You know those simple fishing mini-games in games like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing? Well if you think one of the simpler, and honestly worse, incarnations of them can carry an entire game then this might be the game for you. If not and a cast of relatively boring characters you get very few interesting interactions with before you are done their part of the story and you maybe get one line out of them in future group cutscenes can't carry the game for you either then this probably isn't the game for you.

The game starts off more of a challenge of how esoteric the mechanics for fighting fish is, but it quickly devolves into brute forcing it as you level up Tension. I never failed to catch a fish outside the first few minutes of the game, once you get a few levels in Tension it just becomes a game of toss your line at the appropriate distance, get a fish on the line, and hold X to win. Occasionally you'll hit a bottleneck where you need to level up Charm or Throw to get fish to actually bite or to be able to reach them respectively, maybe you'll want to level Big Hunter to get a higher rank version of a fish for quests easier, and that's it. The fishing itself becomes no more of a challenge, and Stamina levels are almost completely worthless when you have a high Tension. Even the "final boss" fish that decides stop "holding back" got caught by me in about second of gameplay after I hooked him. The "challenge" comes from the grind of the game, even then its mostly sped up if you bother doing the "side-story" missions which give plenty of money and you are going to do anyway because they end up being required to complete the game.

Honestly my main problem with this game isn't that it's a grind, it's that it's a mindless grind. If I am fishing in Stardew Valley I actually have to pay attention to the challenging mini-game. If I am fishing in Animal Crossing I actively have to actively look for fish and sometimes figure out their gimmick. If I play SEGA Bass Fishing or even Sonic Adventure 1 Big's Story I actually have some kind of arcade-y style challenge to pay attention to. Even the Dredge demo had much more going for it and their fishing mini-game is a glorified quick-time event and a major part of the gameplay. While playing this game? Towards the end I just turned down the music, left the sound effects on, and watched videos on a second monitor while just repeating the same motions over and over again while still being able to 100% the entire thing.

You know those simple fishing mini-games in games like Harvest Moon or Animal Crossing? Well if you think one of the simpler, and honestly worse, incarnations of them can carry an entire game then this might be the game for you. If not and a cast of relatively boring characters you get very few interesting interactions with before you are done their part of the story and you maybe get one line out of them in future group cutscenes can't carry the game for you either then this probably isn't the game for you. The game starts off more of a challenge of how esoteric the mechanics for fighting fish is, but it quickly devolves into brute forcing it as you level up Tension. I never failed to catch a fish outside the first few minutes of the game, once you get a few levels in Tension it just becomes a game of toss your line at the appropriate distance, get a fish on the line, and hold X to win. Occasionally you'll hit a bottleneck where you need to level up Charm or Throw to get fish to actually bite or to be able to reach them respectively, maybe you'll want to level Big Hunter to get a higher rank version of a fish for quests easier, and that's it. The fishing itself becomes no more of a challenge, and Stamina levels are almost completely worthless when you have a high Tension. Even the "final boss" fish that decides stop "holding back" got caught by me in about second of gameplay after I hooked him. The "challenge" comes from the grind of the game, even then its mostly sped up if you bother doing the "side-story" missions which give plenty of money and you are going to do anyway because they end up being required to complete the game. Honestly my main problem with this game isn't that it's a grind, it's that it's a mindless grind. If I am fishing in Stardew Valley I actually have to pay attention to the challenging mini-game. If I am fishing in Animal Crossing I actively have to actively look for fish and sometimes figure out their gimmick. If I play SEGA Bass Fishing or even Sonic Adventure 1 Big's Story I actually have some kind of arcade-y style challenge to pay attention to. Even the Dredge demo had much more going for it and their fishing mini-game is a glorified quick-time event and a major part of the gameplay. While playing this game? Towards the end I just turned down the music, left the sound effects on, and watched videos on a second monitor while just repeating the same motions over and over again while still being able to 100% the entire thing.