- DEVELOPER: White Giant RPG Studios
- PUBLISHER: White Giant RPG Studios
- PLATFORMS: PC
- GENRE: Fishing / Arcade
- RELEASE DATE: September 10, 2024
- STARTING PRICE: TBA
- REVIEWED VERSION: PC
Fishing games have a certain charm that consistently draws you in, whether it’s the unique mechanics, the relaxing gameplay, or something else entirely. After dedicating 15 hours to Last Dream Fishing Arcade, I had to step back and share my thoughts, or I’d be endlessly caught up in this title. It’s a straightforward and simple game that doesn’t offer much innovation, but it holds its own thanks to its replayability. Don’t expect anything groundbreaking; this game delivers exactly what it promises: various characters, different locations, and plenty of fish to catch, along with unique skills, equipment, and items to enhance the experience.
The tutorial can be quite overwhelming. While it does guide you through how to play, it makes the process seem far more complicated than it actually is. I played using a keyboard, which I found to be more accessible and easier to navigate. At the start, you cast your line, and once it lands in the water, you can either reel it in or wait for it to get to a fish. When a fish bites, two meter bars appear.
The first, on the right, shows the fish’s exhaustion level—if this depletes, you’ve successfully caught the fish. The more critical one, however, is the struggle meter on the left. This meter requires your constant attention; if it maxes out, the fish will escape, so you must keep it balanced. The challenge increases as the fish moves in different directions, left, right, up, and down, forcing you to use your arrow keys precisely where indicated. This helps build a combo at the top of the screen, which in turn makes it easier to exhaust the fish.
The challenge lies in the variety of fish sizes, ranging from tiny to gigantic, each with distinct behaviors and movement patterns, making them difficult to catch. As you progress, the game will definitely test your hand-eye coordination as you try to hit combos accurately. Fortunately, there are features that make this easier. Consumables and accessories can enhance your stats (which you can check anytime in the menu), and equipment found in chests or won in tournaments can grant special skills, called overdrives, and other useful abilities. For example, by speeding up the fish’s exhaustion or improving reel strength.
The game encourages continuous improvement, which is a positive aspect. Accumulating enough points allows you to upgrade your fishing rod and four key stats: casting power, reeling power, quick reflexes, and line strength. These upgrades are crucial if you want to challenge yourself with larger fish. Additionally, the game automatically saves your progress each time you catch a fish, which helps avoid tedious saving ways.
However, a significant issue with the game is its slow progression. Advancing feels like a drawn-out process, which can become frustrating. Fish don’t yield enough points, even the rare ones, making the grind feel unrewarding. You might catch ten fish in a day and still only earn 300 points; it just feels unbalanced. Once the rods start costing 2,500 points or more, catching smaller fish becomes burdensome, and even those in deeper waters can be inconsistent in their point rewards.
Personally, I found the method of unlocking characters and locations to be a chore. While unlocking locations by collecting messages in bottles felt unique and intriguing, unlocking characters was a tiresome grind. The tasks, such as collecting all tier 1 saltwater fish or tier 2 freshwater fish, felt repetitive and eventually made the game less enjoyable. Even after 15 hours of gameplay, I only managed to unlock 5 out of 12 characters and catch all the saltwater fish. Keep in mind, there are five tiers of fish to catch, so if you’re into this kind of game, you could easily sink countless hours into it.
The tournament event was a nice touch, adding some suspense with the question, “Can I beat ten other AI characters?” But beyond that, catching fish is all you do in this game. I’m not entirely sure if the game is meant to be cozy, challenging, or even grindy, but overall, it was just engaging enough to avoid becoming boring, though that might happen eventually.
Does it deliver what you expect from a fishing game? Absolutely. In fact, Last Dream Fishing Arcade, with its charming pixel graphics, is visually appealing, and the silly, cute fish add a fun element to exploration. But, the game is in a strange place. It’s grindy and decent enough, but not everyone will be willing to invest 20 hours into unlocking everything in a simple game with limited content.
To conclude, Last Dream Fishing Arcade is definitely worth checking out. It’s well thought out, offering 5 adjustable difficulty levels, over 80 achievements, and an unlockable challenge mode, which provides plenty of replayability. However, the journey to get there can be quite tiresome. The game doesn’t end once you win the Gaia Championship; you can continue your quest to become the new God of Fishers in New Game+ mode or start fresh in Reborn mode, where you keep all your fishing equipment, items, and accessories for a more relaxed experience.
That said, I do wish it were easier to gain points and unlock characters. I might just be terrible at the game, savoring every moment while also getting frustrated when I couldn’t catch a bigger fish—because, honestly, they put up quite a fight. Last Dream Fishing Arcade was fun, and you might find it enjoyable too, as long as you’re okay with the fact that it’s not a perfect game.
Review copy provided by the publisher
3.6
English (UK) 
Hrvatski