How to Fish Review Summary

Great with friends and fun fishing mechanics with excellent value, but unbalanced bosses, bugs, and a too-difficult single player mode hold it back.

Great with friends: Playing the game with friends is highlighted as a key source of enjoyment, with many players noting increased fun in multiplayer. The social aspect significantly enhances the experience.

Fishing mechanics are fun: The fishing gameplay is widely praised as engaging and realistic, with players enjoying catching, shooting, and cooking fish. The game effectively teaches fishing and simulates a lifelike experience.

Excellent value for money: Many players feel the game offers great content relative to its price, describing it as well worth the cost and a quality purchase. The game is considered a masterpiece by some, providing substantial entertainment.

Highly praised experience: Several reviews call the game amazing, incredible, or a masterpiece, reflecting overall strong satisfaction. Players describe it as super fun and a cool experience.

Satisfying and engaging gameplay: Core gameplay is described as satisfying, engaging, and fun, with players enjoying the overall mechanics. The game provides a complete and entertaining experience.

Bosses are unbalanced and hard: Multiple reviews report that bosses are overall unbalanced, with excessive health and difficulty, especially in single player. Specific examples include the mutated whale, piranha, and pufferfish bosses, which feel nearly impossible to defeat.

Single player is too difficult: Several players state that the game is very hard or almost impossible to play solo, particularly due to early bosses like the first and piranha bosses. This makes single-player mode frustrating and sometimes unplayable.

Game is buggy and crashy: Players report general bugs and crashes, including stuttering when moving the mouse and issues preventing the game from opening entirely. These technical problems severely impact playability.

Game is too short: Many players note the game is very short, about 7 hours in length, with overall little content. The lack of length and content makes the experience feel incomplete or rushed.

Pufferfish is annoying and hard: Players find the pufferfish both annoying and difficult to defeat or catch. This combined negative reception makes the fish a disliked element of the game.

Varied boss battles: The game includes multiple boss fights, including a lava whale, spider crab, pufferfish, and giant piranha. These bosses demand strategic gameplay and add challenge, with some comparisons to Terraria boss fights.

Extensive fishing gameplay variety: Fishing is the core activity, offering diverse species like tuna, salmon, krill, whale shark, and clownfish, plus special rare fish and boss fish. It includes a fishing rod, bait, and minigames, alongside selling catches.

Gambling and casino mechanics: Players can gamble with fish and money at a casino, including betting on colors, roulette, and skin gambling similar to CS:GO. These mechanics add a risk-reward layer outside fishing.

Multiplayer and co-op modes: Players can enjoy the game solo or with friends in online co-op, with support for up to 4 players. Co-op is highlighted as the best way to play, fostering shared experiences.

Trickshot and sniper mechanics: Players can perform trickshots on tiny fish and seagulls, often using a sniper rifle with no-scope shots. This adds a skill-based shooting element to the game.

Optimization praised by many: Several players report that the game runs well, with good optimization and smooth performance even on low-end hardware and Intel GPUs. These positive notes contrast with the negative reviews, indicating a mixed experience.

Co-op freezes and crashes: Multiple players experience freezes, crashes, and black screens during co-op sessions, often after a few minutes of play or when starting a game. These issues affect both the host and friends, leading to mid-game interruptions.

Mouse look causes stuttering: Players report severe stuttering when looking around with the mouse, and the issue persists despite various fixes like capping frames, enabling VSync, and adjusting graphics settings. Lowering the mouse polling rate to 500Hz reportedly resolves the problem.

Game crashes frequently: The game constantly crashes or freezes, sometimes requiring a PC restart, especially when loading in. Players report a range of crash scenarios, from mid-game to startup, indicating stability problems.

Performance issues after dynamite: Detonating large amounts of dynamite, especially in water, causes severe performance drops, such as running at 1 fps for 10 minutes or having 'one frame head'. This suggests a need for optimization in physics-heavy scenarios.

Best with friends: Multiple reviews strongly recommend playing with friends or in co-op, citing enhanced fun and chaotic experiences. This is the most frequent theme across all feedback.

General positive recommendation: Several clusters indicate a straightforward recommendation of the game without specific conditions. This reflects broad overall satisfaction.

Great value for price: Reviewers find the game worth its cost, even at full price, and some emphasize value on discount. Specific mentions include the low entry price.

Great for casual fun: The game is recommended for lighthearted, playful sessions, including goofing off, quick games, or a few hours of relaxation. This appeals to players seeking casual entertainment.

Excellent experience overall: A few paraphrases are highly laudatory, calling it one of the best experiences of a lifetime or a masterpiece. Such testimonials indicate a strong end-user affinity.

Community fair range: $5.00 - $6.50.

Story completion: 6.0h.

The game presents early friction due to bugs, slow pacing, and a steep learning curve, but becomes highly enjoyable after mastering mechanics and progressing through upgrades.

Friction: bugs and glitches; steep learning curve; slow initial pacing; unintuitive tutorial; lack of immediate action.

Unlock drivers: mastering game mechanics; acquiring impactful upgrades; progressing past initial slow islands.

Social Chaos Gamer: Co-op, reckless, trick shots, gambling with friends. Motivation: Social fun and chaotic moments with friends. Stance: buy.

Solo Challenger: Solo, strategic, patient, grind for gear. Motivation: Overcoming tough solo boss fights and progressing. Stance: buy.

Gambler: Gambling, fishing, shooting, opportunistic. Motivation: Thrill of gambling and risk-taking. Stance: buy.

Most Windows VRAM cohorts report good performance, but the 12-15 GB VRAM group suffers from severe crashes and freezes.

Windows <8GB VRAM: positive. Most reviews report acceptable performance with minor optimization issues typical of an indie launch, though one user complains about CPU drain.

Windows 12-15GB VRAM: negative. The majority of reports describe frequent crashes, freezing, and instability, making the game nearly unplayable for this cohort.

Windows 8-11GB VRAM: positive. A single review confirms the game runs fine on Intel GPU with this VRAM range.

Short game length: Multiple reviewers indicate the game is short, with playtimes ranging from 3 to 7 hours and some finishing in one sitting. This suggests the game offers a brief but potentially dense experience.

Good value for price: Reviewers frequently mention the game's low price or affordability, often stating it is worth the money or offers enough content for the cost. This positive value assessment appears across several clusters.

Compared to other games: The game is compared to various titles, including 'friendslop', Lethal Company clones, Big Walk, and other fishing games. In many comparisons, reviewers find this game superior or distinct.

Hopes for future updates: Several reviewers express a desire for continued developer support, including new content, updates, DLC, or more fish. This indicates a positive reception and a wish for the game to expand.

Compared to Counter-Strike: The game is often compared to Counter-Strike (CS:GO or CS), particularly for its shooting mechanics and skin gambling elements. Some reviewers note it combines fishing with CS-style gameplay.