Sea Fantasy

• Genre: Fishing RPG
• Spoiler Free Review: I did kind of say screw it and have some pretty spoilery screenshots because that's the only way to make this game look cool, but otherwise no real spoilers.
• Time Played: 26 Hours
• Too Short/Long: It's pretty solid where it's at.
• Did I cry: Probably a rare RPG where I didn't.
• Soundtrack: It's serviceable, but rathe unmemorable for an RPG. There are maybe a couple standout tracks.
• Why I played: I can't remember exactly what prompted me to get this one. I think I just saw something about it being an underrated hidden gem or something, or maybe I just looked at it and thought it might be worth a shot.
• Jank: There is a little bit of jank. Mostly in translation errors, but there were a couple bugs I encountered that required me to restart the game to reset.
• Difficulty: It has a pretty solid balance of keeping the difficulty/progression. Whatever you encounter that's new offers a little challenge while stuff you've already completed you get to flex on. There a few optional very tough things too for those looking for a good end-game challenge.
• Something I liked: I liked just... how much there was. It was way more than I expected. It never strayed far from fishing but there was always a lot to do and variety in game play.
• Pleased/Disappointed: I'm extremely pleased with Sea Fantasy. I didn't expect it to be anything more than a little gimmicky distraction, but I was underselling to myself.
• Recommend to others: I definitely would try to, to anyone who might enjoy fishing minigames in rpgs. Unfortunately I doubt I'd have much luck reeling in anyone to play this game, but honestly it's ya'll loss.
  

The humble fishing minigame goes hand-in-hand with rpgs. My favorite long-dead RPG series Breath of Fire pioneering the tradition - though oft credited to another favorite, Link's Awakening. I personally don't consider Zelda games RPGs in the traditional sense. I know the definition of RPG is muddy territory, but I consider them Action Adventure, and any arguments for it being an RPG basically push every game where you play as a character into an RPG, and if everything is an RPG, nothing is an RPG. Anyway - Breath of Fire came out first - by a few months, and considering the scope of the game - probably had a much longer development time too.

These aren't the earliest examples of fishing in games, but the first I'd connect to "RPG minigame", or even "minigame", as I believe most examples of fishing predating that are tied to core gameplay, not quite a "minigame". To get back on track and bring it full circle here... Sea Fantasy is a game wholly centered on it. It's a Fishing RPG, and not fishing first, not rpg second, not the other way around, but in conjunction.

So it kind of looks a little cheap. It looks a little uhh... default asset rpgmakery at first glance. Just the way things are kind of generic, kind of flat. At least that's how it looks at first, but there is a lot to it, and some of the art is really cool - even if it's a little inconsistent and obvious where the time and attention went.

It started out pretty much as I expected, I fished for a few little things, got some upgrades so I could go fish for more things, which then allowed me to fish for more things. It isn't entirely too long before the game shows you it has a bit more to offer though, it just gradually submerges you into it's depths.

Maybe my biggest complaint is how it does offer so much, but sometimes just too little. It plays it safe, as many rpgs with mandatory minigames do, and usually makes the special challenges easy an brief, but I would have enjoyed much more from these. There are tons of little extra mini games, and it would have been nice to revisit each of them at least once. Some are so brief they're over before you even have time to fully grasp what you're doing, and consider the game is 20+ hours, there was definitely time I could have spent another minute or two on some of the additional features implemented into the game, even if was something optional.

But in the end I can't complain too much because the game did way more than I ever expected. It played with it's fishing mechanics in a bunch of different ways, the upgrades were generally fun and meaningful. It basically handed you everything you could ask for in the type of game it is. I mean for an RPG - the writing may not be it's strongest asset, a little one note, one dimensional, brief and to the point, but at least you're not getting bogged down with something boring, it just wants you to get into the action and isn't going to waste your time.

You did get a solid bit of "standard" action rpg action mixed in the game, but it's ultimately always going to come back to fishing. The action combat and such isn't necessarily it's best feature, but it's serviceable, does a good job at mixing up gameplay, keeps it fun, and usually applies a new gimmick each time you're faced with it so it does grow dull or repetitive.

I fully 100%ed the game. I thought it might have been over a couple times before wrapping it up, but kept having more to do, and then finally did the actual end-game actual post-credits additional content/challenges, which even those were super worth it to me, and post-game content doesn't always manage to reel me in, to give credit where it's due.