The Fisherman – Fishing Planet Review: Hook, Line and Sinker?

I have always wanted to learn how to fish growing up.  I remember my uncles talking about their adventures fishing and how big the fish were and how they had to jump in the water with the net to make sure that 25lb catfish wouldn’t get away (and of course who was full of it).

I recall my dad asking me if I wanted to go fishing and how excited I was to get ready to carry the family tradition and bring home my big fish to show off to my family. Oh, how reality kicks in dashes all your dreams. I cringed trying to put the worm on the hook. Taking the fish off the hook? Ha. No way not touching that thing get it away from me. Thus, my real-life fishing dreams disappeared. Until I became a master at in the video game world thanks to Sega Dreamcast.

Get your tackle box ready

The Fisherman Fishing Planet is a sports fishing simulator from Bigben and Fishing Planet LLC. The game has everything you can imagine in regards to fishing for those individuals who have either played the franchise since the PC days or have actual fishing experience. However, if you are a novice and have zero real-life fishing experience (as this writer) and no type of patience to learn the game than don’t try this at home. The learning curve is tough in the beginning for novices and overtime with some help from the game it can become easy to understand and gain knowledge.

Plenty of Fish in the Sea

With 50 lakes, rivers and ponds stretching from California to Russia the game provides players with an amazing amount of variety. No venue seems the same and either the player can fish from the shoreline and in advance venues from their own boat. True to real-life licenses must be purchased from the shop to be allowed to fish around the world from in-game money earned from leveling up XP and selling items.

Let’s Be Reel

The game has one of the largest shops I have ever seen in a game, but it is no surprise the developers went through such great lengths to provide such a vast amount of the various items in the Fishing Planet Mega Store.

Seeing this amount of detail from a developer is truly an amazing experience as other developers should take notice at the level of customization provided to help give players as close to a true world experience as possible. From bait to tackle to boats and even a Baitcoin exchange system players will have their hands full and time occupied with the inventory system.

Game Modes/Online

The game provides a lot offline and online in regards to multiple events the players can enter in with various rules and regulations across all the venues available providing some competition against pros and beginners.  The offline portion is the one that will present the most longevity to the user in regards to tasks, fish captures and traveling around the world.  The areas were very well crafted to detail and mixing in the walking and boating brings a change of pace for the player.

Gameplay and Controls

The gameplay is good regarding the casting and reeling system. Learning the various techniques such as straight retrieves, stop and go and fishing with sinkers the team tries to make this aspect as simple as possible with a tutorial and gauges to help seasoned veterans and rookies like myself learn the depth of the fishing system.  However, when prompted to do certain tasks such as “assembling a sinker rig” took me at first almost 15 minutes to do which was an absolute buzzkill.

The culprit was the confusing controller scheme I had to navigate in order to complete the task.  I get I need to understand how to make certain combos in regard to the type of fish I will be gaming for but getting through this one task was completely exhausting. I shouldn’t have to use the left joystick for left side selection and the right for the right side. Then using the back trigger for this and the front bumpers for that. Eventually, I got the hang of it and moved through other tasks more easily.

Verdict

The Fisherman Fishing Planet is by far one of the most in-depth video games I have ever played. The level of customization for your tools is amazing and the graphics and attention to detail for the fish is a sight to behold. But, the problem with the game is that it feels like the developers brought over a PC sensation for their PC followers.

By doing this I feel they are in danger of isolating many interested fans on the console side who may have been excited to try the game out and hit the wall with frustration and lack of patience. I feel the game provides such a level of depth that experienced users will feel the console port does the PC version justice. However, users new to the franchise may be intimidated at first with all the ins and outs of the gameplay needed to try and teach you all you need to know to keep up with this sports fishing simulation behemoth.