Aquarealms by Cherokee and Taws

 

Ahh, the sea. The smell of the salt air, the fishy's swimming around, the ponderence of "why are there no easily obtainable level 0 breath water spells?", and the gentle swell and sway of the sea's waves. Out there, in a dark and dangerous passage, there is a bottle floating; it is level 20, and holds a spell of breathe water - and a way down to the Aquarealms, a strange and humorous area beneath the slapping waves.

The first thing to be aware of is that the entire area - lock stock and barrel - is under water. As such you can't get there, or move around internally, without a breathe water spell (pugs, elementalists, and i belive shapers have this spell, to). There's a considerable amount of equipment - armor, and weaponry, as well as a scroll of recall (level 20), which - suprise - has a word of recall to it. The equpiment is all propery named, with an underwater theme to it. The only problem with this area is just that - the theme.

Often the refrences seem forced; Chardonray wine, for example, and Aquaguards, Aquaknights, and everything being - aqua. When your in the area itself, you acutally feel as though your in a theme park - "See the Aqua world!" - instead of a sometimes very serious area. The layout is also overly simplistic, but that's ok - it's a necessity due to the odd traveling conditions. The area is deceptivly small and empty looking; once you start opening doors and really exploring, you start finding shops, houses, citizens, guards, everything except the king (for some odd reason the castle's closed off), and most of it a real challange to kill, particuarly if your a level 30 (the highest level that can get there "solo" and without assuming any special powers or spells).

The town is richly described - there's even a sign that explains why you can't go into the castle (which would be nice to be able to do, really). The area's oddly concerned with lighting; it tells you at the bottom if your way is well lit, barely lit, very dark, or what not. It also has a unique "dual nature", which is apparently split by the centrally running Palace way, into the poisoden/tsunami way - which is dark and dreary, full of poverty and despair, and the other direction, which is full of wealth, power, and luxury. It'd be interesting, as I've said, to be able to explore the city more fully - rooms in the houses, a large and luxerious palace, perhaps which was pressurized or something.

In the final look, the area is big, well described, and has a fair amount of eq, and a goodly challange, but where it could have really broke forth to shine, it falls short, leaving the glass ceiling unshattered. A good area, and a worthy area of an exploration, but not a great area. See it for the novelty value if nothing else.