I've been playing and collecting video games since the early 1980's, and while there's something to be said for enjoying the greats of the gaming world, there's no better feeling for me than picking out something I'd never heard of, throwing it into my system, and being unable to tear myself away from it because it was just too damn fun. With that in mind, I thought I'd start up a series about my own personal favorite hidden gems of the gaming world to let people know about the unsung, the overlooked, the ignored, and the downright weird niche titles that had no chance of achieving the heights of a Mario, Sonic, or Zelda.
Everblue 2 was one of those 'never heard of it before and it's five bucks, so why the hell not?' titles I routinely plopped money down on when game stores started liquidating last-gen inventory thanks to the release of the PlayStation 3. I didn't acquire every game in my collection this way, but it's fair to say a good 30% of my PS2 library is comprised of stuff of that nature. This is also why a large number of the games on my 'Hidden Gems' list are for this system. If you wish I'd shut up about the PlayStation 2 already, I'm afraid the only way to help me along with that is to hit the upvote button in an effort to buy my silence.
This title caught my eye mainly for the setting. I'd never seen a game set mostly underwater before (no, the Water Temple from Ocarina of Time does not count!), and the promise of cave diving, exploring wrecked ships, finding lost treasure and snapping pictures of fish all seemed appealing. This looked to be the sort of shovelware I might get ten or so hours worth of enjoyment before I swapped it out for something that let me drive fast, shoot people, or both. As you can tell from its inclusion on this list, exactly the opposite happened, and Everblue 2, according to my save file, has consumed nearly fifty-five hours of my life so far and I'm still not done with it, much to my wife's chagrin. Sorry, babe, but I'm trying to save the world with my mad diving skills here. The dishes can and must wait.
We may never know why Capcom decided to port Everblue 2 for US gamers (the first game was only released in Japan), but that's beside the point--I'm just glad they did! After a strong storm wrecks your boat from the original Everblue, you and your faithful companion Zuccho wash up on the shores of Valentir Island. It's the very definition of a tropical paradise: white sand beaches, cool waters, sun, and friendly native islanders with a small but well-staffed town. Having lost everything but your scuba gear (and even that is sporting more dents and rips than seems safe or fashionable), all seems lost. That is, until you learn Valentir's economy runs literally on shit salvaged from the ocean. Ready to get in on a piece of this sweet salvaging action, you sign up with a local group of good-hearted kids calling themselves "The Amigos" who show you the ropes and point you towards a nearby sunken ferry where you can practice your looting skills and earn a bit of cash to buy replacement gear.
While you're getting your feet wet (literally), it seems like everyone else on the island has a huge list of tasks they need completed, personal belongings to be returned, new areas to be discovered, and other jobs which cannot be completed unless the player takes the dolphin by the fins. If you're serious about earning 100% completion on Everblue 2, be prepared to devote a metric fuck-ton of time to your endeavor. Just when you think I've been everywhere and seen everything, you'll discover the ocean's a hell of a lot bigger and deeper than you imagined.
So what exactly is Everblue 2? It's hard to explain what makes it so much fun, but much like The Guardian Legend on the NES, it's a mixtures of genres that all work surprisingly well together. The story's ripped from your typical adventure game where you wander into new territory and complete quests in exchange for money or other stuff. But then you also have equipment you need to upgrade and stats to monitor while you're exploring and this, along with all the treasures and assorted gizmos you pick up while diving give it a very RPG-esque feeling. Then there's the resource management issue which lends a survival aspect to the game: once you descend below the waves, you're on a firm time limit based on the amount of air in your scuba tank. In addition, you're also limited on storage capacity based on the bag you have equipped and the amount of hit points you have: you can pick up more than your bag can hold, but doing so saps your HP slowly until you either toss enough weight out of the bag to get it under capacity or get to the surface. The game warns you if picking up a given item will exceed your storage limit so you'll know before it happens, but especially in the early game where the salvage is small and not worth much, this introduces a nice risk vs. reward dynamic where you'll find yourself wondering if you can add that lamp to your inventory and still have enough HP to get outside to surface. If you hit 0 HP while underwater, that's a game over. Hitting zero air isn't an instant death, but you will take massive damage every few seconds until you drown, so there's no time to mess around. Make sure you don't lose track of your oxygen supply and find yourself stranded past the point of no return.
