Recent reviews by Tymir

Whats good?

- The most realistically portrayed fish of the popular sims out there
- A good variety of species to go at even at the beginner lake
- Lots of viable tactics to suit any desired play-style
- The best configuration of tackle, lots of freedom and choice

These are definitely some of the best aspects of the game, and it does them better than other popular fishing sims by quite a long way, especially the fish, seeing smaller up to the larger trophy sized versions of the species represented more realistically. This is particularly true for the carp, which in real life, come in many shapes and sizes and this is reflected in game extensively.

The tackle setups are vast and flexible, allowing the player to configure what rig and components they can use without much restriction on combinations. Even to the degree that you can make your own components such as leaders and lures.

Unfortunately, this doesn't outweigh the bad, which really drags this game into the ground.

What's bad?

- Excessively grindy
- Plenty of unrealistic aspects of fish behaviour
- Poor portrayal of tackle strength relative to fish strength
- Slow and restrictive pace
- Aggressive monetisation
- A poorly implemented talent system

I'm no stranger to grinding, in fact, I quite enjoy a lengthy grind. This however, borders on insanity. Catching a fish rewards the player with very, very little, which means you need to do it a lot of times to gather a meaningful amount of experience and currency (Silver in RF4). The fish you're targeting in the earlier levels are very easy to catch and pose no issue, yet the unintended fish you occasionally hook on light tackle absolutely destroy you, which feels punishing. This leads to a very unrewarding and repetitive gameplay loop for many hours. It also means meaningful progression is virtually non existent due to the price of equipment being staggeringly high. I've upgraded my rods once in 111 hours and I'm on the cusp of getting to upgrade to my first set of carp gear, just for something more interesting to do, despite being advised against.

Like most fishing games, they unrealistically represent the strength of tackle vs fish. I fish a lot IRL, mostly targeting carp. I use 5.5kg rated line to land carp to upwards of 15kg without fear, however, using a similar line in RS4 leaves 5kg carp to spool me. This is most likely to serve the grindy progression curve, rather than trying to be a realistic representation if I had to guess.

Every game has a meta and this is no different. There is a best fish to target for experience and silver at different stages of the game and the difference between following the meta vs not is enough that it feels restrictive, but not the end of the world. This is mostly discovered through content creators online and through the RS4 Discord. This had led me to spend the majority of those 111 hours doing 3 different grinds, which is a lot of time to sit doing one thing whilst feeling like you're not making any progress. Also, the game makes 0 effort to put you anywhere close to the meta, and it's almost exclusively externally sourced information, which is also a massive thumbs down. This is mainly due to "hotspots" which are locations that popup and disappear at random. If you're not fishing on a hotspot, it's basically not worth your time, and it's virtually impossible to find them yourself.

As I got towards level 20, I realised that my skills and skill points were overtaking my silver, and the thing holding me back was simply having the money to buy new equipment to make use of the skills and new locations I was unlocking. Within the skill trees/talent system is crafting, specifically crafting baits and groundbait, which are strangely restrictive for such tasks as mixing some ingredients in a bucket or making dough. However, they also take a lot of your time and silver, as fish require certain baits to be caught efficiently.

This together with the previous points, sums up to feel like a sluggish and unpolished experience, as there's just nothing rewarding about progressing in this system, simply punishing the player for not having certain things, and milestones instead feel like breadcrumbs to a starving man. Just not enough for the time I've invested. This follows into the aggressive monetisation. It's likely the game is supposed to feel this horrid to get you to both subscribe with premium to gain more experience and skill-ups (which exacerbates the pacing disparity) and purchase large quantities of gold coins to catch-up with gear, both of which are vastly overpriced for the quality of game development present in this product. For context, this many hours into Fishing Planet, I had an extensive range of tackle and were almost at the endgame.

Improvement Suggestions

Like a lot of games, this really is only some tuning knobs away from being really quite good. Developers need to make money and I'm not opposed to simply making premium solve a lot of these problems, which it doesn't right now.

- Vast reduction in upfront tackle cost, like rods and reels. Slight increase in consumable costs. This would allow players to access higher level content whilst also still needing to spend a fair bit to keep fishing in these areas.
- Fish signs. Fizzers, jumps, rolls, shows and such over hotspots to guide the player to the fish without them having to watch a YouTube video. These can be subtle, but in-game indication is key and is more realistic.
- Premium increases silver earned by a considerable amount (~50%). This stops the progression disparity.
- Narrow the gap in fish strength to make tackle more versatile. You shouldn't be able to catch catfish on light float gear, but you should certainly be able to catch 5kg carp on the first feeder rods.

Right now, I'm approximately 35 hours off of finishing my first basic carp setup, which is just insane considering I've basically b-lined to it. Despite this being a sub-optimal route, I will likely play sparingly to try and achieve this just to see what's next and adjust the review accordingly if it happens to be better than thought.

As of writing this, I can't recommend this game to a new player. There are better overall experiences out there that simply respect your time more. Whilst they don't peak in the same aspects, their lows are nowhere near as drastic as RF4's.