I had a flashback to a game I wasn’t even sure actually existed. Turns out, it does.
Ah, I remember it like it was yesterday – I was sick, couldn’t go to elementary school, and got to spend the day gaming on my dad’s PC. Well, “gaming” might be a stretch – because of course I ended up playing the video game version of the early-2000s classic: Finding Nemo!
Clownfish, childhood and shockingly short playtime: My return to Disney’s underwater world
Until recently, I wasn’t even sure if the whole thing had actually happened or if it was just a literal fever dream. But a quick bit of research led me not only to the game’s official Steam page, but also to a full walkthrough – which, in the spirit of journalistic integrity, I obviously watched in its entirety. That’s when the shock hit: the entire underwater adventure clocks in at just under 58 minutes? I could’ve sworn I spent days playing it back then, probably without ever finishing it. Oh, well.
Content-wise, Finding Nemo is exactly what you'd expect: the basic plot crammed into a super compact game for a super compact target audience – sick elementary school kids left in front of the family PC just a little too long. And to be fair, the game is surprisingly well-structured: after Nemo’s fishnapping, you can freely switch between two storylines – Nemo in the dentist’s tank and Marlin out in the big wide ocean. Nemo and the aquarium gang are planning their big escape, while Marlin and Dory chase down a lost diving mask to figure out where Nemo is. You play minigames and solve simple puzzles along the way. Naturally, everything turns out fine in the end – Nemo and Marlin are reunited, just as it should be.
But in the final few minutes, things get unexpectedly intense: Dory gets caught in a fishing net and has to be rescued. Emotional rollercoaster alert. One fairly anticlimactic minigame later, and she’s free again – thank god. Happy ending achieved. Honestly though, aside from the scene with Bruce the shark – which felt way more terrifying 20 years ago – I barely remember anything. And the replay value? Let’s just say it’s not exactly endless.
If you still want to give it another go, you can buy Finding Nemo on Steam for a hefty $9.99 (yep, for a 20-year-old game that barely lasts an hour!). Then again, you could also just... not.