Aquaria Playthrough Diary 4

Kelp forest is a win!

A quickish entry this time. Didn't have as much time to play today, and just noodled around mostly places I'd already explored. But click through, to read on about my amazing experience in the kelp forest!

First off, the giant snake-rock-things are great. They look just like normal moss-covered rocks, until you get close, and then they rear up, like some sort off ancient leviathan, and half-heartedly try to bite you. (They don't seem terribly fast. But they're rather big, and neat looking.)

Second - I found a place called the “fish cave”. It is a puzzle. It is great. I was a little nervous, since singing the song on all of the rocks (in every combination I could think of) didn't yield any results. I was a little worried that there was something I was missing that I needed here, but after trying to sing in the middle (and seeing the fish glow) I was able to muddle through it. I really liked that puzzle. Even though I had already guessed the reward, it was still rather satisfying.

Also found a giant turtle, who kindly agreed to swim back to the first giant turtle with me. Back in the home waters! Hurrah!

I took the opportunity to swim around my cave and see if I'd missed anything. Nothing in the cave, but the word on the front of the cave helped a lot towards my cracking of their secret code. Based on the “Mithalas” sign, I knew that the cave enterance said H_M_, and so it was a simple guess that it read “home”.

I swam around and enjoyed the home water area a bit more. I notice now the giant fish directly under home now has some properties I hadn't noticed before. For one thing, I can cling to it, and pretend to be riding, even if I can't figure out how to make him go. But also, sometimes when I sing, his eyes glow with the color of the note. Also, ONCE (when I was opening up a plant beneath him) he came ZOOMING down at me. Kind of freaked me out. (I thought he was trying to eat either me or the plant.) But I haven't gotten him to move again since then, so who knows?

I also finally got around to checking out a back entrance to the energy temple I found a helmet. With some more words written above it. Being paranoid, (and curious) I tried to decrypt them before grabbing the helmet. (Hey, what if they said “face-eating helmet jellyfish” or something? I put nothing past Bit-Blot!) I'm pretty sure they just said “Flesh is Weak” though, which while vaguely sinister sounding, probably still means that it's safe to take. (And gave me a few more letters for my crypto-book!)

I also took a swim through the boss room (using the “I'm a fish!” shortcut) and was pleased to see that his giant stygian corpse was still laying there where I had left it. Nice touch!

And then I saved my game and stopped for now. More soon! I'm starting to really get into this game at this point, and am enjoying it quite a bit. (I think I got a friend to try it out too, after describing it to him as "sort of a cross between echo the dolphin, Castlevania:Symphony of the night, and Loom.")