Go! Fish Go!

Genre: Auto-Runner

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Extreme Speed Bundle Go! Fish Go! Adrenaline Rush, Jet Ski Rush along with Adrenaline Rush – Miami Drive and Jet Ski Rush. It is also included in 15 in 1 Family Games Mega Collection along with all of the aforementioned games plus 2048 Battles, Airborne Grannies, Bubble Cats Rescue, Classic Games Collection Vol. 1, Classic Games Collection Vol. 2, Flowlines VS, Go Kart Mania, Klondike Solitaire, Ludomania, Pet Shop Snacks, Pocket Foosball, and Quick Golf.)

Go! Fish Go! is a behind-the-character Auto-Runner in the same vein as games like the Temple Run series. For those unfamiliar with this sort of game, players are constantly moving forward on a path dodging obstacles left and right and collecting coins and other pickups, with the goal being less about trying to get to the end so much as simply surviving as long as possible.

Visually, this game looks pretty good. It has a nice, cartoony art style that serves it well, characters are expressive and well-animated, there’s a good framerate and resolution, and overall this actually looks pretty solid for a game genre that made its name on the mobile platform (though this game specifically seems to be a Nintendo Switch exclusive). It’s not going to floor anyone with its visuals, and in fact those who can tear their eyes away from the fast-paced action will note the fog in the distance shrouding things, as well as a strange visual effect that distorts the oncoming path in one direction or another as it shifts directions, but still overall this still looks very nice.

The sound also works very well here, with some catchy energetic music, nice noises for some of the objects that fly by you such as ducks quacking at you or steamboats chugging, and the pickup noise for nabbing coins is also quite nice.

In terms of gameplay, I can tell you this this game does a great job building a feeling of “just let me try one more time” that you tend to look for in this sort of game. There’s enough variety in the obstacles you encounter to keep it from getting boring, without so much that it gets confusing. In addition to ducking left or right into one of three oncoming “lanes”, players can also jump, dive down, or make use of power-ups that are either earned in-game or purchased in-between rounds using the coins you’ve nabbed (don’t worry, no microtransactions here, just an optional $1 character expansion).

The game has both standard controls as well as touchscreen controls, and they both work well enough, but I tend to think that the traditional controls are far easier to work with than using the touchscreen. However, to each their own, I suppose.

There is one other complaint I have here – the fish you’re controlling lags behind your commands a bit, meaning that even after you tell him to get out of a lane, he still may end up slamming into an obstacle in that lane in the time it takes him to move over. This isn’t a major deal since you can just incorporate it into your play, but it does make it frustrating when you die not because you’re too slow, but because your damn fish was.

Still, for what it is, Go! Fish Go! Is surprisingly solid. I mean, we’re talking about a $2 game here, and while it’s not the sort of game you’re likely to play for hours on end, if you want to kill a few minutes in a waiting room or something, there are far worse ways to do it.

tl;dr – Go! Fish Go! Is an Auto-Runner in the style of Temple Run, and for a $2 game it does a pretty good job with the genre, with nice fast-paced cartoony visuals and some solid “let me just give this one more try” gameplay. It’s a tad frustrating that your character’s movement lags behind your controls, making for occasional deaths that don’t feel like they’re your fault. However, overall this is a decent time-waster.

Grade: B-

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