Parents' Guide to Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits

There's something a little fishy about this party game, but then again, that's the point. Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits isn't your run of the mill fishing simulator by any means. Instead, the game combines a silly collection of multiplayer mini-games, button mashing and wrist twisting fishing gameplay, a virtual aquarium filled with a variety of marine creatures, an encyclopedic amount of trivial information, and ties it all together with a light story mode that bluntly hammers home a message about pollution. Basically, it tosses a little bit of everything together into a hodgepodge sort of fish stew with a very distinct flavor.

While offering a lot of different options to players, Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits never gets any of it quite right. The base fishing mechanics have multiple control schemes, including using one-handed, two-handed, or handheld options(with both Joy-Cons attached to the Switch). Unfortunately, this winds up being exhausting when reeling in your line in either one- or two-handed mode, and almost useless in handheld mode. Party mode puts everyone on a level playing field by using the one-handed controls. But since the selection of mini-games here runs the gamut from chaotic fun to mind-numbingly dull, it's hard to gauge how you'll reel a few friends in to play. The Story mode is good for some basic challenges and to earn some extra Medals, which is great considering that the main Arcade mode actually requires players to dump Medals into it for every cast. It boggles the mind that someone thought it was a good idea to seal off the main section of the game unless players run around grabbing obligatory tokens to feed the machine. While the game does occasionally offer up just enough fun to keep from throwing it back, it's still far from a trophy catch.