Monster Fishing RPG Review

Livin’ in Paradise

You awaken at a beach shore, to the calls of your best friend Kyle. He wants you to go fishing, catching some of the local flavor such as catfish and carp. In Yoshiyuki Nakashima’s Monster Fishing RPG, you play the role of an angler on a backwater island. The game’s RPG inspiration shines as soon as it starts. Evocative of many retro titles, you’re a blank slate protagonist who follows your friend Kyle. He’s bored with the fish variety at home and wishes to travel for new monster fish to catch.

Monster Fishing RPG’s controls are simple, much to its boon. Movement is done by dragging a direction on the screen, and fishing is as simple as casting your line near shadows in the water for a bite. Once a fish bites, you see a bar and variable amounts of hearts (depending on the fish), and you must time your taps to when the arrow is in the green area to “damage” the fish. Once its health is depleted, you capture it. At first, catching fish just adds them to a bestiary, but upon arrival on the first island Kyle realizes that you need money and directs you to purchase a knife. Thankfully you already have some gold in your pocket or this would’ve been a short trip.

Once you buy a knife, you learn about “stripping”, that is stripping materials from caught fish. Such as scales, stomachs, hearts, tentacles, and other such viscera. You then sell these materials to the shop for gold or use them for crafting. The quality of your knife directly affects the quality of the spoils from a monster fish, with your flimsy beginner knife barely able to cut anything until you purchase a better one. But with your new knife in hand, thus beings the next task of gathering enough gold for your travel expenses.

Trip to the Bank

One thing that this game manages to do well is how it eases grinding. You need gold for something as basic as traveling to the next island, but this isn’t an arduous task by any means. The game gives you “power-ups” in the form of watching a 30-second advertisement for five minutes of a particular buff. There are experience buffs, stripping buffs, and even a buff that makes fishing easier. With the stripping buff in particular, you gain double the amount of materials from caught fish than you would normally. This is a huge advantage as it cuts down the time spent fishing, which comes in handy especially when you’re searching for specific materials.

That’s not even the end of it, though. When you go to sell your hard-earned materials at a store, you’re given the option to watch a 30-second advertisement, with the reward being that your materials sell for double what they’d usually sell for. With enough time and patience you can end up with more money than you’d ever need.

It’s worth noting, however, that this massive amount of money and material grinding becomes necessary in the last part of the story. This point is also when you’re set free from linear progression and can go just about anywhere on the current map, as long as it’s shallow. This is after you purchase your own boat, which you’ll be needing as the materials for the story are scattered across the world. Otherwise, the sandbox has been opened and you may travel just about anywhere as long as it has a dock for your boat.

The Great Sea

Most of the playtime at this point is material collection. It’s a bit of a tedious grind, even with the doubling power-up as the fish you have to catch for said materials are rare and might not always yield what you need. Aside from focusing on the main quest, there isn’t much else to do. You can grind experience points so you have higher ranks, which increases your inventory size. There’s also buying the best possible knife and rod at the time, which is especially crucial. It wouldn’t be too bad an idea to have sidequests or something just to add some variety.

However, after scraping together enough materials, the story immediately progresses. After some cutscenes, the first actual boss battle of the game begins. In a slight departure from previously established elements, its a real-time fight where you need to move to avoid projectiles, and then cast your rod to capture the fish like you’ve done previously. However, it won’t go down with just one cycle. You’ll need to catch it three times, and the intensity of its attacks increase as you damage it. Getting hit by a projectile causes an instant game over and teleports you back to the entrance. Upon defeating the boss, the game gives some expository lore and the next objective. But at this point, Monster Fishing RPG ends its first chapter. As of this writing, the next part has yet to be released.

Plenty of Fish

Something Monster Fishing RPG has a decent amount of is charm. Every fish you capture has an entry in the bestiary, which adds some flavor to what otherwise is how you earn gold. Additionally, the game has a reminder in the top right of your next task, which is helpful if you forget what you needed to do at a given point. The pixel art style is cute and evocative of classic JRPGs. The music, while simple, is slightly dynamic in that it changes with the day/night cycle.

Overall, this is a cute and simple fishing RPG. There’s still a lot it could do, and if it receives updates, we may see it come to fruition. But at the current moment, it’s just a fun diversion. If you’re someone who enjoys fishing minigames, this game certainly scratches that itch. The flow of gameplay is consistent, and the placement of advertisements is both beneficial and non-intrusive. Many mobile games could learn from this model, especially when softening the grind.