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Aquaria (video game): Difference between revisions
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[[File:Aquaria_8506.jpg|
An independent video game developed by Bit-Blot. '''''Aquaria''''' follows the story of Naija, an amnesiac aquatic [[Fish People|Fish Girl]] who has been living in a cave, eating fish for as long as she can remember. Eventually, wanderlust forces her to leave and explore the ocean around her. Not five minutes after she leaves her cave, she encounters a mysterious robed entity, whose touch gives Naija a vision that brings back some of her memories. The entity disappears and Naija follows, leading her on a grand adventure in which Naija discovers more about her homeland than she could have ever imagined.
Aquaria was released in December of 2007, winning numerous awards from the independent gaming community as well as widespread praise from gamers.
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Not to be confused with the online game ''Aquaria'' or the Brazilian metal band Aquaria.
{{tropelist}}
* [[
* [[Action Girl]]: Averted at first by Naija until you unlock the Energy Form. Then she becomes this.
* [[After the End]]: Numerous ones to the point Naija fears she may be the only person left alive.
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* [[Batman Gambit]]: {{spoiler|Naija's mother wiped her memory and counted on her daughter's natural curiosity to cause her to grow in power.}}
* [[Beautiful Void]]: Aside from the occasional [[Physical God]], nobody speaks. The only other mortal Naija comes across is {{spoiler|Li, whose name is far too short for conventional spoilers}}, and he doesn't say a word.
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: {{spoiler|The spirits may be freed from The Creator's imprisonment, but each of them is the last of their kind.}}
* [[Blackout Basement]]: The Abyss, {{spoiler|the Sunken City and The Body.}}
* [[Bonus Boss]]: Many of them, most granting a pet, armor, or tool. The "Simon Says" boss is a straight minigame rather than a fight.
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* [[Crystal Prison]]: In the main window; there has been speculation what Naija inside the crystal symbolizes.
* [[Developer's Room]]: "Two odd creatures floated nearby, each staring into a glowing orb. They seemed inexorably tied to their fate, caught up in whatever they thought they were accomplishing by staying in one place for long periods of time without rest. I found the whole thing rather silly."
* [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]: {{spoiler|What happens in the extended ending.}}
* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: In the course of her travels, Naija will kill or finish off at least 6, and up to 12, "lesser gods" of her world (including gods of battle energy, a personification of nature, the former god of a ruined city, a huge sun worm, and several "species bosses"), then top this off by slaying {{spoiler|the creator of Aquaria.}} ({{spoiler|But not her mother, the Creator's 13th creation, and the game's true puppetmaster. Too bad.}})
* [[Does This Remind You of Anything?]]:
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LSJGBqKmGA#t=1m50s Naija piercing "the Veil" for the first time.]
** {{spoiler|The Creator's}} tentacle grab attack. He grabs Naija, holds her in place under himself, and poisons her for an agonizingly long time. {{spoiler|"And you will love me", indeed!}}
* [[Easter Egg]]:
** The games files reveal several in-jokes:
*** Dolphins are called [[Ecco the Dolphin|Ekko]]
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* [[Giant Enemy Crab]]: Quite literally. Complete with a [[For Massive Damage|weak spot on its underside]].
* [[A God Am I]]: {{spoiler|A little boy who fell into the ocean somehow became the creator of all Aquaria. And then he gets [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|slain by Naija]].}}
* [[Guide Dang It]]:
** Many of the puzzles in the {{spoiler|Sunken City}}.
** Some of the boss fights have particularly obscure dances needed to win.
** The cooking, too, if you're trying to find recipes by trial-and-error, instead of finding the completed dish hidden somewhere. The developers clearly expected people to try doing the former instead of the latter, because after every third failed attempt or so, Naija will let out a frustrated cry of, "Not another Sea Loaf!"
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* [[Hoist by His Own Petard]]: Mithala, the Golem/Priest as a pair, and {{spoiler|The Creator}}. All of them are more-or-less [[Mook Maker|Mook Makers]], and the creatures they create are all essential to defeating them. The King Mantis doesn't create Mooks as such, but {{spoiler|you need to turn his energy balls against him}}.
* [[Horse of a Different Color]]: Naija can ride sea horses in Song form. There's even an outfit she can win to make them faster.
* [[
** Also subverted in that one of the ingredients (Red Bulb) is only available in finite, ''small'', quantities, while others (Special Bulb, Rukh Egg) are closely limited. Good luck experimenting with those! For the Red Bulbs, you don't even get the recipes specific to them until the endgame... but from the beginning, you ''do'' have recipes which can ''waste'' them.
** There are also a couple of recipes which may not appear in the game at all. {{spoiler|Vedha's Sea Loaf, Vedha Sea Crisp}}
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** If you don't move around for too long, the view zooms in on you, which can be rather inconvenient.
** The result of ingesting [[Mushroom Samba|Rainbow Soup]].
** Getting blinded by squid or octopus ink.
* [[Interspecies Romance]]: {{spoiler|Naija and Li.}}
* [[Item Crafting]]: Naija can cook a ''multinational restaurant menu'' worth of food items at any time on the pause screen, as well as consume them there before resuming gameplay (see [[Hyperactive Metabolism]], above, and on the actual page). [[Glass Cannon|Thank]] [[Nintendo Hard|heavens.]] Unlike your forms and other songs, recipes are ''not'' locked before discovery. This makes replays a lot easier, as some of the recipes are too simple ''not'' to remember, even without cheat sheets.
