0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Aquanaut's Holiday: Memories of Summer 1996

       

Aquanaut's Holiday: Memories of Summer 1996 is a simulation adventure and exploration game developed by Artdink and released exclusively in Japan for the Playstation on the 19^th of July 1996 and is the second game in the Aquanaut's Holiday series

Aquanaut's Holiday: Memories of Summer 1996 takes the elements of the previous entry in the series and expands upon it, like the previous game the player is dropped in the middle of an unexplored section of the Ocean, that is the entire premise of the game.

As the player explores the ocean they will discover hundereds of different fish and animals coral reefs to explore as well as various underwater anomalies like sunken shipwrecks and underwater ruins like the previous game you can place markers on interesting areas for later study these markers act as fast travel points.

Another returning feature is the reef construction with the aim as before to attract as many types of fish to your reef the mechanics for building the reef are fairly simple place blocks down to attract the fish, you have different coloured blocks so different sets and patterns will attract different fish, you acquire more blocks by exploring the map so more of the map you uncover the more blocks and types you will acquire.

No story just a relaxing exploration of the deep see

Reviews for this early and Japanese exclusive Playstation 1 title are impossible to find, even the usual GameFAQs data that I use when there are no critic reviews is highly limited. With just one user rating for the game which is a 3/5, difficulty wise again just the one user rating, with that user rating the game as easy, and I am guessing that same user rated the games lifespan they spent 8 hours with the game.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude, who unsurprisingly don’t stock this Japanese only release, likewise Retrogames.co.uk don’t stock this title either neither to eStarland.com, while Amazon.com does stock the games guide there are currently no copies of the actual game available at the time of writing this.

Same goes for the co.uk and Japanese versions of Amazon, as a last hope I have gone to Ebay.com and finally found some copies of this game available at the time of writing I have been able to find four copies are available, all four are used copies of the game but are complete copies with prices ranging from $9.50 up to $15 once the shipping has been added in.

Written by

P J Gibbon