Nice Day for Fishing by developer FusionPlay and published by Team17—Sony PlayStation 5 review written by Nick with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Nice Day for Fishing is one of those titles that is likely to develop a strong cult following for the property it’s based on, more so than the game itself. That’s not to say that the game is not entertaining, as I did enjoy it – especially at first. However, it is fair to question how well the game would hold up based strictly on its own gameplay merits.
To start, it’s worth talking about the inspiration for Nice Day for Fishing. Viva La Dirt League has been a popular YouTube channel for over a decade now, with its creators lampooning a variety of topics ranging from office antics to overly aggressive shooting games and much more. Often times their skits take place in some sort of established world, such as the one where they operate out of a Play Tech store, showing a variety of mismanagement and employee antics.
One of their most popular scenarios is Epic NPC Man, set in the world of Skycraft (a clear World of Warcraft knockoff) where they make fun of a variety of topics, not the least of which are the NPCs. Back in 2021 they gave a bit more life to one of these NPCs, Baelin – through a crowdfunded YouTube short film called Baelin’s Route: An Epic NPC Man Adventure. The key shtick here is that the Baelin character (played by Rowan Bettjeman), tends to walk a preset path within the game repeating the same lines of dialog that basically consist of ‘Nice day for fishing’ and a laugh.
Why all of this background information? Well for one, I personally find their channel and sketches to be very entertaining the majority of the time. As such, I am admitting outright that I am the target audience for this game. Take a lightweight RPG and infuse it with some humor from a comedy channel that I enjoy, and we should have the recipe for a great game. The truth of the matter is, I found Nice Day for Fishing to be charming and entertaining, but some of the things that Viva La Dirt League like to make fun of in their sketches, like fetch quests and padded gameplay start to become actual elements of the game.
Things start off with a pretty zany, funny story as the MMO Skycraft game sees something catastrophic happen. As a result, the actual human players get punted from the server and has a direct impact on Baelin. The one-time NPC fisherman now has player-like traits such as the ability to take quests and level up. Still, Baelin makes for a pretty odd protagonist as he is simply a fisherman, which makes saving their digital world something of a stretch.
These early stages of Nice Day for Fishing fare the best, as many of the familiar voice actors and scenarios will resonate with fans (cry.wav and retrieving the blacksmith’s hammer from the well repeatedly are excellent callbacks to the series). The bits that are voice acted (portal awaaaaaaaay!) never fail to bring a smile to my face. If there is a missed opportunity here, there was probably room for more voice acting throughout the game to make it a more authentic VLDL experience, but what is there is still quite amusing.
The gameplay structure is also pretty clever, using Baelin’s fishing as the entire way to advance the plot. Need to build an incredible axe? Fish for the parts. Need to help a person recover? Fish for the ingredients for the cure. Even the boss battles incorporate elements of fishing as an attack. Gameplay elements get layered on top steadily during the opening hours as fishing becomes a stand-in for combat. Hook a fish (with the right bait), and it will try to get away. This can impact the ‘health’ of your fishing line. Gain skills / spells later that use stamina to improve your odds (harder ‘pulls’ of the rod, for example, that do bonus damage to the hooked fish). To prevent the loss of life to your fishing line, you can hold a block button to lower the damage or hey – a well-timed parry can completely negate it. You earn money and buy fishing rods and clothing to equip that raises your stats and makes it possible to catch more challenging fish.
It's a pretty standard RPG gameplay loop that works well and is pretty cleverly dressed up by the game’s theme and presentation. Music’s perfectly good, the visuals have a retro throwback that won’t test your gaming hardware but looks clean and fits the old school feel of the game.
Where the gameplay starts to get long in the tooth is after I got about a dozen hours into Nice Day for Fishing. Fresh references to the source material are fewer and further between, and the gameplay mechanics fail to add fresh new layers. The whimsical adventure begins to feel somewhat padded with fetch quest after fetch quest, or a bit of extra grinding to catch fish for money and experience plus lots of backtracking. There aren’t really all that many original areas, and as such the gameplay requires you to trek over very well-trodden ground to advance things. I was still invested enough to see things through and I am glad that I did – I enjoyed Nice Day for Fishing by and large. However, it is only fair to call out that the enjoyment did have diminishing returns over time.
Fans of Viva La Dirt League will undoubtedly get more out of Nice Day for Fishing than anyone else. As one myself, I had a hoot with the game, especially during the early hours as I took in the numerous funny references. Even if you are not a fan of theirs, but you enjoy an RPG with retro aesthetics mixed with a bit of goofy humor and unique mechanics, there’s fun to be had here. However, it is a bit of a shame that the game seems to fall into the same tropes that the team frequently makes fun of in their sketches, and by the end I found myself having enjoyed the adventure – but I was not pining for more either.
Score: 7 / 10
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