Fishing Ducks

Genre: Arcade / Sports (Fishing)

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local)

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Review:

Fishing Ducks is an Arcade-style Fishing game released in 2022 on Nintendo Switch that imitates a carnival game where players fish rubber ducks out of a tub using a fishing pole with a magnetic “hook”. Players aim to pull out the ducks as quickly as possible.

The presentation here uses decent but unimpressive colorful 3D visuals, backed by ragtime-style piano music that’s… well, interesting, I guess. Honestly, for a game priced at $4, this isn’t bad, but it’s definitely nothing noteworthy.

The gameplay presents players with a tub full of rubber ducks, which are all slowly moving around. Players control the game using a single Joy-Con controller, using the analog stick to move a horizontal cursor and then using gyroscopic motion controls to “cast” their line, then using the analog stick again to move around a cursor very slowly until they connect with the head of a rubber duck. Then, they need to pull up on the Joy-Con controller, trying to use just the right amount of force to hit a spot on the bar that means you succeed. Don’t use enough force and you need to try again. Use too much and you “break the line” and leave a magnet on the duck’s head and need to start over from the beginning, with the remaining magnet making your next attempt easier.

Okay, so already a lot to unpack here. Making players go back and forth between using the analog stick and motion controls feels forced and unnatural, especially when the Joy-Con could have been used as a pointer to aim instead. It seems particularly frustrating when you miss and need to move your cursor, which moves molasses-slow, and you’re denied the option to pick up your pole and just try again.

Also, the amount of force you’re meant to be using with the motion controls is really difficult to gauge, and I found myself struggling to “cast” at a distance that wasn’t full-power. More often, I would either cast so lightly that the Joy-Con controller wouldn’t detect my motion, or it would detect it and it would be at full strength.

Also, we need to talk about the “trap duck”. Every now and then, you’ll encounter a duck that you’re not meant to catch. There are no outward signs of this, it’s just luck of the draw. When you snag it with your fishing line, you’re presented with a meter that refuses to allow you to let it go until you pull up using juuuuust the right amount of strength. Given how imprecise and difficult this game’s motion controls are, this is extremely frustrating. There’s no option to turn this off.

I also need to talk about the lack of options here. You can play against the clock, or against another human player, and that’s it. There’s no way to play against a bot, no variety in game modes or types, apart from selecting the number of ducks you’ll be fishing for.

Overall, I do like the concept of Fishing Ducks, but the implementation is absolutely terrible. The motion controls don’t work well enough for what the game is demanding of them, and those motion controls are used in odd ways that don’t make sense, with the use of the analog stick seeming completely unnecessary and making the game more tedious. There’s a lack of options to add depth or replay here, and… yeah, whoever came up with that trap duck, I want you to know that I don’t like you. And I certainly don’t recommend playing this game.

tl;dr – Fishing Ducks is an Arcade-style Fishing game where players are trying to use magnetic fishing poles to pull rubber ducks out of a tub. The concept here isn’t bad, but the execution is terrible, with bad motion controls that seem poorly-designed for what you’re trying to do, a lack of content and options, and an infuriating “trap duck” that can’t be turned off and makes the game even more frustrating. Don’t buy this.

Grade: D

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