Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Dec 16, 2021

  I wanted to support this game a lot, it was a great concept and an enjoyable grind that was just a relaxing commercial fishing game but it was never really finished. Trawler fishing is so bugged as to be nearly unplayable, controls often do nothing or the opposite of what they say. Late game items are really unpolished and there is a lot of annoying bugs that pop up. I was more than willing to accept these until the developers basically abandoned this game to focus on the Fishing North Atlantic game. If you can't be bothered to finish what you started I can't be bothered to give your game a thumbs up rating.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 9, 2023

  It is more on the "chill" side of games, as opposed to the most adrenaline/dopamine inducing, and thereby addictive ones. And for that, it is a great complementer. The key to this game is patience and timing. Most of the mini-games in it are very easy, but require concentration and paying attention. Even a good training for those with an ADD brain:) At the same time it can be quite challenging, especially when you try positioning your ship to the pick-up locations in windy weather (high waves). Each ship in it (that I tried) have a different movement on the water, how their size, weight (also influenced by the amount of cargo you have at the point) influences how they respond to acceleration/deceleration or turning. Quite an interesting challenge I find. The various fishing options (baited longlines, nets, two different crabbing ways (DLC) or trawling) provide interesting variance in how you can choose when, where, for what and how you fish to optimize reaching the different quotas for different species of your ship - without overfishing the various spots. You can also skip the minigames later, if you hire employees to doing them. The crabbing DLC I do suggest to add, as it comes with interesting new mechanics and ships. On the down-side, when you try doing the math between distance, time and speed (as you want to pick up your lines/nets/traps at the sweetspot) it just does not work, there is a complete mismatch between how fast your ship says it is going, and what distance it covers in what time (on the magnitude of 10-20 times). Similarly in how fast your employees it says are working does not correspond with the amount of work they do in the time they take. While I understand that gameplay was more important than accuracy for the devs, I find it annoying and quite a sloppy way how they did not look for a better resolution. Also, anchoring and waiting at sea seems to be a simple (and needed) opportunity missed... But the game is playable, if you find an alternative way to estimate when you'd arrive to the various points on the map. All in all, an interesting, chill-out game to have in the library.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 9, 2018

  This is not for people who have purchased the game, but for those who feel they would like the game. It seems to be getting more and more common for companies to release games as a finished product, that are in no way finished. I find this trend to be both bad business and bordering on dishonest at best. The excuse some will give is that it is only just released, and yet i find that no excuse at all for the crashes, the bugs and the lack of content within this game. If a game is a full release devs should not be posting about yes they want to add more content in the future, the content should be there. This is another pre release pretending to be a complete game, it can be enjoyable for a time, but not a lot of time. It may become a better game if the devs do work on it, but do not buy this product thinking it is a complete game. GPU use is through the roof for many, crashes within game are frequent for many, after 10 hours a large number of people are complaining about being bored by very repetative game play with long periods of having to watch vids to pass time.... It is not FS17, it is not Truck driving sim, where you are repeating but doing, it is a lot of nothing interupted by the same action over and over. If this was a pre release alpha i could except it for what it is and enjoy what is there so far, but i will not thumbs up a full release game that just isnt! 5 month on and the game is still exactly where it was with a whole new set of bugs, the devs seem incapable of actually turning this full release into any sort of finishe state despite the 5 months since release.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 10, 2018

  A game with great potential - but which is hopelessly ill thought out. It is actually entertaining at first, but it will become needlessly grindy in no time because of the progression system, which is the main flaw with the game. Other cons include the fact that despite the "Simulator" legacy of being an Astragon production, I would be surprised if the developers have spent much time on an actual boat or ship. The physics are poor, to say the least. For example - the boat will easily steer without throttle on the engine as long as the boat moves. GTA V has this particular dynamic featured way more realistically - and again, this is supposed to be a simulator. Other consequences of the poor physics is the phenomenon where the boat will be thrown out of the water in relatively small swells in coastal waters if it speed drops to 0 knots. Another gem of lazyness by developers is apparant when for instance dropping fishing lines. This can only be done below a certain speed, which is fine. However, they have tackled this by putting a limit on the max throttle. This makes absolutely no sense and can create a situation where the smallest boat if already loaded and dropping a fishing line will have a lot of difficulty moving if the speed before dropping the line is close to zero. Then there are the just stupid inconsistencies like the speed of the boat being indicated in knots (which is correct), but the distance covered in the progression system is in kilometers, not nautical miles - which you know, is what any sound person who has at least 5 minutes of experience as a seafarer would measure distance at sea in. The progression system does of course also deserve a comment. In order to acquiring larger and better ships in the game you need to unlock them by covering a certain distance. Most people will find themselves using fast travel to get around the map and only navigating doing the "challenging" stuff in the game. But in order to keep you playing for a bit longer you have to wait - watching as the boat travels, for hours on end in order to unlock. As an example: the next tier of fishing vessel after the boat you start using is unlocked after 35 km of sea travel. As that starting boat will travel at around 13 knots at best, you're looking at around 87 mins of waiting just for the second tier. TL:DR; A game that could have been great, but which was obviously made in a hurry to launch with attention to detail, testing and just plain old consideration being a secondary priority at best.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 10, 2018

