Topic: Ultimate Angler Review Mini

[Shaymin]

A quiet, understated experience.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/40114/ultimate-angler-review-mini

The second wave of StreetPass games is an interesting contrast. One game has you bashing in the heads of zombies, the other can help you relax with a round of quiet fishing. Ultimate Angler, developed by the fishing-experienced team at Prope, is the lesser of the two games, but is still a good experience.

The basic gist of the game has you obtaining different kinds of bait based on the shirt color of the Miis you pass. You pick an area to fish in, and the Miis join you in a fishing expedition. Once the fish bites, you jam on the A button to start reeling in the fish, while the reeling itself is done by rapidly rotating the circle pad or spinning on the touchscreen. Once you catch the fish (or jellyfish, boot, or whatever objects come your way) it's graded for size and you get money to buy improvements at the end.

The long term goal is to catch each of the 150 species of fish, so it helps that you can usually pull in at least one fish per piece of bait, so a lot of StreetPasses aren't required. Should you want a lot of help pulling in the larger fish, you can pull a full 10 fishers for 20 Play Coins in a single click, which saves a lot of time. The game will also reward you with shots at rare fish if you tag someone from outside your region, with a better reward if you manage to tag someone outside the country. The rewards for travelling, or taking part in an international StreetPass week, are appreciated.

My chief complaints with the game start with the fact that the international rewards can't be banked. If you get a golden ticket to get to the really rare fish, it's use or lose. Under most circumstances, it's going to take a miracle to see that again, and to buy one takes 50 play coins so taking a shot at the rare fish is going to have a huge cost. There is an attempt at plot, but it felt ham-fisted and just distracts from the actual fishing. The other concern is that the actual reeling in of fish will either wreck your circle pad or put a gash in your bottom screen or screen protector. And don't get distracted when fishing or you can kiss that fish goodbye – it doesn't multitask well.

Ultimate Angler's going to be a fixture in my StreetPass rotation until I get that medal, since it appeals to me in the same way finishing the living National Pokédex does. I just hope I don't wreck my circle pad in the process.