Aquaria Playthrough Diary 6

More watery pachinko machines of doom! And here was me just talking about Project Horseshoe's use of that term, when what should I discover in Aquaria but... something that can really only be described as such. Read on for this, and more adventures in Aquaria!


More of the kelp forest. And yeah. More pachinko. In this case, it takes the form of some neat little plants that operate much like pinball bumpers. And a whole bunch of them. In a current. I did manage to bounce off of them to get a prize at the top (or bottom in this case) but much as in the case of real pachinko machines, I'm not really sure that it was anything I did skillfully so much as just trying until it worked. Oh well, didn't all that long, and I look forward to seeing what it makes my cave look like later.

So. Highlights:

Learned some more recipes. Thought happy thoughts about how the "crafting" system is set up in this game. I like it a lot. Started learning some vegetarian dishes, including soup and cakes. These are significant because they give me regeneration, which turns out to be an incredibly efficient way to convert leafs I pick up into healing.

Made it to the boss of the kelp forest. Was a little sad - I didn't really WANT to blow up the giant face in the kelp, but apparently there is no leaving until I do. The boss fight itself was fairly neat though, especially with the progression as the boss got "angrier" and started spawning more things, or eventually just went full out attacking.

The cut-scene that greeted me at the end didn't make me feel terribly better either, for that matter. "Once upon a time there were some peaceful, kelp-dryad things that lived and were happy. Later, their god decided he could make something better than leaf-things, and so tore them all to bits. The only thing he left alive was their mother. Who you just killed. Jerk."

On the brighter side, the song I learned as a result almost makes it worth it. Really enjoying swimming around in nature-form, and I finally get to know what those strange blue plants I've been seeing are. And also, a trip to the energy temple is apparently in my future, since now I know what that big red plant I passed in there was. (Apparently they contain pearls?!?) I like making flowers around, and I like being able to make giant spiky pillars. They have been useful so far in several cases.

For one thing, they're unwieldy but effective weapons. I've had good luck boxing myself in with them, or sometimes if I'm especially lucky, boxing in something else. (Or sometimes especially unlucky and boxing them in with me...) Somehow I don't feel quite as guilty poking things to death with my giant kelp death-spines, as I do with blasting them via energy form. Go figure? I still draw the line at jellyfish however. A friend has informed me that the blue jellies seem to be pretty good sources of jelly oil and health, but I still can't bring myself to go after the blissful metroid-like blobs.

The forest-sprite cave was cute. They're weird-looking little buggers, but so it goes. I notice they have a "bed" in their cave, but I still can't figure out the point of beds. Aside from the dreams that showed up at the very beginning, they don't seem to do much. Maybe they recover your health? They always seem to be right next to red crystals though. Oh well, flavor if nothing else.

Some nice flavor-scenery in this area. Really appreciating the art. I was very happy to see that the giant long-legged happy thing was in the actual game, and not just in the cut-scene with the plant-people being torn up. The sunken ship was a also neat, although a bit of a disappointment until I found the secret passage. I still haven't been back to my cave for a while, so I don't know what the treasure-chest-o-bubbles will end up looking like, but one more thing to go look forward to, I guess.

Riding around on Sea-Horses and trying to balance "getting where I want to go" against "singing along with the background music" remains as fun as always. Kudos again to Bit-blot on that, if nothing else.


Speaking of bit-blot, I'm still wondering what's up with their logo when you start the game. Or specifically, what's up AFTER their logo, when we see the nice scene with the birds. And the windmills. Sometimes. And even more infrequently, the dragon. Not sure what it means, but I like it when the dragon shows up.

A bit of metagaming: I found "shark fin soup" which seems to make my "bite stronger" so I'm assuming that I'll find a form at some point that bites things. My initial guess right now is some kind of shark form, possibly learned from the boss of the Mithalas chapel. Since he was a big shark, and all.

I made it to the mermog cave, and then got bitten to death, and realized how far it had been since I had saved last (the forest sprite cave) and decided to call it a night. I like that it is challenging though. (The precision swimming around the spiny sea slugs was fun too.)

Probably play some more tomorrow.