PlayStation 2

Everblue 2

You don’t know how close I came to giving Everblue 2 a nine, but I just couldn’t do it. A game about diving can only be so good, but that’s exactly how good it really is. Its control, ambient life, longevity, and evolving gameplay will captivate you, no matter how obscure you find the core subject matter to be. Put your initial thoughts aside, pinch your nose, close your eyes, and dive in.

Everything about Everblue 2 would seem to points towards a laughable stinker (diving for scrap = thwarting evil?), but Everblue 2 captivates with its quirky gameplay and addictive mission structure. I wouldn't suggest it to people who are used to playing things like SOCOM, but it's definitely a decent way to have a relaxing time.

It's almost certainly just a natural extension of my anal-retentive nature, but I'm a huge sucker for video games with an emphasis on collection and exploration. One of my all-time faves is the 1987 computer game Echelon, a Commodore 64 title from Access Software that came with a gimmicky voice-activated fire button (cleverly named the "LipStik") and a massive foldout map, three-fourths of which was intentionally and cruelly left blank.

Combining the collecting and adventuring angles of Animal Crossing and Pokemon with first-person diving, Everblue 2 is surprisingly addictive fun. You play as Leo, a master diver on a Caribbean island who navigates through the local town by steering a cursor around the screen. The locals give you jobs to recover sunken oddities, and an overarching story line pits you against a corporate salvage firm in a race for a mysterious treasure. Once you dive, the game thankfully switches to a first-person view, replete with teeming ocean life and a variety of sunken ships to explore. You'll harvest an astonishing array of items, photograph the sights, and monitor your air and depth.

All things considered Everblue 2 is a good sequel to Everblue. The real disappointment is that it doesn't advance the game in any way in order to improve upon the original game. What I would say though is that the game takes time to explain the basics in more detail than the original Everblue so if you didn't purchase the original game you might find this one easier to get into. It would be really great to see Everblue 3, assuming there is going to be one, take the game a lot further and add more depth to both the diving side of the game and adventure sections of the game.

A mysterious tablet lost in the depths of the Caribbean; sharks, dolphins and a full array of underwater tropical life; and, of course, sunken treasure all await the adventurous.

Everblue 2 is the latest in a long line of strange and wacky simulations to come out of Japan. Considering we've seen games lately based on racing horses and simulating the life of a mosquito, Everblue 2's rather un-video-game-like focus of scuba diving shouldn't be all that surprising. The game is certainly unique in its concept and execution, and it will probably appeal to a limited audience that's looking for something a little outside the norm. Unfortunately, it doesn't have enough depth or variety to hook the mainstream gaming populace, and that ultimately makes Everblue 2 simply another quirky niche title.

Everblue 2 recently struck me as slightly oddball. Capcom's oft-partner Arika created this game and Capcom, for whatever reasons, has brought it Westward. I have been very cynical and yet mildly curious about the game since Capcom announced it. See, Everblue 2 is a scuba diving-RPG that sends players underneath the ocean waves to explore reefs and sunken ships.

In the realm of games that would interest me, I never really considered a scuba diving sim. I don’t scuba dive, I will never scuba dive, and just about all I know of scuba diving is that you can get the bends if you surface too quickly. So with little to no expectations of Everblue 2, I dove right in. Ah puns...good times...but all jokes aside, I have to say that I really did enjoy Everblue 2.

Un titre tout aussi anecdotique que son prédécesseur, qui repose certes sur une idée originale mais dont le gameplay est trop limité pour susciter un réel intérêt. A voir seulement si vous êtes fan de plongée et que vous n'avez pas peur de vous laisser noyer par l'ennui que génère ce titre après seulement quelques minutes de jeu en apnée.

So without hesitation, I strapped on a tank and dove into Everblue 2, a scuba-diving role-playing game and a sequel to a game I have never heard of before. Yep, a scuba-diving RPG. My guess is that the developers at Arika were smoking apple tobacco mixed with black tar heroin.

Everblue 2 offers immediately fairly impressive visuals; the ship wrecks and corral reefs are well done, and the fish are wonderfully detailed. However, there are other more average efforts, like the water and its lack of effects, and the limited effort of the sunlight. The floor textures are of a good quality, but are repeated far, far too often, which will likely get you lost many times. Come to land, though, and things get far worse. Aside from the lack of 3D, there are also no graphical effects and the characters posses little to no animation, with navigation for these areas in basic 1996-esque point and clink. The sound fairs no better; none of those unanimated island folk even have voices, there are barely any sound effects (just your wonderful sonar noises...), and the music is awful. Basically, there is nothing good at all to say about the sound.