This site is about the Aquazone Visual Edition Screen Saver, known in Japanese as Aquazone Visual Edition Underwater Garden and in English as Aquazone Visual Edition Desktop Garden -- these are often shortened to Aquazone Visual Edition (or AZVE) for the Japanese Version and Aquazone Desktop Garden (or AZDG) for the English Version.

Rather annoyingly the distributors often refer to the Visual Edition Screen Saver as 'Aquazone for Windows', I wish they didn't as this confuses some into believing this is an updated version of Aquazone the Virtual Aquarium or AZ Deluxe which it certainly is not.

The original Aquazone, irrespective of which version you purchase is a virtual aquarium simulator, the fish are all individuals that need to be cared for, they grow old, they get sick, they die (quickly if you don't feed them) and they breed - the fish are mostly non-replaceable, when you first install the game you get specific numbers of each species, when they eventually die you could buy more from the (now closed) Aquazone shop or re-install the program, the goal being to breed more generations rather than let them die.

Aquazone VE is however nothing more than a screen saver (and a pretty one) if all you want to do is watch the the fish swimming, without thinking about feeding, checking the water pH, or separating pregnant females, then this program could be just for you. Allume say "an aquarium so vibrant, so life-like, you will swear the fish are real" well, it's not that good, the fish movement isn't as realistic as other aquarium screen savers (such as Marine Aquarium) but it is more extendable with many more fish and tanks available.

If you would prefer an aquarium program that offers many of the realistic features found in the original Aquazone, but with high colour 3D graphics, you may want to consider Aquazone AX, the program is only available in Japanese but it's not hard to understand...

No English demo version of Aquazone Visual Edition has ever been produced, so we either have to buy the full version on the chance that we are going to like it, or download the Japanese demo. Windows 98/ME does not fully support multiple languages so the demo is unfortunately restricted to Windows 2000 and XP users. If your lucky enough to use the later OS's you can try it out, the demo is limited to 1 tank layout and 2 fish species... it is also further limited by only allowing 1 Angelfish and 10 Neon's to be used.

After installing the Japanese demo of Aquazone Visual Edition you can use either of the user-made (English or German) patches made available, this will convert most of the dialogue boxes giving a much better demo of the screen saver for non-Japanese users.

Aquazone Visual Edition is available in many editions, the contents of which are subject to a large amount of repetition, if you study the content lists for the English Versions you will be able to pick a package at a price that's right for you, the Japanese Versions are subject to even more repetition, but as this website is primarily intended for users of the English versions most of the Japanese editions and expansion packs will not be listed.

After you install at least one of the available full versions you can then install any of the expansion packs, the expansions are less repetitive in content but at $10 each most offer poor value for money, the Turtles & More Pack contains 4 fish and 2 tanks while the Reef Fish Pack contains 8 fish and 6 tanks, the later appears better value for money, but if you initially purchased Desktop Garden you already have most of the fish and tanks so it's important to check the pack contents, unless (like us) you intend to collect them all.

Aquazone Visual Edition TOT files (the fish files and tank layouts) are fully compatible with both the Japanese and English language versions (fortunately even having the same file names), so if you own both versions you can exchange the TOT's between the two...

A few exceptions exist, but this is more to do with the version numbers of the program rather than problems with the TOT files... for example, when the Koi pack was released in Japanese, two of the tank layouts (the ones viewed from above) required version 1.0.1.6 or later of the program, at the time the latest English version was 1.0.1.4 which did not support viewing tanks from that angle, the fish however work fine in other tanks including the one other (front view) tank that accompanies this pack, English users wanting to view the Koi tanks from above will have to wait for an updated program file.

The item names are stored within the TOT files so if you use Japanese TOT's with the English version on an English Language operating system you will notice the names appear to be in gibberish, this is normal and will not do any harm to your game or files.

One important thing to remember is that the installers are not compatible between languages, and by this I mean if you only have the English full version installed you can only install English expansion packs (likewise for the Japanese version) - so if you are intending to buy Japanese expansions you need to install a full Japanese version first.

Windows 98/Me/2000/XP
Minimum Celeron 667
(Rec. P3 1Ghz or faster)
75 MB HD, 128 MB RAM
DirectX 8.1 or better, 3D
Accelerated Graphics Card
(with at least 8MB of VRAM)

Mac OS 10.3.0 or later
Minimum PowerPC G4
(Rec. G4 1GHz or faster)
75 MB HD, 256 MB RAM
Color monitor support for
32bit color and a resolution
of at least 800x600 pixels.

The English language version of
Aquazone Visual Edition will run
in English, and under most other
languages with the exception of
Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

Aquazone Visual Edition - Copyright © Frontier Groove, Inc. and e-frontier, Inc.
Aquazone Desktop Garden - Copyright © Allume Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.