| | | The full game only came out in Japan, but a year or so later a hastily-localized demo surfaced in the game disc for Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, June 2003 (issue 69), tucked away under the "Extras" section. I've seen the full version in action but the person playing it (mrdriller *cough*) could hardly get through the initial menus and briefings to get to the actual fishing part, so I was hoping that the demo would give some pointers, and even had a tiny hope that they would include the full game.
Well, they didn't--the demo is limited to 15 minutes on a single, rather dull island, with three fishermen to choose from. The fish I've found so far are pretty lame, mostly resembling bits of trash (aluminum cans and baseballs with eyes and lips, to be precise). You get a little guidance in the form of a slapped-together screen showing most of the basic fishing controls, but other than that the whole demo is all Japanese.
If this was the demo they used to test American waters, so to speak, then I can see why they didn't end up releasing the game on these shores. Basically you fly around the island, throw your eletrical line into some point in the water, wiggle the lure up and down until one of the dots on the radar goes for it, press X to jerk the fish out of the water, then crank the right analog stick to reel the fish in and use the left analog stick to follow its movements so that it doesn't break the line. Once you've reeled it all the way in and got it close, press X to catch it. Woo! Then do it all over again with another fish.
Some fish are trickier and require you to make certain dual analog motions before you can capture them, like moving both sticks up and down or right and left together. The requirements seem quite arbitrary, and I found that I had to keep shifting my grip on the controller to switch between the dual-analog motions and the regular line reeling, which was sort of annoying.
You can use captured fish as bait, and in theory different bait are better for catching different fish. Also in theory different fish hang out in different areas of the water around the island. I've only found about a third of the fish, judging by the open lure slots, but I can't say I feel like spending time tossing different lures into different areas of the water to track down the remaining fish.
Hooking fish is pretty basic, and gets old fast. Watching blips on the radar is nowhere near as fun as the trolling action in Sega Bass Fishing 2, for instance, where watching the fish swim around your hook in the gorgeous underwater view was really the main part of the game. Having a custom fishing controller for that game helped too, but I suppose that isn't a fair comparison. :p
There's no way to quit the demo, and when the time runs out you're dumped to the PS2's file browser screen. |
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