Aquanaut's Holiday (PSOne Review)

Back in the 90s there was this little television show about absolutely nothing. It set all types of viewing records and dethroned The Cosby Show as the must watch show of the week. You probably remember watching it at home, or have recently watched Seinfeld in reruns. Well, it was a huge success and there was no interlocking grand plot, no real continuing storyline or defined strategy. It simply was, and in doing so became one of the grandest sitcoms in television history.

Now I'm sure that you're asking yourself, "What in the wide, wide world of sports is going on here?" No, you haven't slipped into one of the new episodes of the Twilight Zone, and yes this will eventually get to a video game review. It's just that Aquanaut's Holiday (AH) has so much in common with Seinfeld. No, there is no Soup Nazi at the bottom of the ocean nor does Kramer come barging into your sub at inopportune times. It's simply that AH is seeming a game about nothing. In fact, if you go throughout the web you might think that it doesn't actually exist.

In doing my background research for Aquanaut's Holiday, I was astounded upon what, or more like the lack of, information concerning the title I found. One of the better known websites simply had two paragraphs for their entire review. Seriously, two whole paragraphs (the images weren't added until a year later) and that was it. Other big sites simply have the basic game info without any write-up at all. Honestly, it left a bad taste in my mouth and increased my rage against the establishment machine. Just because a game isn't CoD (Call of Duty) or Mario doesn't mean that it should be pushed to the side and forgotten. Every game deserves to be given the same consideration, in my opinion, niche game or not. Nevertheless, I'll make sure to fill the void where the "Industry" has stumbled.

Anyhow, Aquanaut's Holiday is unlike anything else I've experienced in my entire gaming career. There is no grand adventure, there is no real plot and there are no cut-scenes. It simply is an underwater simulator where you traverse the bottom of the ocean watching the fish swim their way around your submersible. That's where the "Holiday," or what we would call vacation, part of the title comes from. You aren't on any mission to save the planet. You are simply here in the underwater world to relax from a busy time at the office. Although this may sound extremely foolish to us here in the States, it is usually how people in other places enjoy their time off and recover from the day-to-day drumming of life. Seriously, we usually need a couple of days off after we complete our vacation to recover from all the running we did while we were supposed to be relaxing.

Nevertheless, there is a pretty large underwater world, at least in the PSOne standards of things, to discover. Upon leaving your underwater base, you can venture to all points of the compass seeing what there is to see. You can visit sunken ships, megalithic pillars and a bunch of other artifacts all at your desired pace. There is no time limit, no fictional restriction of air supply or no killer sharks chasing you around. You do have the option of dropping a marker to keep your place and using it to return at a later date if you want to quickly return to your base of operations. Although this might seem meaningless, it does serve a purpose. These way points allow you to not have to retrack over already discovered territory. Furthermore, they can be placed when you find some interesting artifact or sunken relic for an easier return in the future.

Even though it appears that AH has no purpose, there actually is one disguised as a mini-game. At your home base, you can construct your own coral reef. You acquire "blocks" as you adventure around doing your underwater exploration. You don't actually pick them up or collect them, as you do in other games, but simply more are available to use the more you explore. As your reef expands, more fish are attracted to it. Once you have collected a number reef blocks, it's up to you on how they are placed. Placement and color variation are key to attracting more and more fish. Eventually when you attract the maximum amount of fish, it unlocks a super secret ability to control the fish that you come across. When you fill the meter at the bottom of the screen, you have finally completed a game with no "official" ending.

Visually, Aquanaut's Holiday is decent for it's time-frame. Released in Japan during the PlayStation's first year in 1995 (it was released in the US one year later in 1996), things really aren't all that beautiful. In fact, the visual depth of the little fishes are very two-dimensional and they like to disappear as they turn from left to right. The variety of the wildlife does have a decent selection from normal everyday fish, to creatures of the deep like anglerfish, to sea snakes and even dolphins and sharks. Although the size and placement of the creatures may not be true to life, I'm sure that won't mean much to somebody willing to dedicate the hours needed to find them all. The environments are sparse and there is quite a bit of draw-in evident. Perhaps if Artdink had darkened the background a bit more it wouldn't have been as blatant, however all of the water environment is that light to medium shade of blue instead of the inky blackness that we all know that the depths actually have. Darkening the background color would have made the draw-in seem more realistic instead of what we were given. Nevertheless, taking into account the early release date of the game, it only gets an average overall score for the visuals instead of the expected poor score if it was being considered using today's standards.

Your underwater navigation is handled adeptly through a well defined HUD (Heads-Up Display). Players have three separate meters where they can monitor their forward or backward motion, their compass heading and their change in elevation. All of these appear on the screen when action is happening, but neatly disappear when the sub is in hover mode so that your view of the fishes is completely clear. All of the controls are digital in nature, as this title was released before analog became the standard, but everything responds in a timely fashion with no button delay at all.

The audio selection is about as sparse as the rest of the game. There is occasionally a slight orchestrated tune, depending upon your location, but most of the time the only thing that breaks the silence are the occasional machine beeps from the sub and the four different sonar sounds you use to communicate with the fish. In a way you become the PlayStation version of Aquaman and are able to slightly talk with the aquatic life surrounding your sub. Different types of fish respond uniquely to the different sounds your sub produces. By mixing and matching the specific sounds, one "ping" will call one fish while that same chime will send another off into the deep. It definitely gives you something to experiment with, and adds some depth to your adventure, however there is no reward for finding each fish's unique language.

When it all comes down to it, Aquanaut's Holiday is an enjoyable title if you know what to expect going in before you turn on your PSOne. This title definitely isn't for everyone and anyone expecting some form of collection, danger or adrenaline producing adventure should just move along to some more mainstream game. There is no real difficulty learning curve, so if you can run a DualShock you can play this game. Since there really is no ending, one can come back time and time again to Aquanaut's Holiday whenever you feel the need, for nothing more than the tranquility the title offers. Personally, if Artdink had added a photo option to the submersible where you collected pictures of the fish you found, kind of like how it was done in the PS2 game Everblue 2, AH would have done so much better with the general public. Nevertheless, it is what it is; a stress free underwater holiday without the trouble of renting the submarine. So, now as they say on the islands, "Mahalo nui loa and aloha."

Difficulty: 10

Control: 8

Audio: 4

Visuals: 5

Replayability: 7

Overall: 6.8