Hooking The Big One

Give the sorely underrated Fish Boy a chance to entertain you.

By Han Wei Chou • UrbanWire
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Overview
Every once in while, you get a cool, innovative game released into the market. Fish Boy (called U-Oh in Japanese) is such a game. Compared to heavyweight games like Samurai Warriors and Final Fantasy X , Fish Boy may seem simplistic and even childish. However, Sony Computer Entertainment and Sega-Wow's (of Shinobi fame) latest offering is both colourful and funny. Fish Boy returns us to a time when simple and fun games (like Pac-Man) were our staple.

Fish Tales
In the game, you play as Fish Boy, a fish summoned by Grandpa Kappa. (Basically a kappa is a Japanese river spirit that is sometimes malevolent but is also immensely courteous and trustworthy.) In investigating an evil presence that has tainted the waterways, Fish Boy must meet with the Guardians of each river and lake to gain their Guardian Stone. Only by collecting all the stones will the mystery of the tainted waterways be revealed. In your journeys, you’ll encounter many colourful characters like a forgetful salamander, a gold-crazy goldfish and the zany platypus brothers sort of like in the movie Finding Nemo.

Fishy Business
Life isn’t easy when you’re a small fish in a fish-eat-fish world. To survive, Fish Boy has to feed on all sorts of prey. These range from small crabs and fish to more exotic fare like cave salamanders. Every one of these edible creatures behaves in a unique way, some run once they spot you while others hide in abandoned tin cans to evade you. Furthermore, prey that you feast on will be entered into a “prey log” much like the “Pokedex” in Pokemon. The log is thoroughly researched. If you ate a Christmas Crab for example, the log will show you all sorts of facts about the real creature, ranging from what it eats to how it breeds, making this an educational game in basic marine biology. There are over 100 types of prey for Fish Boy to “chew on” in the game, making it both fun and challenging to complete the “prey log”.

Being a glutton and eating every creature in sight will definitely expand your “prey log”, but that would make it too simple. Mixed up with all the prey are fishermen’s lures, so if you aren’t careful, you might get hooked and have to struggle free. Try breaking his line or unhooking yourself before you become sushi. If you do manage to snap his line, you’ll get another collectible: the lure itself. These lures are entered into a “lure log”. Again, there are about 80 lures to wrest from the fishermen. This battle with the fishermen is quite innovative, because we have loads of fishing games, but seldom do we play as the fish.

When you’re not ducking fishermen, you’re trying not to land up as dinner for larger fish. The catch to countering this is to slap them with your tail and, incredible as it sounds, eat them, if your abilities are developed well enough. You can improve these by collecting Magic Scale scattered throughout the game. They may be hard to find at first, but collecting all of them will develop Fish Boy to a point where he rules the waters. It feels great to backtrack later in the game and seek revenge on all those Snakeheads and Piranhas that tried to eat you before. Even the fishermen stand no chance of hooking you successfully as you can break their lines with ease.

Sight and Sounds
Fish Boy has crisp, colourful visuals that are sure to please. Hardly a single jagged polygon can be seen in the game, it is just that polished. The music is also exceptional. Lively string arrangements accompany you on your journey through fast rivers, while jazzy tunes fill your trips through passive lakes. You come to expect nothing less from Sony and Sega, 2 of the best game developers around.

Replayability
This is probably the Achilles’ Heel in an otherwise excellent game. The game is fun, but collecting a full set of lures and prey doesn’t give any substantial rewards, it’s just not worth that much effort. The game is also pretty easy, in-game puzzles aren’t that tough to crack and you can easily outrun the larger predators. There’s nothing much to go back to after finishing it the first time round.

Verdict
Fun and enjoyable, Fish Boy will be great for people who just enjoy a simple game. More sophisticated gamers would probably blow through this game in 2 weeks. However, with great graphics and fresh gameplay concepts, Fish Boy is still a game that really deserves your attention, a highly entertaining, if sadly, short joyride.

4 out of 5 stars

Fish Boy is in Japanese with a Mandarin interface. However, it is simple enough to just pick up and play. If you have an NTSC/J PS2, you most definitely want to grab this game, which is available now for $81 at V8 movies #03-14/22 Parco Bugis Junction.