This is cool and I think it could be an interesting game to really sink your teeth into, but it will have to wait for me. I saw so many people (and even the game itself, iirc?) saying that the game mechanics are supposed to be hidden and obscure, that figuring out everything for yourself is the joy of the game, that you absolutely should NOT look up anything online -- but after a fun start and then hours and hours and hours of just doing the same thing over and over without progressing or understanding what I was doing/was supposed to do, I finally looked up some base mechanics which REALLY improved the experience for me. Unfortunately it was too little too late, and I have to put it away for the time being until I find it in me to play it again. So many hours on this and I haven't even done any rituals yet! But I do like the feel of it so I'll probably return to it, and possibly give it a higher score if I enjoy it.

I do love me some mysterious and unknowable games, but for me this was just a little too much - figuring things out is fun, but if you're going that route I think you need to give your players at least enough information to get things rolling, especially when your game has this level of complexity to it. I feel like it's extra important if your game uses one single mechanic, in this case placing cards, because if a player (me) doesn't understand that one mechanic then they don't understand how to play the game at all.
Maybe my brain is just too small, but I think I would have a much greater experience with this overall if the game wasn't so intent on not telling me its most basic gameplay elements - or at least, if I wasn't discouraged from looking up tips online. Those last hours I played after actually learning basic gameplay were much more fun than the 7-10 hours or so that came before it.

(Also I played the switch version and feel robbed, the card table looks MUCH cooler on PC. Too bad playing games on my desktop computer is the bane of my existence)

This is so cute and charming. The sprites and environments are so pretty, they really pushed the GBC graphics to the limit! I especially adored the love that went into the fish sprites. The game's dialogue is nonsensical at times in a way I find really funny. Pupil of the Raft Master, how cool you are.

Also not to be cranky but when people call older games like these "obtuse" and "confusing" I just wanna shake their shoulders (lovingly) and say READ THE MANUALS. Pretty much all old games had manuals and you were expected to read them to learn the gameplay, not through in-game tutorials and such. Legend of the River King's manual has maps to ALL its areas (save for a small bonus one) and shows ALL the spots where you can catch different kinds of fish. It also shows and describes almost all of the games' items, rods, buildings, how you fish and such. Sometimes old games aren't confusing, you're just missing critical information that you're supposed to have access to. Pretty much all old game manuals can be found online so use them!!

The most confusing part for me was getting the wind chime, and since it was the only thing i couldn't understand even with a manual I looked it up online and stumbled into a nigh incomprehensible section of a gamefaqs guide from '99 that (after trying to make sense of it for a few minutes) managed to help me. I feel like the '99 gamefaqs guide only heightened the entire vibe of my Legend of the River King playthrough, so thank you Keith (the main writer's fake cousin(??)) who wrote the part of the guide I used. Fake cousin of the Gamefaqs Writer, how cool you are.