Scubaman's Quest

The Good
The graphics in the game are visually okay. You can actually get a feel of being in the deep ocean while you guide the scubaman, level by level. Music has arrangements of classical pieces such as "Anitra's Dance".

Gameplay is almost well-balanced and mainly easy for starters. You can play the levels for as long as you like without any fear of oxygen running out from Scubaman's tanks. The camera has a decent viewing so that you can scroll around the level without running straight into enemies or sea mines by accident. Enemies have a small amount of AI as they chase and follow you while you retreat from them. There's a good mix of shooting with arcade as you collect as many points as you can.

Your main weapon is stunning torpedos, which you can fire singular, double in diagonal arcs, or triple if you press both fire buttons at the same time, so you have a good spread of fire while you swim and you can fire endlessly without running out of ammunition. I'm glad that you don't kill sea animals, which would not be very friendly for the audience. You also have the advantage of swimming thrusts which can safely help you pass most enemies unharmed.

The Bad
While half the graphics make up the layout and sprites of the game, the other half is wasted. Backgrounds are mainly blue, but there's nothing to capture a real-life underwater environment like a kelp forest or coral reef. Although Scubaman can move diagonally, his sprite movement always looks orthogonal, which feels a little incomplete. Variety is cut short by the fact that Episodes 8, 9 and 10 are a lot like repeats of the earlier episodes 7, 6 and 1 respectively. Enemy variety is cut short by some palette swapped versions of certain foes from earlier levels, so you defeat them exactly the same way. Too bad there aren't any boss opponents to keep each level interesting.

And speaking of levels, for some reason the levels are divided into chunks. This makes the blue gradients look odd in some places. The structure would have been more interesting if they took the forms of mazes or long stretches of ocean beds. Also stunning larger enemies can create some graphical glitches in certain spots. While those levels have good music, they don't have anything but PC Speaker sounds accompanying them.

And of course the gameplay doesn't get easier or better when it comes to using the no stungun mode since it eliminates both enemy projectiles and your own, forcing you to dodge opponents full time. And the AI makes a number of pursuing enemies give you almost no breathing room to retreat safely.

The Bottom Line
Scubaman is so much easier than Billy the Kid Returns yet not enough thought was put into it. The game does have better depth than a lot of underwater themed games of the time rivalling only ScubaVenture: The Search For Pirate's Treasure or In Search of Dr. Riptide. This is what an underwater treasure hunting game should be like, even though it has its ups and downs. Too bad some of your money is wasted on a number of reused level templates and graphics, so the retail price of $20 doesn't seem worth it unless you want it so badly. Probably not the underwater adventure for you, but it's here for a tryout.