Freddi Fish and The Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds (1994)

Preliminary: Welp the day has come. This game is so very important to me. The music has always been critical to me, and only became stronger as I got older, returning to it and even making some remixes/slowed-down versions of the tunes.

As usual, I love the lineage of Humongous Entertainment being connected to my beloved Monkey Island 2. I also am loving reading that this was the first Humongous game to switch from pixelated graphics to hand-drawn, and that the game designer was emphatic in making sure Freddi was a femme character and was not presented as weak (See here for more details). Great music, meticulously crafted art, lineage I love, nostalgia, one of my favorite gameplay styles (point and click adventure), challenging the notion boy gamers wouldn't play femme characters, so much to love about this! Let's hope playing through it lives up to the concept, memories, and anticipation!

Because I've listened to the tuen and watched the video a thousand times, I know I absolutely utterly aldsjfaosdjfioajewt love the beginning music and video. Ahhhhh. I will, of course, be playing the original 1994 versions o I wonder if there are any differences from the version I had. I believe it was always CD release, and I believe I had the original since it says 1994 on it, but time to do some research to be sure.

Day 1

The music is truly phenomenal. So over the top emotional for no reason lol. But also mysterious and adventure-feeling a la the Goonies tinkly tune. I never knew you could give Text/Closed Captioning. Nice feature.

My only complaint so far is the unskippable video interludes (oh turns out they are skippable! impressive touch). Luckily they only play once (unlike that third Kyrandia game I just played), and they aren't too long.

So many of the areas feel so special and exciting. I don't know how to explain it. Surely it is the nostalgia and child-me talking, but like with an example I always use of Nickelodeon 3D Movie Maker where I had played it for years and had not realized there were other angles for the scenes that opened up SO many more possibilities and mysteriousi "liminal" spaces as people call it now, there are areas that felt liminal for me, new and fresh or in-between. Like the inside of the cave. It seems so simple now, navigation is fast and the area is not nearly as large as I remember, but it still is sizable for an adventure game let alone a kids advengture game.

Now a lot of these puzzles seem so simple, but they really aren't even as an adult. They are simple, but thinking to pick up the Bone in a screen far frmo the Dog scenario took a lot for a kids. And what I like is it took exploring, not necessarily trial and error, deaths, or illogical puzzles.

Great touches with the soudn, like very calming waves/water sounds at the Beach at a higher quality of comfort and white noise-yness and accuracy of wave sounds than most its contemporaries even those for adults . Interesting that it's one of the few/only scenes with no music

I always loved the Purple Sea Urchin sprites.

Okay yea this is a pretty darn large game tbh no wonder it felt that way as a kid. And I love the glow of this shell, the way it is drawn and shown, well-done and cozy, another one of the screens that stands out from childhood

Welp I was supposed to do movie time but I had to play through as much of this as I could.

It's always neat how Humongous games do it where each playthrough can be slightly different. They're all similar components, but are put together differently. And especially for a kid that makes it feel very fresh.

Even tho I was hooked frmo start to finish and put off my other stuff, I can't claim the Play hook was as profound as I had hoped. But for being a kids game and one I know from beign a child, this held up as well, as the Humongous games tend to do. Not as spectacular as I had hoped, which is wont to happen when I over anticipate a game, but still thoroughly solid, clearly loved as they created it with lots of detail, and full of kindness and good nature.

And sure enough, ends with a "the kelp seeds are for everyone" message haha. I see where I got it from ;) Tho I'm wondering if grandma was hoarding it? And now Freddi has started teh revolution? lol

One other thing to note is the powerful implication of lights within the dark abyss of the sea. Important to a child as well. Nightlights and whatnot. Oh and I forgot to mention the cute minigames, even tho I played them only for a bit.

Look: 9.5/10 Carefully crafted, lovingly made. Everything from the bubble inventory, to the way lights feel special and warm, to the every sprite having character.

Sound: 9.5/10 I thought this was going to be a definite 10, and it's darn close to it, but some of the tunes didn't keep up as impactful. Then again, FFX and others have some not so amazing tunes, so really this should be a 10. When I return to this, I will re-assess.

Play: 8.5/10 It's good: it has replayability, it is very high-quality for a kids adventure game, and the puzzles make sense while still being vast and epic enough. I dunno why it wasn't fully clicking with me tonight though. Maybe on future replays. EDIT: After thinking for a day, I decided to boost this .5 . Sure yesterday I was not as thrilled with the Play as I had hoped, but the more I think about it, the more I realize this is an earnest improvement on Putt Putt Goes to the Moon: no tedious "puzzles" (more like processes) like the apartment searching is the biggest one. I think the uncertainty I was feeling is already reflected in the Feel being 9 instead of 9.5 like with Putt Putt Moon: even though the music for this one became a favorite, and I definitely replayed this a lot, Putt Putt Moon was the first for me so it makes sense the Feel was more profound. I had to give the proper boost to the Play, because the puzzles were clever (I love the glowing shell one in particular) yet figure-out-able. Which in the end, is the foundation to an adventure game's Play. I think I just kept thinking of being excited for the haunted school house one or the Pajama Sams and Travels Through Time etc ones that came later.

Feel: 9/10

Attachment: 8.5/10 As with all kids games, can't say how positive I am I will often return to this, but I know I will always listen to the tunes, and the Play was manageable and interesting enough to warrant a replay some day.

Overall: 9/10