admittedly it may be realistic but it doesnât look impressive when combined with some textures that are a bit rough around the edges and lacking in detail. There is a variety of sea life that is animated rather nicely but again lacks texture detail and you feel could be rather more impressive. It would have been really nice to have shafts of light penetrating the ocean, shifting under influence from the waves above, as well as dramatic fogging and lighting in the wrecks, but sadly Everblue is more functional than spectacular. What the graphics do well is immerse you in the environments and after a while technical limitations become unimportant and you find yourself really enjoying slowly moving around the environments.
When you are underwater there are lots of things to take into account and pretty soon you will find yourself worrying about what equipment fits the conditions as shallow diving is very different to deep sea diving and some times you need to be able to carry a lot and other times speed is of the essence. There are a variety of mission types, from slow paced salvaging using the sonar to find objects of interest to races and even some aquatic photography, naturally there is an album to save your best pictures.
The plot progresses at a very sedate pace, there is always something going on, it may just not be of earth shattering importance. Information is revealed slowly and builds up so that you can form a good idea of what the bigger plot arcs are. There are also numerous little human interests sub-plots that focus on the island community that you interact with. There is close integration between the plot and various missions you have to undertake and you do have a nice feeling of developing a character and seeing them progress successfully through their life.
