Fishing is not my cup of tea. Sure, it looks like a tranquil experience and a good way to get some peace and quiet, but the thought of sitting there for hours waiting for a fish to come along and get caught up on my hook only to reel them in and either bask in the glory of my capture or release them back into the waters just feels a bit pointless to me. If I wanted a fish to eat, my local supermarket can cater to me for that mostly thanks to many fishermen better than me, and if I wanted to let it go, then what was the purpose of catching it in the first place? Now that I have that off my chest, I can tell you all about my time with the digital representation of the rather popular pastime/full-time job.
Arriving fresh on the back of Ultimate Fishing Simulator, which failed to impress the masses a few months back, we have Fishing Adventure. A new fishing game, the same developer and a potential second shot at hitting the golden ticket and invigorating a new generation of budding fishing enthusiasts. However, after spending several hours of my time sat hoping to pull in some fish of monstrous size and boost my wealth of XP and currency along with it that has only so far increased at a slow pace from the tiny fish I keep reeling in from time to time, I sit with the feeling that Fishing Adventure has yet to convince me this is how I want to be spending my time.
Gameplay sees players heading into one of two game modes with Play mode and Quests mode. Play is essentially free-fishing and takes away the extra challenges whilst Quests mode is how you progress through each area. There are 7 locales from around the world from which to fish, the first of which is Poland, whilst later stops include the United States, France, Norway, Haiti and more.
To unlock new fishing areas, you must first earn the license to fish there which is done through the completion of Quests which act as challenges, and after smashing out five of these increasingly difficult challenges, the next location is yours to fish in, with multiple spots in each location.
What appears to be a somewhat questionable omission is the inclusion of any sort of tutorial. Upon arriving at your first fishing spot, you’ll do the obvious first choices such as walking to the edge of the water, a few button presses reveal that X will cast your line into the water, and from there you need to figure out the rest for yourself. As I mentioned before, fishing isn’t my cup of tea, and fishing games aren’t something I tend to frequent so getting into the thick of it was even more painful than my initial thoughts of sitting in an open body of water waiting for a nibble for hours on end.
Now whilst I’m no professional there is the obvious understanding that fishing successfully will depend on the gear you have on you and Fishing Adventure does indeed include options to have extra bait and better gear, but to get to the finer equipment on offer, you must first earn some cash to allow a purchase of it, and that is where the grind begins, as cash is earned through selling fish you capture. Early on your gear will be incredibly basic and with basic gear comes tiny fish, and tiny fish gives a tiny payout should you decide to sell them to increase your coin balance.
There are two options when you capture fish. Selling them gives coins that are not only used for the aforementioned purchases but also for new fishing licenses which can be purchased should you have failed to have beaten the Quests necessary to be allowed free access to them. The other option is for a boost to your overall XP with new levels unlocking new items such as new baits for bigger and better fish, whilst a certain amount is again required to access new locations with each area having a set level requirement. The problem here is that the coin payout proves excessively low until you can get some better gear for bigger fish, but also the absolute grind that is faced to level up. Each released to gain XP only earns between 100-200 XP, or at least the ones I was able to catch did, and with tens of thousands of XP required once you pass the first 5 levels or so, there is going to be countless hours spent looking at water and waiting for a tug on your float should you wish to make serious progress.
What makes this slightly more tedious is the fact that visually, it’s not the best-looking fishing game available on Xbox right now with some questionable environmental effects that look better deserving of the Xbox 360 era if you look at certain patches of vegetation, especially in the Haiti area.
Something else to note is that despite not even being an avid fishing fan, even I know that you shouldn’t be witnessing your rod looking like it’s almost ready to snap in half when the float has yet to move yet this appears to be an issue present within Fishing Adventure, and whilst it may well be there to increase immersion, I only managed to laugh at just how poorly the experience met the realism.
It must be said however that whilst other games may have better water physics, the different bodies of water certainly do the part of maintaining a believable feel, which is a nice refresher when the rest of the game feels quite so basic.
As for the audio, well fishing is supposed to be a tranquil and quiet experience I guess, but even so, there isn’t really anything that’s going to wow here. Sure the audio isn’t bad, but then it’s not really a focus, instead, the focus is given to the ultimate grind.
Conclusion
Overal, if you’re an avid fishing enthusiast chances are you’ll have nowhere near as much fun with Fishing Adventure as you would out there in the real world with a rod in your hand. If like me you’ve yet to find the appeal of fishing, then Fishing Adventure is unlikely to spark any major interest. It’s grindy, it’s tedious and you’re better off leaving it to the professionals. Maybe it’s time for a different type of adventure from UltimateGames.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox One review code, using an Xbox Series S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
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