My wife was painfully recovering from surgery and she loves the sea, mermaids and dolphins, but she was unable to even get out from home. So I bought this game.I just bought this game thinking it would be like Disney mermaid world without mermaids. I was wrong, nicely surprised when I saw the game. It is not an action game but an exploration game and there is no way to die or get hurt as far as I can tell. So if you are for action games and incredible hardcore and tough gaming challenges, combos and that sort of thing, that's not for you. It is slow and peaceful like real scuba diving. Also if you expect physical activity to get out of the couch, you may be disappointed. Once you are warned, let's proceed with the review.At the beginning you have a storyline and tutorial and not too much freedom to do what you want, but later in the game you will enjoy complete freedom. You may either follow the storyline, or complete secondary quests, or just go and swim around to enjoy the cool looking sea landscape. My wife is not very much an expert in videogames and she had problems with the cursor that is used to move yourself in the game and that's perhaps one of the few minor issues I had. But she likes it.There are some apparently useless features in the game that turns the game into a screensaver, with stunning tropical views, my wife find quite relaxing. I like it too as it creates an atmophere if you are doing something else.The only danger in the game is when you get close to dangerous species. In the case of sharks I think they were unfairly demonized since they only attack when they think you are food, or when they feel threatened. Surfers are often attacked in real life because from below they look like seals and sharks like to eat seals. So I find it unreasonable that sharks chase and attack me as if they were Terminator. Fortunately I did not die, but I think this aspect is not quite educational, especially for kids. Shark attacks on humans in real world account about 100 a year around the world (far less like the probability of being hit by a lightning) while we humans kill millions of sharks and their numbers are being decimated. So I find it as a contradiction as is presents as a danger an animal that is in danger. I would have loved more scientific accuracy there and this is the only reason not to recommend it as an educational tool for parents. Kids may be freaked out by sharks in the game. Probably they added this feature to give it some emotion, a fear factor.Also I do not like the idea of the game of presenting aquariums as something good, because they keep animals as prisoners, as they remain starved and they need to do tricks in order to eat. This was discovered by the trainer of Flipper that dolphins in captivity may get depressed and commit suicide. That motivated him to defend dolphins freedom and later to film his awarded documentary "The cove" about mistreatment and slaughter of dolphins in the japanese town of Taiji where dolphins are either sold as prisoners to aquariums, an the remaining are sold as meat. Dolphins have a brain that is bigger than human brain, so we may think they are just as intelligent as we are and they may feel pain and suffering as we do. Killing whales and dolphins is dangerous to human health. They have far in excess of the allowable limits of mercury in their meat. They aren't safe for human consumptio­n. Their food isn't regulated and, thanks to the mercury from the coal industry, they are poisonous to humans. Aquariums often buy small fish sprayed with cyanide which destroys internal organs of fish and damage corals.You may see more details on how beauty sea life is and how humans are destroying sea life in this BBC production:Blue Planet: Seas of Life (Special Edition) (2008)http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Planet-Seas-Life-Special/dp/B001957A4E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297032262&sr=8-1Other than that, the game delivers a message of loving animals, which is good. However, aside of sharks and other few dangerous but not so threatening animals, most of others are harmless. It has more than 300 species and you will not get bored as the game presents lots of things to do. So it may become an educational tool if you explain kids that sharks do not behave like in the game and that aquariums have animals as prisoners, so if you want to see animals, see them where they are free.A minor (almost unnoticeable) glitch is that you may hear whales singing, while I understand they do not sing while they swim normally.I see this game not only as a game, but also as social responsibility initiative by Nintendo, as it promotes an attitude that is consistent with a civilized view towards nature. So in that matter, kudos to Nintendo, showing a civilized behavior in the same nation of the uncivilized Taiji slaughtering. So by delivering a good message, Nintendo is saving the lives of japanese consumers who may play and buy Wii games for a longer time, instead of poisoning themselves with meat.The game does not have voices but text in english (probably audio would take too much disk space and extra costs), so if you have a kid who can't read or if players do not read english, they may have to find a way to solve this issue to understand instructions and the storyline. I would have loved to have spanish text as the manual has, but as far as I can tell it is english only. However I like text better for even a non english speaker would find it easier to follow a storyline with text instead of audio.It has some balance between in land and diving activities, so if you expected to be all the time diving, be prepared to spend some time with inland tasks and some text chatter.As an overall view I would say:Visuals: Stunning. Not only the visuals of the sea, but how characters and animals are animated.Music: Good most of times. It is appropriate for adult taste as my mother in law loves it.Gameplay: Immersive storyline despite of text chatter.AI: Animals behave in a very natural way. You may feel they are alive.I really love it. I bought something for my wife but I ended up loving it more than her.