This is a game I wish I'd liked more than I did.
At its heart it's an ensemble cast RPG Maker adventure game like Mousebusters and Bear's Restaurant. The addition of fishing is pretty cute, but it has the effect of padding the total length out much longer than those two games... without adding much more story. The result is that many of the side stories only have about as much characterization as those games, but it's stretched thin over a much longer period of gameplay time. It also makes the characterization a bit more explicitly transactional than in their previous games; it feels weird to have a story about becoming genuine friends with people, but only because you fulfilled their requests to give them literally dozens of specific fish over the course of the game.
None of the side stories are especially deep this time around, but I appreciated that Dave gets some much-needed characterization that makes him more than the cheap joke he was in Bear's Restaurant. The South American native character is a crude stereotype though, something that feels really out of character for a studio that's usually done a good job of treating its international casts with respect.
The fishing gameplay is a bit shallow but pretty cute. However, this is the first time Odencat experimented with free to play monetization and it felt wrong. Players can pay to play without ads, like in their previous games. Even if you do, though, you still get prompted frequently to watch an ad in order to increase the amount of in-game currency you earn. It's distracting, and makes you feel as though if you pay to remove ads but don't use that system, you're going to fall behind in the level curve. It's a really weird experience for what's meant to be a relaxing game.
At its heart it's an ensemble cast RPG Maker adventure game like Mousebusters and Bear's Restaurant. The addition of fishing is pretty cute, but it has the effect of padding the total length out much longer than those two games... without adding much more story. The result is that many of the side stories only have about as much characterization as those games, but it's stretched thin over a much longer period of gameplay time. It also makes the characterization a bit more explicitly transactional than in their previous games; it feels weird to have a story about becoming genuine friends with people, but only because you fulfilled their requests to give them literally dozens of specific fish over the course of the game.
None of the side stories are especially deep this time around, but I appreciated that Dave gets some much-needed characterization that makes him more than the cheap joke he was in Bear's Restaurant. The South American native character is a crude stereotype though, something that feels really out of character for a studio that's usually done a good job of treating its international casts with respect.
The fishing gameplay is a bit shallow but pretty cute. However, this is the first time Odencat experimented with free to play monetization and it felt wrong. Players can pay to play without ads, like in their previous games. Even if you do, though, you still get prompted frequently to watch an ad in order to increase the amount of in-game currency you earn. It's distracting, and makes you feel as though if you pay to remove ads but don't use that system, you're going to fall behind in the level curve. It's a really weird experience for what's meant to be a relaxing game.