works okay for a long time, but not all the way
I've been running Aquaria on a sub-spec computer, and now I'm having problems. Obviously that's only to be expected; I took a chance and lost. I post here to warn anyone else who may be thinking about trying the same.
I tried the demo on my iBook G4 1.33 Ghz, and it was fine, at 800 x 600 resolution. A little slow and unresponsive with the menus, but fine in actual play. So despite being a bit below the "required" 1.42 GHz, I bought the game.
Having made it more or less happily to the Abyss, though, I'm going to have give up and wait until I get a new computer. Actually swimming around and even fighting things is still fine, but bringing up the menu panel while dealing with some of the things down in the dark â for example, trying to eat a roll while fighting the Jelly King, which seems to be pretty much required â hangs the whole machine more often than not, requiring a power off.
I'd be more willing to put up with this hassle if save crystals weren't so few and far between in this game. There's no point at all in exploring or trying things, when the odds are so good that it will all be lost by another hang. The first time or two around, it's fun to just creep through the darkness looking at weird stuff. But after that, it's just really tedious hiking all the way from the last crystal to the Jelly King, for one more futile attempt. The thrill is gone.
I can't really complain, since the game says you need more speed, or at least a later model. Though I have to say it's odd that such a slight deficit produces such a catastrophic failure, and that it occurs only on the menus, which would seem to need very modest resources, and not in playing the game. If anyone has any ideas on how I might fix or work around the problem, I'd be grateful. Otherwise, this can be warning. You can get a long way into the game on a 1.33, but eventually the hangs will drive you nuts.