Family Fishing is a quick-play, arcade action competitive fishing game from Arc System Works, makers of popular 2-D fighting games like BlazBlue and Guilty Gear (oh man, wouldn’t it be cool to play a fishing game with characters from those series?).  Play as a member of a family out on a fishing trip, and in a given time limit, try to catch more and better fish than everyone else.  Family Fishing is available to download on 3DS.

In the main mode, first you’ll pick your character.  There are kids Sarah and Bryan, Big Bro and Big Sis, Mommy, Daddy, and Grandpa and Grandma.  Each character has his or her own special skill while fishing.  In the main story mode, you’ll go up against each family member one at a time and try to get a better fishing score than the other.  You can also select free play, where you choose your character, location, and how many numbers of fish to catch.  In Survival Mode, you’ll try to last as long as you can in endless stages of fishing.  There is also a quick play mode that starts you out as a random character and location.

When you start fishing, you and your opponent will be on opposite banks of the water.  To cast, just aim where you want to throw, then hit the button when a meter hits the highest point to make an accurate cast.  Try to cast close to where you can see fish in the water.  Slowly reel your rod in with the B button.  When you get a bite, quickly reel in with the A button.  But the fish will put up a fight.  At this point, you and the fish will have separate energy meters, like a fighting game.  Try to move your rod in the direction the fish is swimming to minimize damage to your rod.  If you have good timing, you can damage the fish and reel it in easier.  But be careful because if you run out of energy, you’ll lose the rod and bait you have equipped, and that can really mess things up for you.  The more fish you get, a meter will fill and when it is full you can use a special skill by pressing certain buttons to damage the fish, heal your rod, among other things (depending on who you choose to play as).  As you catch fish, you’ll earn points.  Use these points at the shop to buy better rods, lures, and special items like bait that’ll make the fish easier to catch.  Whoever has the most total points at the end of the time limit, or whoever can catch the boss fish first, wins.  You can unlock illustrations by completing the game with characters, and keep fish in your gallery that you’ve caught.

The big problems I had with the game were a lack of good instructions when you start, and a high difficulty curve.  You have no idea what kind of bait the fish will take, so it’s a bit of a learning curve.  And your points reset at the beginning of each round, so it can be tedious to build your items back up again.  It’s also hard to tell which way the fish are swimming sometimes, and you can take damage easy when that happens.  They also didn’t bother to translate any of the voices, which isn’t a big deal but it would’ve been easy to do.  A local two-player mode would’ve been nice to have, too.  I like the cute and colorful characters and simple gameplay, but the game is just too hard for its own good. Personally I prefer the StreetPass Mii Plaza fishing game: Ultimate Angler.

I will say the makers of this game had a sense of humor when posting a warning label when you first turn on the game.  It really cracked me up.  Here it is: “WARNING: Uploading or downloading this software without permission is prohibited by law and will make baby Cthulhu sad…and vengeful.”

Kid Factor:

Kids will love the colorful characters and quick action gameplay, but reading skill is needed and younger gamers may get frustrated at the high difficulty.  Family Fishing is rated E for Everyone.

Tags: Game Reviews