Virtual Fishing

When you turn the game on, you'll get to a nice startup screen where the music is relaxing and the fish swim & air bubbles come by in plenty.

Now let's go fishing!

Press start as the menu tells you (in the only English in the game), if you're playing alone press A twice to go to the fishing spot selection screen, here you will find six fishing spots, five along the river, and one pond for practice.

First practice throwing out your line first, it's really easy once you time it right: first pick the right bait, you have the choice of two kinds, make sure you haven't cast your reel yet (no fishing rod onscreen), now press Select and go to the second/middle option, press A and viola your bait will be different. Now cast your bait with A and keep it pressed to you'll reel it in slowly. Wait till you've hooked a fish, you'll know once your rod moves a little (or a lot with a big fish of course), quickly press and release the back right button, if it worked the game will move to the underwater view which is in 3D with nice animations, don't be distracted for too long as you can't let the fish escape, reel him in with A, but when he fights you stop reeling him in else the line will snap, go on until you've caught it! As you will come to notice the controls are easy to learn, but hard to master with tough to catch fish in the fast flowing river parts.

Once you think you're ready for some competitive fishing, pick one of the spots along the river at which the game will (sometimes) give you two options: 1. Face off against six computer players for eight minutes to see who catches the most fish (judged by the total length of fish caught) or 2. Reel in five fish in the shortest possible time without breaking the line. Usually you'll just get game#1 and if you manage to catch enough fish to make it to the required quota (given at the selection screen of the level in cm), and all the computer players standard will, then you will see a waterfall where the (biggest) caught fish of each player has to swim to the top, the fastest being the winner in this tiebreak. If you win you'll get the competition trophy, try to get all trophies!

The only 3D is when you throw your lure out and catch a fish (the under water view), the rest of the game is just cardboard generated 3D effects, the swimming fish are nicely animated though. With one in game tune and not very different fishing environments I can't say it's a very diverse game.

For the fishing fans only!! For the fans of the sport this is probably a very easygoing, fun and relaxing game in which I as an uninterested non-fisher am probably missing some features and options, but can you blame me knowing it's all in Japanese?