Another strategic aspect comes into play with your diving sonar: you can equip it with a variety of radar types to detect metal, stone, wood or glass, and there are additional attachments available like ones that lures fish in closer to you (great for getting that awesome picture) or repel them (a must-have for shark-infested waters), but you can only equip five 'slots' worth of radar gear at one time, meaning you're limited to scanning for two or three treasure types at the most. You can change these out on the fly, and you'll want specific ones in mind for different situations--if you're sent to recover lost coins, then you'll obviously want the Metal detector, whereas if you're hunting for a statue you'll need the Stone sensor--but it's another layer of strategy to keep in mind.
Then there's your gear itself. While you start with a damaged diving suit, battered air tank, torn bag, and ragged swim fins, you'll soon buy or find new and better gear, including accessories like a brighter diving light or a magic hand that extends your grab distance. These can only be changed when you're topside, and different jobs may call for different gear. Swim fins, for instance, determine things like how swiftly you can move through the water and how quickly you turn, so if there's a strong current blocking your path you may need to sacrifice general maneuverability for speed to be able to push through. Air tanks determine how much oxygen you carry. Bags determine not only how much stuff you can snaffle off the sea floor, but also the maximum size of the items you pick up. This may not seem important at the start, but once you get access to larger-capacity bags, you'll be making return trips to previously-explored wrecks just to see if there's anything larger or more valuable you can salvage. Chances are, if you can see it, there's probably a way to haul it to the surface, even if it's something as huge as a solid oak dresser or even a quarter-ton truck.
Most important however is the suit itself: the ocean is deep, and certain areas will be off-limits until you procure sufficiently insulated clothing to explore them. While your first explorations will take you only a couple dozen meters down, late-game areas will require you to navigate one hundred or more meters underwater. Down there, the water gets cold, the lighting gets dim, the marine life turns aggressive, and only the most-experienced divers will have a chance at breathing fresh air after the descent.
Adventure mixed with RPG mixed with the resource management of survival horror (especially when the sharks catch your trail)...Everblue 2 handles it all very well. After an hour, you'll develop the skills necessary to guide yourself through the water with relative ease, and you'll slowly put together a mental map of the areas you explore, going further and deeper (giggity!) with each new expedition. If you're a completionist, Everblue 2 will keep you busy for weeks looking for weapons, furniture, artwork, musical instruments, clothing, and even weirder things, not to mention the quest to photograph every species of marine life in and around Valentir so as to populate the local aquarium you helped build.
Everblue 2 is everything a game like this should be: fun, exciting, and suitably atmospheric. While the land above the sea is populated by colorful characters and a soundtrack loaded with rocking Caribbean-style ditties, once you descend below the surface, your only partners are your trusty underwater lamp and the sound of your own steady breaths. It's impossible to convey with words how lonely these missions get, the panic when you're surprised by a Blowfish and poisoned without an antidote handy, and the slow dread which builds when the music indicating a nearby shark kicks in, so to give you some idea, here's a link to part one of YouTuber "Zak and U"'s attempt at the world record for completing this game:
There's absolutely nothing like this game (on the North American PS2 at any rate), and while Arika went on to develop other diving sims, they lack the collecting and resource management aspects that make Everblue 2 so addictive. Endless Ocean and its sequel, Endless Ocean: Blue World are fun Wii games in their own right, but if you pick them up hoping for Everblue 2 only with better graphics, you'll be bitterly disappointed. It's very slow-moving, very deliberately-paced, and contains no combat at all, so if you need to murder sea creatures to satiate your blood lust, do a catch-and-release on this one. Otherwise, go ahead and spit in your face mask, double-check the tubes to your rebreather, and make an appointment with Davy Jones and his locker, because somewhere down in the abyss there's an honest-to-God pirate ship just begging you to put your hands all over her booty.
That's what I tell my wife, anyway. Oh well...if I have to spend another night on the couch, I may as well do some deep-sea diving while I'm at it, right?
Great Scott! You mean to tell me you've just read through Part Seven without exploring parts one through six? Say it ain't so! Or, if you'd rather not lie to me, just use these handy links to learn more about those beloved hidden gems of console gaming:
- Part One: Snoopy and the Red Baron
- Part Two: Dark Summit
- Part Three: Metal Marines
- Part Four: Theresia
- Part Five: Obscure
- Part Six: Dungeons & Dragons: Eye of the Beholder