  Updated March 10,2018 @ 2:00AM CST [i] All information here is still accurate and represents my views on the game. I still believe the game is good and I enjoyed it while I played it. I hope everyone else will have the nice experience that I did. :) [/i] I will preface this with my specs: i7-6700HQ GTX 1060 Samsung 1TB 850 EVO 16GB DDR4 2333Mhz I have not had ONE crash in my 20+ hours, almost 7 of that being in 1 straight session, have not had RAM usage over 6GB, have not had GPU usage over 80% and not had CPU usage over 60%. I play in medium-high settings with bloom disabled. The game doesn't look like it belongs on a 4k tv, but it looks pretty decent for a game that I paid 18 bucks for. I wasn't expecting a mona lisa, I was expecting some crappy looking fishing boats that did what they were supposed to do, which was fish, and they really don't look all that bad. Now onto the game itself. The game can get broken down into 5 parts (at least for pre-trawler gameplay). -Laying down fishing lines or nets -Travelling to new locations and exploring the map -Managing your boat, upgrading it, repair and refuel, etc. -Managing your markets, knowing where to sell specific fish, etc. -Hauling in fish, gutting, freezing, packaging, etc. The first 2 are fairly self explanatory. You buy lines or nets, you place them in spots with fish. You travel to new locations, you discover new ports, now you can fast travel in the discovered areas of the map. As far as boat management goes, repairing and refueling is fairly cheap, but you need to watch your money and determine when it's more economical to save your cash to buy a new boat, and when it's better to upgrade certain parts, as the total amount in upgrades on a couple of them is almost the cost of a new boat. Markets are really easy to keep track of if you just read the in game wiki and know when certain fish are in season and travel to all the ports early to see where fish sell the best and worst. As far as hauling in fish goes, it's relatively simple and easy to learn, with lines you time your clicks to get bonuses on your catch, with nets you press WASD when the keys appear on screen (nets are so much easier and catch a ton more fish). After that you gut the fish manually if you're on a smaller boat which takes practice, but it isn't too hard. You just move your mouse up or down depending on the circles to counter the movement of the knife, and cut along the bottom of the fish. Once you hit your Tier 3 boat you'll have the option to buy a machine gutter which a crew member can operate and you'll also have the option to freeze and package your catch so you can stay at sea longer without your catch spoiling (very usefull when you're going for max profit off a catch and selling different fish at different harbours). At the end of the day this game cost 18 USD. It has decent graphics, I've had 0 issues with the game, and I've never had a crash. I'm on a laptop, have no FPS issues, runs at about a solid 50-55 with the worst drops (when I'm watching HULU or Netflix while playing) at around 38-40. I think the game is worth the money, especially if the devs plan on adding more content like new ships, locations, etc. I think people need to look more into what they're buying, go on YouTube and look up some gameplay, and see what the game actually is like before purchasing it. This game really reminds me of Gold Rush: The Game since it's a very niche game that has it's quirk, isn't meant to be the end all game of it's type, but is meant to appeal to a specific market. Don't come into this game thinking it's going to be like fishing planet, or "Dank Boat Simulator 2018". It's a commercial fishing game that centers around growing your pocket by fishing in the sea and then the open ocean and it can be monotonous or difficult at times, but is it worth 18 dollars? To me, yeah it is. I'm gonna get my money's worth out of this game and I'm enjoying playing it. Buy it, try it for an hour, and if you like it for the hour, you'll like it for 20-30 easily, if you didn't, then refund it because you won't. After all, it's your money and only you can decide whether a game is worth it or not. TL;DR Good niche commercial fishing game, 5 ships, 5 fish types, game can either be super easy or moderately difficult depending on how much min/maxing you're willing to do with markets at each harbour. Seasonal catch system, yearly quotas, fishing minigames for each haul. Okay graphics, decent audio. 7/10 Crabs. Do I recommend this game? Tentatively yes. Go watch some gameplay, buy it, play it for an hour. If you like it, keep it.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 19, 2018

