Aqua Lungers

Review

Treasure hunting is one of those occupations that needs thorough research, dedication and patience, as it seems to take an awfully long time (years) to find one vague lead. Most of the time, nothing is found at all. In the Marine Industry, with the help of high-tech submarines, expeditions can find wrecks on the seafloor, but here’s the hiccup . . . you don’t know how deep the wreckage is. Well, I know a few places where there is plenty of gold to grab, and it is not too deep at all; in fact, you won’t even need oxygen bottles. All you need is to fill your lungs with fresh air and dive straight into the shiny gold. (Oh, just before I give you the maps, you’ll need to know that while these locations do have gold, they also have monsters, and the monsters also love gold. That is where I lost my four limbs, and I was the lucky one.) Good luck at Aqua Lungers!

Aqua Lungers is platformer / multiplayer game (local and with remote play) developed and self-published by WarpedCore Studio on Steam on the 10 of August 2019. The game is also now available on Nintendo Switch.

The game consists of several areas with 4 stages, including a boss fight. You can play the game in a single-player, split-screen up to 4 players, or with the remote play together through the Steam network.



In my case, I played Aqua Lungers in the single-player format. The goal in each of the stages is to accumulate 3000 gold points for your chest in order to win and complete the level. But each stage will be filled with annoying sea life, such as some sort of piranha and other nasty, attacking sea creatures; oh . . . and a monster. The monsters will be humongous compared to the other creatures, and deadly, too.

Each of the levels will be around the length of three side screens. You’ll find some shipwrecks, usually 3 to 6 within the map, and they can be located underwater as well as above sea level. Armed with a spike, you’ll have to hit the shipwreck to find gold. The gold will appear in three different forms; a coin will count as 50 points, a bar of gold is worth 100 points and the ultimate prize, the treasure chest, will bring you a massive 400 points.  The hitch is that your diver will be limited as to how much gold he can carry in each run (assuming you don’t die). So, with your suit full of gold, you’ll have to make your way back to the treasure chest to unload your riches. The challenge is that you’ll have to do it faster than the monster, which also has a sweet tooth for gold. He can pick up gold from the seabed or take gold by attacking each shipwreck. The monster’s love of gold will be steady, and they will attack you on sight. Some will have a combination of melee and distance attack, and others will be mostly melee.  It will only take one hit from a monster for your diver to die and lose all the gold he carries in the process. Lucky for you, you’ll have three lives to spare at first, and then it will cost you 200 gold points to respawn after you use your three lives. So, make sure you have plenty of gold in the chest at any given time.

But don’t despair, you’ll find powerups within each map. They can be found at the skull’s structures; just hit them and you’ll receive two powerups, which will become extremely handy to help you win the stage.

Don’t forget that your diver will only have a dash (swimming faster), a spike and the powerups to help him. The small creatures will also attack on sight but will not kill you. They will stop you, however, and you’ll also lose some of the gold you carry. The only way to get the monsters to drop some gold and thereby decrease their gold points is to stunt them for a few seconds with your powerup attacks, and let me tell you, it’s tricky and can be very frustrating.

If you manage to reach the 3000 points first, you’ll move to the next level. However, if you lose a level in the area (3 levels + 1 boss level), let’s say the third for example, you’ll have to replay the second level and win it to be able to play the third level again. If you manage to reach the boss level, you won’t need to restart the previous level.

Excellent graphics and the soundtrack is fabulous. The game runs really well, but you must have a gamepad to be able to play as it doesn’t support the mouse and keyboard. The game is pretty good, but I don’t like being punished by playing a previous level if I die. It is quite hard playing single player, to be honest. True, it gives a sense of replayability, but it is very frustrating, to say the least.

 

Review written by THE CPT FROGGY for Zeepond.com!


Positives

+ Great Graphics
+ Great Soundtrack
+ Single-player, Local PVP/PVE and remote play modes
+ Fun and challenging gameplay
+ Fun creatures and deadly monsters

Negatives

- No achievements or Trading cards
- Can be frustrating at times

Review Summary

Aqua Lungers: will you bring the gold home, or will the monsters keep it all?

Share this review!

Zeepond Rating: 7/10

Video