Fishing Break Review

Fishing Break is a super cute, cartoony fishing game that had its start as a mobile game and is now making its way onto the Nintendo Switch. There are a lot of positive reviews posted for the handheld version of Fishing Break, and it seemed to be a fun and incredibly addictive title, so I can’t wait to try out this version. I'm curious to see how different it will be from the original title and if it will be a fun and hard-to-put-down game.

In the beginning, you select between Hunter and Penny, each with a one-star rating. There are 20 cute characters total to be unlocked as you progress through the game. This isn’t the only thing that is available to be unlocked; there are also 93 different hats to adorn your fisherperson with and 15 different boats. The first “boat” you have is actually a raft, but it works as a dock to fish off of, so that’s all that matters! Besides these few things, the game also offers customisation packs: you can purchase basic, super, and ultra kits that offer a variety of items, starting at 20 dollars and going up to 100 if you're a big spender and want to try your luck with the rarer and more valuable items.

The first fishing excursion has you checking out Village Pond. There isn’t a huge selection of fish here, mainly goldfish, but it’s an effective way to learn how to play. For controls, Fishing Break works a lot differently than I was expecting. Initially, I had my Switch in the dock hooked up to the TV and was using a controller. The problem is that there are a very limited number of things that you can do while playing with a gamepad. You use the left thumbstick to move a cursor around the screen to select various things, such as the location you will visit or which items to buy at the shop. However, the controller is not very helpful in actual fishing, which is the main focus of the game. To cast your line, you need to swipe on the screen, and you also need to reel the line in when you have a bite on the hook. So obviously, you can’t do this when the console is in the dock. Using the touchscreen instantly makes it feel like I am playing a mobile title. To reel your catch in, you will have to constantly make circles in the clockwise direction, almost like using a real fishing pole. Though I have to say, I have never felt pain in my arm from when I have actually gone fishing. The constant motion hurts after a while when you are repeatedly catching fish! So this is definitely a title where I would be taking a lot of breaks.

The lack of variety doesn’t really matter, as your “missions'' for this spot is to catch and sell five fish. When you successfully bring a fish in, a photo is taken that displays the species of the fish and its size listed in centimetres; you will also get a score for it. This will determine how much gold it will sell for. Once your tasks are completed, you will earn stars to unlock new locations, and you will also get rewards like a can of worms that you can use for bait, besides the gold you made from selling your catch. Gold is important as it is used to purchase different upgrades for your gear, such as new fishing line, reels, gloves, and a stick for the rod. This is very important to do because if you don't, it becomes harder to successfully catch fish as you progress. Your line will constantly break, it will be difficult to reel in a fish that is on the line, and different kinds won't even nibble at the hook if their preferred bait isn't at the end.

As you progress through the game, you earn stars that will unlock other "worlds." These are just new fishing locations, all with vibrant visuals and folky-country-like music. There are 12 areas to fish in, including: Village Pond, Tropical, Asian River, Arctic Ocean, Rain Forest, Aloha, Great Reef, Deep Trench, Patagonia, Africa, and Frozen Lake. Each place has unique fish to catch specific to that area; you can even try to catch a shark! This was really cool, and each place had a large number of fish swimming around in the water. It might sound ideal for catching a lot of fish, but the problem comes when you are trying to snag one of the more rare species. Smaller and more common ones, like minnows, will race up and grab the hook, making it really hard to get the harder-to-find ones. So it takes a lot of attempts to get the hook right in front of the fish you want to catch so that they grab it before all the little guys dash in.

Some locations, like Carrot Lake, force you to give the first of each fish type to the museum. After one has already been donated, you can then sell your catch for gold. You can visit these different museums on the main menu; there are even different ones for Halloween and Thanksgiving. Why exactly? I’m not sure, but these holiday-themed decorations in the aquarium are pretty neat.

Fishing Break is an interesting fishing game, but there are a lot of issues going on here: menus are sized wrong, some text boxes are huge and stretch across the screen, while others are very small. I also had the game freeze on me after upgrading some of my gear. I think personally, I would rather play this title on my phone since there is no real advantage to playing it on the Switch. I think it would be less painful to reel in your catch by moving my finger on a small screen compared to moving my whole arm. I think this title could be improved with some fixes and possibly some controller support. At this point, it wasn't a very fun or exciting experience.