Nice Day for Fishing Review
Viva La Dirt League’s first official game is a side-scrolling fishing RPG.
Nice Day for Fishing. FusionPlay / Team17
Nice Day for Fishing from FusionPlay and publisher Team17 is a sidescrolling fishing RPG based on New Zealand sketch comedy troupe Viva La Dirt League’s YouTube videos, specifically their series of MMORPG parody videos. The end product is an accessible RPG with more depth than you might expect from the source material.
Baelin is a humble fisherman in the starting village of Honeywood in the MMORPG land of Azerim. He’s an NPC with a single line of dialogue, which is literally all he’s capable of saying as he goes about his day.
“Mornin’! Nice day for fishin’, ain’t it? Hua ha!”
The local quest-giving wizard accidentally releases an imprisoned god hellbent on destroying Azerim, while triggering a bug that makes all the adventurers—the players—vanish, leaving no one to stop the evil… except for Baelin, who the glitch gave the ability to accept quests. Lucky for Baelin, every problem in this questline can be solved by fishing.
Baelin can run, jump, and cast his line. A growing variety of hooks and baits allows him to catch fish, salvage objects, break down barriers, and more. Catching a fish is a battle. Once you hook one, you must alternate between reeling in to “damage” the fish and pausing to block or parry when the fish pulls back, otherwise your line will take damage and eventually break. You can cast spells using your stamina to deal additional damage, buff yourself, or inflict status effects. Items are usable mid-battle and become crucial by the end of the game. Boss fights work like fishing, but with three phases and against an opponent with far higher HP.
Nice Day for Fishing. FusionPlay / Team17
The combat starts out easy but becomes challenging, perhaps too steeply near the tail end of the game. Timing blocks becomes difficult with high-level fish, and a single slip-up quickly leads to your line breaking if you don’t juggle your spells and items correctly. Bait seems plentiful at first, but items cost bait, and if you’re low, running around to pick up more is a bit of a grind.
Baelin can buy new fishing poles, hats, rings, and amulets in Honeywood. The villagers’ homes can be upgraded, and each time you do so by bringing the right materials to the woodcutter, the residents will have better goods to sell you. It’s nice to see the town get built up.
Nice Day for Fishing. FusionPlay / Team17
Like an MMO, the errands you get sent on are just about all fetch quests. Catch X number of Y fish, etc. I wish the quest design was a little more creative, especially since the size of Baelin’s world is very small and you return to each area again and again.
Nice Day for Fishing’s graphics are unremarkable 16-bit pixel art. They do the job, but don’t elevate the game in any way, making it visually plain. The sound design and music aren’t memorable either. You’d notice their absence, but that’s it.
Nice Day for Fishing. FusionPlay / Team17
The game is around 15 hours long, unless you spend a few more hours collecting and upgrading everything. By the end, I began to get a bit bored of the game because the fishing got tedious. Nice Day for Fishing doesn’t do enough to mix up its gameplay and mechanics, even with the upgrades to spells and hook types. At the same time, the story doesn’t go much further than its premise, remaining shallow without any significant character development or plot development. As they stand, the gameplay mechanics only take the game so far and aren’t enough to carry through to the end without a narrative compelling enough to carry me through the game.
Nice Day for Fishing is available now on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch.
Overall Score: 6/10
Played on: PS5
