In the 8+ years I've been using Steam, I have never written a review, but The Big Catch: Tacklebox is probably my favorite game ever, and it's a demo! I have never put this many hours into a game, I have never been this involved in the community surrounding a game, and I can NOT be more excited for the full release for this game. I'll try to review Tacklebox for what it is instead of writing things off as "it's just a demo", although I am pretty sure Filet Group already knows most (if not all) of the downfalls of Tacklebox, and the entire point of Tacklebox is literally just to show off the movement mechanics that Filet Group has made over the past few years.

So if Tacklebox just exists to show off the movement, how does it feel? It's incredibly fluid, hard to master, and offers so many different movement options for you to use at any moment. Filet Group was not lying when they said "tight expressive movement". This game does not control like any other game I've played. It feels a bit "heavy" compared to a normal 3D platformer. But it really feels great, even if it takes a bit of getting used to, especially with wall running and using some of the different tools the game gives you (like the flings). But once you get it, you really get it, and it feels great to run and jump around in this game.

When you start adding items to your movement, like bait, this is where the game really shines. This isn't something most players will even find because it's absolutely not required or hinted at anywhere (and most definitely will not be required anywhere in the main game) but there is insane tech with bait, Like you can basically get a 2nd and 3rd jump with it. You can also get a lot of speed using bait, more speed than slide jumping. The tech in this game is incredibly deep.

The level design is great and just exists to highlight the amazing movement. Similar to Celeste, you need to recognize what your movement options are and use that to "solve" the levels (even though this definitely would not be considered a puzzle game). There often are multiple solutions to some problems that are presented, some intended, and some definitely not.

There are some level designs that are pretty obtuse and slightly jank though, namely tutorial which is unfortunate. The tutorial suffers from telling instead of showing . It presents you with 50 different signs all at once telling you the inputs for the various mechanics in the game (none of which include mouse and keyboard inputs btw), then it gives you some jumps that require a little more than beginner knowledge, and if you fail any one of the jumps in the tutorial you have to do it all again. And this trend continues throughout the game, often if you fail a jump you have to do a whole section again, so this game can be incredibly punishing. I personally like the challenge but I recognize this game is not supposed to be a foddian-esque game at all, which might make this the games number one downfall. Once you're out of tutorial, the game still has this issue in some places, but there are checkpoints and there is a deathwarp/hazardwarp system to help you. Also if you're really struggling, you're always free to go to a different location for a while.

This game looks and sounds like how I dream games should look and sound. The colors are amazing, the designs of enemies and the (two, technically three) player models are peak. The UI is super appealing and unique, while also being perfectly functional. The sound effects are super memorable, and the music... omg the soundtrack is addicting. I want to live in this game. If you press tab the game puts you in first person, and this alone has let me take GIGABYTES of screenshots.

The game's difficulty, which has repeatedly been complained about by many, clearly is an issue that should be (and probably will be) addressed in the main game... but after 3 months of no updates, the game pretty much was perfectly fine, until Tacklebox had an update that literally made the game harder. For context, a huge part of the game is chasing around fish, and these fish can juke tf out of you. There was not a single time in my first play through where I saw a fish and instantly caught them without chasing them for a bit. But in version 1.2, Filet Group decided to make the fish way more skiddish. The fish no longer have any kind of acceleration build up. When you scare them, they are instantly at their max speed, which makes them significantly harder to catch (Also visually, it just looks weird?). I understand chasing the fish is a part of the game, and I guess this change just makes sure that every player gets to experience chasing the fish around, but I just refuse to believe that this was a problem in the first place in my opinion.

Version 1.2 also had this very weird change in the tutorial. There are vines in Tutorial that are very clearly not intended to be reached without jumping across this little gap. But in the speedrun for the game, we do this part a little different, where instead of jumping across the gap, we walljump straight up to the vines. In version 1.2 the vines are moved up to make this jump to the vines harder. At least it's still possible, but why would Filet Group change this. I can only hope that they were watching playtesters, and for some reason playtesters were trying to do the speedrun strat instead of the intended way (even though the intended way is VERY telegraphed and obvious). Even if playtesters were trying to do the speedrun strat, why snub a possible alternate route? Why force the player to do the intended route? And if Filet Group changed it because of speedruns, why are they treating speedruns as playtests?

I don't mean to make version 1.2 sound like it absolutely destroyed the game, but truly I think the version before 1.2 was perfectly fine. Filet Group even was saying they were thinking of stopping the updates for Tacklebox and focusing on main game. Then randomly they released this update that made the game harder, and had changes seemingly targeted at speedruns for no reason.

Ok I'm done ranting about version 1.2 now, I did not mean for that segment to be so long.

Aside from these odd decisions in v1.2 and beyond, I really don't see how the main game could miss. At the very least, I'm glad Tacklebox exists as a way to iron out anything that we may have had to deal with in the main game. Also apparently the content for Tacklebox was only made in a few months, so I can only imagine what Filet Group has been cooking in the years for the main game.

Did I mention this is a free demo that I've put 1000+ hours into lmao.

Edit 1: Ok I decided to remove one paragraph from the v1.2 segment because it got patched so it doesn't really apply anymore, but it is crazy that a game breaking glitch that effected a lot of players took a month to get fixed lol. Apparently it was a problem with a new Unity version that they swapped to, so really it wasn't directly a fault of Filet Group, but imo it still leaves a little bit of a bad look.

Edit 2: Had to edit this again because a complaint I had got fixed in an update. Took a while to get fixed, and multiple people had complained about it, but it wasn't a game-breaking issue or anything so I don't think it's that big of a deal. Filet Group clearly is listening and working diligently to fix any issues that are found which is amazing.