Aquarist is a simulation game developed for Nintendo Switch and published by Ultimate Games. You can do a lot with this as far as aquarium sims are concerned. However, it’s not a simple game in terms of gameplay, mainly because of the controls.
I love simulation games and I love aquariums so I was excited to play Aquarist. I’ve played a fair amount of aquarium sims over the years. But Aquarist has more features, and that’s what excites me the most. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to scratch my itch.
This game doesn’t have a lot of story, but that’s okay. However, this tutorial tries to tell the story behind it, but it doesn’t work. It just makes the tutorial longer than necessary. Instead, the tutorial explains the various actions you can take in the game and how to do so: buy a tank and all the supplies it requires, buy fish, breed them, and sell them.
Today is your birthday. Your father has a hobby of keeping aquariums and wants to share it with you, so he gave you a glass aquarium as a gift. The tutorial continues and shows you how to set up your tank. There were many annoying aspects to this (to the point where I kept quitting the game and had to push myself to get over it).
I understand that tutorials are meant to teach you how to play the game. However, Aquarist behaves as if it has never owned a fish before. In real life, you don’t need to hold hands in stages at all, although you may not. Instead of teaching you to buy items and put them in your tank, instead of giving you a list of everything else you need to buy and put in your tank, the game does all the moves for you. First, buy some gravel, pick it up off the shelf and put it in the tank. Then buy a light, pick it up and put it in the tank. Rinse and repeat.
If that wasn’t annoying enough, the controls were worse. Instead, put it on a shelf in your room. You play as your character in first person mode, and depending on where you are, the ledges may not always be obvious. should be placed in the
The main problem with these controls is that the cursor is a small white dot in the middle of the screen. The tank heater pickup is a fairly large object, so it’s an easy task. But picking up little barely visible rock decorations? That cursor has to be completely over the object to register, so it takes a while (no, touch controls don’t work unless they’re docked). Aqualist will first release on PC in the spring of 2022. It’s easy to see that the controls aren’t optimized for Nintendo Switch.
Once you’ve made it to the end of the tutorial, you can start playing the actual gameplay. Open your first shop in your garage. Before you open, you have time to restock your fish, clean your tanks, and do whatever else you need to do. also level up over time. Eventually, you’ll upgrade from your garage to run your business in a store. Leveling up can also unlock new items to purchase, such as different types of fish.
It was fun playing the game this way. I’ve played a lot of aquarium sims that run aquarium businesses but aren’t necessarily fishmongers. Aquarists also think outside the box when it comes to keeping fish. For example, distinguishing between fresh and saltwater, providing proper lighting and temperature, and cleaning tanks when algae develops.
Overall, Aquarist is a solid business simulation, but the controls are clunky and ruin the experience. Won’t be revisiting on Switch. Getting it on PC is probably the best way to go.