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* [[One-Hit Kill]]: Made possible by a [[Eleventh-Hour Superpower|late-game powerup]].
* [[Opening the Sandbox]]: Completing the first temple allows Naija to fix a [[Broken Bridge]] with her newfound powers, unlocking the rest of the game. This sets the pattern, as ''every'' form enables use of a new set of doorways or passages.
* [[Our Dragons Are Different]]: The leafy sea dragon. In reality, a harmless fish related to seahorses. In game, an enormous monster that roars and breathes solar flame.
* [[Palmtree Panic]]: The Veil.
* [[Physical God]]: Almost all of the non-optional bosses. Or even the optional ones, if you count non-sentients as worshipers.
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* [[Puzzle Boss]]: Most of the bosses in the game, but the [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Simon Says]] creature is notable for being a ''non-combat'' puzzle. It's easier to list the exceptions: Sun Worm, Nautilus Prime, Mermog, Blaster Prime, King Jellyfish, and the first couple of forms of the final boss.
* [[Quest for the Rest]]: Naija's starting motivation.
* [[Quicksand Box]]: It won't be a Metroidvania game without it, [[Awful Truth|Sadly]]. It can be quite confusing on where to go.
* [[Recurring Riff]]: The plot-centric 12-note tune. It's easiest to hear in [http://infiniteammo.bandcamp.com/track/undiscovered-waters this track], which plays when you enter Open Waters. It also makes up the melody of [http://infiniteammo.bandcamp.com/track/boss-fraught Boss Fraught] (played for every non-story boss), it's used in a puzzle in the Sunken City, the first four notes are used to activate Dual Form, and several other times.
* [[Replacement Goldfish]]: {{spoiler|The lesser gods created by the Creator are meant to replace his mother, who died at the opening scene of the game.}}
* [[Sanity Slippage]]: After killing [[Eldritch Abomination|the last miniboss]] in Mithalas Cathedral, Naija starts worrying about slipping into dementia [[He Who Fights Monsters|or worse]].
* [[Satellite Character]]: {{spoiler|Li, whose name is still too short for regular spoilers.}} Naija ''can'' leave him at either his home or hers, but there are a couple of places where he must be present to continue in the game.
* [[Scenery Porn]]: Everywhere you go, but the Veil deserves a special mention on the virtue that it's essentially the Bahamas and associated reefs as seen from underwater, and occasionally on land. Also, there's [[Everything's Better with Monkeys|monkeys!]]
* [[Sequel Hook]]: In the extended ending, {{spoiler|Naija is abducted by her mother to fuel her plans to [[Take Over the World]]. Afterwards, Naija and Li's grown son leaves Aquaria in an airship, presumably to find her, while the words "To be continued..." appear on the screen}}.
** Sadly, the two guys who make up BitBlot dissolved the label and went their separate ways after Aquaria was finished, and are working on other projects now, so the sequel may never happen.
* [[Sequence Breaking]]:
** The Kelp Forest should be inaccessible without the Beast Form, gained by completing Mithalas. However, it's possible, even easy to just force through the currents without even noticing you did something wrong.
** In earlier versions of the game, it was possible, using the Nature Form, to bypass {{spoiler|the "tongue" leading to The Body}}, even before one has {{spoiler|found Li.}} This had the unfortunate result of completely destroying the game: if you did this, you couldn't reach the end.
* [[Sentient Cosmic Force]]: The Verse. Naija can channel its power by singing.
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** His fifth form is {{spoiler|a gargantuan humanoid figure with visible muscles, eyes and brain, as well as a stomach which opens up to reveal a baby's head which [[Breath Weapon|shoots a huge laser from its mouth]] for massive damage.}}
** The game's data files contain evidence of at least one more form that was [[Dummied Out]].
* [[Shallow Love Interest]]: {{spoiler|Li, who should really think about at least getting a surname.}}
* [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World]]: The Frozen Veil and Ice Cavern, though in fact they're not ''slippery''.
* [[Stripperiffic]]: practically all of Naija's wardrobe, considering both her alternate forms, and the alternate costumes for her primary form (Some elements -- goofy helmets, or the claw-gloves of the Crab Armor -- could be considered [[Fetish Retardant]].) (Yes, there's a "nude mod" available.) Then there's the costume that Naija herself describes as "rather revealing". {{spoiler|We'd call it a bikini.}} In the post-game scenes and stinger, she and {{spoiler|Li, the spoiler of spoiler tags}} wear even less....
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* [[Wingdinglish]]: The runic text scattered throughout Aquaria is just a different font. Substituting the letters there for English ones can occasionally give a useful hint, such as {{spoiler|at the end of the Mithala Cathedral.}} An alphabet and translations are available online... or if you're feeling lazy, you can just go into the 'gfx' folder and swap the 'aquarian.png' and 'aquarian_alt.png' images, which will replace all the Aquarian text with (bright orange) English in-game.
* [[Womb Level]]: Not one, but ''two''. Mithalas Cathedral has the player {{spoiler|destroying gargantuan body parts}}, and ''then'' there's {{spoiler|The Body, complete with giant blood cells.}}
* [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]:
▲* [[You Must Be This Tall to Enter]]: You can't proceed through obstacles without the appropriate form. Some of these obstacles are even inside Naija's home.
* [[Zeppelins from Another World]]: In cutscenes/stinger.
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Humble Indie Bundle]]▼
[[Category:Aquaria]]▼
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