• Price: $19.99 USD
• Developer: FusionPlay
• Publisher: Team17
• Release Date: May 29, 2025

A review code was kindly provided by Team17 on behalf of FusionPlay. We thank them for allowing us to cover something they’ve worked so hard on.

Content warning: rated T. Minor swearing.

I’ve only gone fishing once in my life, and I’ve gotta say that I vastly prefer fishing in video games for multiple reasons. Adding to the catalog of fishing games, the minds behind sketch comedy troupe Viva La Dirt League have created a comedic fantasy fishing RPG that has now dropped anchor on Switch. ⚓️

The game takes place in the World of Azerim, which seems to be a location in a MMORPG. One day someone accidentally frees a Dark Lord who’s been sealed away for thousands of years. He destroys the village of Honeywood, and all of the players have vanished; Baelin the fisherman NPC is turned into an Adventurer character to make up for their absence. Now he’s capable of accepting quests from the NPCs in his hometown of Honeywood.

Your objective is to help rebuild the village and eventually confront the Dark Lord. Catch some fish to feed the villagers, and use your fishing rod to fish up materials. When you hook a fish, they won’t come quietly; they’ll switch between “pull and relax” phases, attacking you in one phase and becoming more passive in the other.

Baelin has a stamina gauge and a health gauge, and when the fish attacks you you’ll have to block or parry their attack to reduce the damage to your HP gauge. The edges of the screen switch from blue to red and back to let you know when it’s safe to attack. You can sacrifice some stamina to use spells that will decrease the fish’s HP and/or cause a status effect such as bleeding.

You get to use healing spells and items, but fish don’t get to use spells until their rage meter fills up from your attacks. If you aren’t careful and continue attacking in a fish’s attack phase, you’ll lose more and more HP. When your HP meter is depleted, you lose the fish and have to try and catch them again.

I do like how we start with full stamina and HP gauges for each fish battle instead of having to worry about healing before fishing again. You earn experience for each fish you catch, and leveling up increases Baelin’s stats.

There are some areas where you’ll need some sort of rod upgrade to catch the fish there, whether it’s a longer line or a light that lets you see the fish in the depths of the water. You’ll acquire certain upgrades as part of the main storyline, but you can also purchase new rods from a shop in the village.

Other shops offer potions, accessories, and cute hats that improve your stats and make you look good! At first I thought the shops just ran out of items to sell, but eventually you can upgrade shops to access new inventory.

Once you’re strong enough – and have the proper equipment – you can go and catch a bunch of new fish. Use the right bait and take advantage of the water currents to manipulate the position of the fishing line.

If you catch all 5 fish in an area the Light God of the Seas will teach you a new spell. And you’ll need better spells to defeat the bosses, who are different in that they don’t really have clear, separate attack and defense phases. Instead, you’ll have to use your best judgment on when to attack and when to defend. Bosses also have stronger attacks and magical abilities.

I liked a lot of the ideas in Nice Day for Fishing, but I will say that I don’t think it offers enough variety in terms of the gameplay. Using the exact same strategies to fish every time got a little tedious for me.

The concept is good, and I appreciated a lot of elements in the game. The graphics are charming, and I liked the fish designs. Dialogue is partially voiced, and they did a good job with the soundtrack, with soothing music for the moments between tense confrontations with the fish.

I think the dialogue was often entertaining, although it could get somewhat repetitive with the jokes sometimes. It’s all very silly with its video game humor, and I found Baradun the sorcerer rather amusing despite his condescending remarks. I loved the Pokémon reference as well.

Nice Day for Fishing is a decent fishing game that offers a fairly wide variety of fish. They managed to squeeze a lot of regions into a small map. If you don’t mind some repetition, it could be a nice addition to your collection of fishing games.