Aquanaut's Holiday: Hidden Memories (PS3)

[Jurassic]

Yeah completed this last night and loved it from start to finish. Its not without its flaws, the story quickly descends into nonsense for example, but as an experience its fantastic. Still haven't decided whether to try finding every fish in the game, I'd like to spend more time with it but I can see that particular task driving me mad. Really need to pick up Afrika now!

[Sketcz]

For my money, it's a more groovy experience than Afrika. I completed most of Afrika and then got bored with some of the more arsey challenges (which my OCD girlfriend then finished). Same deal with Aquanaut's Holiday - I did the bulk, she went in and finished off finding EVERY tiny fish in the sea.

Sounds like the perfect match.

I definitely want to get into this once I've refinished Skies of Arcadia. I also put off playing Everblue 2 for this, since despite starting it and loving it, I reckoned if you're going to play an underwater game, it should be on the most powerful hardware you own.

What's the rough playtime for a casual completion with only most of the stuff discovered/done?

[anephric]

Whilst Aquanaut's Holiday is very pretty, for what was presumably not a huge budget game, be aware that it does have quite a few performance issues, much like Afrika.

[Jurassic]

What's the rough playtime for a casual completion with only most of the stuff discovered/done?

I'd say around 10-12 hours if you're just looking to go through the main story. Doing everything in the game looks like it'll take 30hours+ easily though, as there's loads of extra stuff to do.

[Strider]

Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I want to buy it again now

[Jurassic]

Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I want to buy it again now

Haha its only been gone a week! Decided to try and go for the platinum on this. I normally can't be bothered but I spent last night doing some of the extra stuff and was still really enjoying it, so why not.

Its a shame this and Afrika haven't been released over here. Like Sketcz says it's unlikely to ever happen now. You'd have thought with a translation already in place it wouldn't take much to tidy up some of the Engrish and get it on the shelves. I suppose Sony must think these sort of games have no appeal to a western audience.

[Baseley09]

Is the English language version of this game expensive and/or hard to get hold of.

Looks cool.

[Jurassic]

Is the English language version of this game expensive and/or hard to get hold of.

Looks cool.

I picked it up off Strider for just under ?30 and I think there's always a few on ebay as well, but they're probably a bit more expensive. So it's not too hard to get hold of a English language copy but its not the cheapest game around. The Japanese language only copies are obviously a lot cheaper but then you'd miss out on the crazy story and I can imagine it might be a little confusing without a guide.

[Sketcz]

Wow, this is amazing. Finished the "main bit" and am now mopping up the last few side-missions. This is miles better than Afrika I think. The pacing is much faster, and the rewards instant - instead of photographing something and uploading it for pay, as you swim past fish and click on them they're logged here. Also, this rewards random exploration, whereas Afrika kind of forced you to do specific things at specific times. I prefer the scenary too. The whole game feels like a really nice exclusive for the system, and is extremely soothing. A terrible shame it never got a wider release - I don't think it would have appealed to many, but it's so wonderfully different to everything else out there.

81% complete though... I'm having a real tough time finding all the fish.

Any tips for getting those last few? I can't seem to find the sea slugs, despite searching the sea floor everywhere. They're probably the toughest to find.

Also, any tips for the side missions would be cool - I don't want to be stuck on this for ages. I'm doing the pirate skeleton one at the moment and looking for the canon.

Did this ever get a guide written for it? GameFAQs has little, and the topics on there talk about some mysterious objects requiring crazy methods to unlock and find...

[Jurassic]

Check out the Japanese wiki for a great list of when and where to find all the fish (run it through a translator if you need one). This helped me no end with the slugs:

http://www1.atwiki.jp/2ch-aquanaut/pages/20.html

Some of the fish appear in cycles, so each time you go back to base a new set of fish will appear in certain locations. Theres other sections on the wiki that deal with all the different sizes of fish. Got the platinum on this myself a few weeks back and thoroughly enjoyed it. Good luck!

[Sketcz]

Ace, cheers!

[anephric]

Shockingly, I decided to get rid of mine as I'd played it to death. Got over £70 for it on eBay. Is it hard to get hold of now or something? Or just eBay foolishness?

[Jurassic]

Shockingly, I decided to get rid of mine as I'd played it to death. Got over ?70 for it on eBay. Is it hard to get hold of now or something? Or just eBay foolishness?

?70!! Jesus thats a lot. Its probably getting harder to get hold of now but didn't think it was going for that. I loved the game, so will be keeping hold of it to dip in and out of now and again.

[Sketcz]

Shockingly, I decided to get rid of mine as I'd played it to death. Got over ?70 for it on eBay. Is it hard to get hold of now or something? Or just eBay foolishness?

Well, I did put this mini-review up May 16th. Did you sell it soon after that? If so, I expect 10% commission.

[Strider]

Darn Jurassic got a bargain off me then