Aquanaut’s Holiday 2

Yeah, that’s right. They made a sequel. One of the earliest Playstation releases, the original Aquanaut’s Holiday was met mostly with blank stares and derision from its reviewers and more vocal players. It let the player pilot a small submersible through a calm body of water full of placid sea creatures and…seemingly, not much else. There was no way to die, there was nothing to fight, and no challenges to overcome.

The sub could make a small variety of clicks and chirps, with which the player could “speak” to animals and sometimes make them react in strange ways. When the creatures were convinced of the player’s good intentions, they would populate a 2D screen showing a reef made of blocks that the player could arrange at will. Filling up the reef with enough creatures did eventually end the game, but the lack of defined goals, any real challenge, or strong feedback, plus the blocky, first-generation graphics, left many simply bored.

Aquanaut’s Holiday 2, released only in Japan for the Playstation in 1999, doesn’t vastly shake up the formula the first set forth. Kazutoshi Iida, the game’s creator, considers the first game his worst ever, so he was naturally motivated to improve things for the sequel.

Noticeable right away is how much nicer everything looks, from the shimmering surface of the seas to the well-modeled and -textured sea creatures. There’s a much wider area to explore this time, and there are multiple areas instead of the first game’s single sea. The areas have various themes, too – from warm Pacific waters, to the freezing Arctic, to representations of the world’s great rivers. Support for the Dual Shock controller’s analog sticks and vibration were also added, to great effect.

The reef gimmick is gone this time, but it’s been replaced with a list (in katakana) of all the sea creatures you can encounter. The player can scan each sea creature with the submersible’s sensors, and once this is done the creature receives a blue dot next to its name. The sub is still capable of generating noises, and these let the player interact with animals in the same way as the first game. Sometimes an organism’s dot will be pink instead of blue initially, and this signals that there’s some notable interaction the player can coax out of it in order to turn the dot blue.

The wildlife featured in the game constitutes a large cross-section of creatures from all over the world and from all oceanic habitats – from mild shallows to the darkest depths. There are even a few areas of the game that house life that, shall we say, hasn’t been around much lately? Since this is a pure exploration game, a great deal of the fun is searching for what might be out there. If you’ve ever fancied yourself a Jacques Cousteau or spent hours poring over books about animals when you were little (as I did), this is a game for you.

Something that many who were dismissive of the first game missed out on was the handful of special locations and objects that could be found on the seafloor. Ruins, footsteps in the sand, a deep-sea trench, and more gave the explorer something to brag about upon returning from his or her voyages. Aquanaut’s Holiday 2 has no lack of these, and discovering each one gave me a thrill. Mysterious, repeating noises can be heard in various locations, and often following these will lead the explorer to a discovery. There’s a list of these in your log book, too, but they’re listed in Japanese and with somewhat poetic names instead of plain descriptions. This time around, there are even a few spots where the player can cause the submersible to surface and witness different events (watch for the strange red-and-green icon).

Ambient sound, well-utilized lighting, the color of the water, and murk where appropriate ensure that AH2 has no lack of atmosphere. At the ocean’s surface, rays of sunlight can be seen dancing and bending, but as the player descends into the ocean’s depths, less light penetrates from the surface and a deep sense of quiet envelops the world. The view distance doesn’t extend very far, but this is handled very well as the player approaches landforms or creatures: at first, an undefined shape is visible through the murk, and it gradually becomes less blue (or green) and more solid as the player moves closer. To see some of the bulkier specimens make their presence known in this manner can be an awesome experience. Even though there’s still no way to die or see a Game Over screen, I still encountered some genuinely creepy moments throughout the game.

Despite all this, those who hated the first game might still be well-advised to stay away. The first half-hour or hour of the game is most critical in grabbing the player’s interest. The player is initially set down near the ocean’s surface in a relatively deep section of the ocean, facing out into the channel. There are a few schools of fish and sea turtles around this area, but there isn’t a whole lot to see – unless, perhaps, the player decides to do an about-face and discover the Aquabase and coral reefs sitting right behind the outset point. If the player decides to find out what there is to see and skims the coastline or checks out the depths, there’s a good chance he or she will be hooked.

AH2 is quite rare and hardly shows up on eBay at all, making the only place it can reliably be found online Yahoo! Auctions Japan, but it’s worth tracking down for anybody who loves science (or loved it as a kid), and especially for anybody who liked the first game.

Aquanaut’s Holiday 2
¥5,800 (original release) / ¥2,800 (rerelease)
7/1/1999 / 8/3/2000
Artdink
Playstation

> Official site (contains spoilers)