Every waterway requires a license to fish in it, and two types of licenses are available: Basic and Advanced. The speed at which you gain money is good because you will be required to spend it regularly. I don’t have the exact numbers, but it feels like you acquire XP and money at a rate that is roughly four times as fast as the original Fishing Planet. The game’s economy is largely similar to the freemium version of the game, but the exhausting grind has been reduced thanks to increased XP and currency bonuses awarded for every type of fish you successfully pull in. Most things are purchased with the regular in-game currency, while certain types of tackle and equipment are only available by redeeming Baitcoins. In The FIsherman, literally everything you do comes at a price. Each time you level up, you unlock the ability to buy new equipment from the impressive in-game shop and new waterways will become available for use. Catching fish and completing objectives award a combination of XP, regular currency, and potentially Baitcoins. When you first start, a tutorial guides you through the basics of angling and how to assemble equipment and catch fish in the initial location, a private pond in Texas. On the surface, it sounds like a pretty sweet deal, and it largely delivers on that promise, but much of the content is gated behind a premium currency known as Baitcoin that was carried over from the freemium version of the game.

This title began life as a freemium PC game by the name of Fishing Planet and now The Fisherman gathers up all the content and development progress made on the original project and offers it up for an all-inclusive price. Online play, leaderboards, and tournaments are all part of the package, neatly rounding out the impressive feature set for The Fisherman. The setup is simple - travel the world and try your hand at angling across nearly twenty different waterways that hold more than a hundred different species of fish and get the job done with a seemingly endless supply of licensed tackle and equipment. The Fisherman - Fishing Planet truly nails some of the best parts of fishing but is ultimately crippled by a few quirks and an inability to shed its roots as a freemium game. Turning an activity that could leave you sitting in a boat for hours on end with no action can be tough to translate into an engaging gaming experience, but the folks at Fishing Planet LLC have taken a stab at it and ended up with some interesting results.

While they’ve always been a niche product, fishing games have existed as long as the video game medium.

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