  Silky: Being on the water. Rough: Too simple. [h1]Fishing... for a quick buck[/h1] I thought Fishing: Barents Sea would fill a nice sim niche and I was hooked on the idea of progressing to ever bigger boats in ever expanding seas. I was hooked on the concept of finding my way from a rowing boat to a factory ship, gathering my knowledge, my marks, my crew and my gear. But... it didn't turn out like that. Somewhere between what the devs clearly wanted and what the publisher allowed, this thing fell into a shallow puddle. I started with "Grandpa's" old wooden ketch and an undiscovered sea, a few dollars in my pocket and ready to do the hard yards. I putt out of the bay and I'm met with a blue/purple circles which are supposed to be where the fish are. This was my first disappointment and it remained throughout the game. There's no need to talk to anyone, to gain knowledge, to look, to learn, to record. None of that. They're right there, the fish. Just drive around until you see the patches. Put fishing gear on patch. Catch fish. Catching the fish was interesting enough. You set your longlines (or later, gill nets), wait 20 something hours and haul them in with a quite fun mechanic that grows on you when you get used to it. Unfortunately, the waiting period literally requires sitting it out or driving back to port (you can "fast travel"), docking and running a clock timer to jump to a time ahead. You can't do this at sea, you have to drive home first. This got terribly annoying after a while and you literally start playing click fest just to get back to the lines/nets. Horribly implemented. After catching the fish, a quirky "Octodad" like mechanic is needed to gut the fish. Fortunately it didn't seem to make THAT much difference to the price. You only have to do 1 or 2 cuts per species (even if you have 5 tonne of fish) and after a while you can have a crewmen and he'll do it for you anyway. Missions. Early game these are valuable to earning easy money, finding more "fishing circles" and generally discovering the map, sometimes at an excrutiating sub 10 knots. Presumably to prevent cheesing of missions, there is no fast travel on missions and if you make the mistake of getting 2 ports miles and miles apart, get ready for a lengthy period of drivng in a straight line, doing... nothing. If you can manage to lay or bring in some nets along the way then good luck to you. Crew. Interesting dynamic here. 9 different skills that accumulate over time and they become important from early on all the way to end game. They're bought initially and catch percentage is the required pay method. Which is neat. Due to some horrid, as yet unexplained bug though, I lost 3 very highly skilled crew right before my big trawler purchase and this really set me back on fish processing time. If you change back to a boat with a lower crew requirement, you have to "fire" your guys and hire them back later - which would be OK if you could get the same trained crew back. (But remember the 3 highly skilled guys I lost? Never found them again, in any town on the map.) The boats. Again, interesting early game making the progression up but with only 3 boats using line/net and ultimately the 2 big trawlers, the variety is limited. The "upgrades" for the first 3 boats are storage space, engine size and "radar" (gotta' find those purple circles people). But it's essentially grind up your fish, get the upgrades, grind a little less. Rinse and repeat until you get the trawlers. Now I was really hanging out for the trawlers and to some extent they looked like they were going to do amazing things but failed in pursuit of casuality (or budget constraints). Initially trawling might be confusing but after a while, driving out to the marked area called "open sea" (why!?) setting the trawl net and essentially chasing the fish with left and right and up and down gets same old' quickly too. Fill boat, drive home, drive back, fill boat. Again, no knowledge of location, timing, depth, season etc. is worth bothering with. The biggest boat, the mighty endgame Hermes, is doing the exact same thing but adds the machine gutting, freezing and stacking you had earlier on the longline/gill net boats (rememeber that crew training?) so it doesn't ADD anything to the game, just more of the same. No new skills, nothing harder, no new fish... nothing. tbh, pretty disappointed with the lack of depth (pun intended). With the mechanics seemingly in place for a much fuller game, I get the impression some great guys had a great idea and in reaching out for developing/publishing help, got it dumbed down to make budget/time constraints. 6/10. For the price, good fun initially but too short and lacking some much needed - obvious - features. Has to be called a casual title, not a simulation. A real pity. It's there but it's not. Know what I'm saying?
• gamedeal user

  Mar 2, 2018

  First, I need to tell you, that this is not a bad game. And I love the way the devs put their heart into it and how they keep on patching bugs and improve gameplay. The reason why I can't recommend this game tough is, because in my opinion, they left the most important and interesting part of commercial fishing out of this game: the search for good fishing grounds and the unpredictability of how many fishes you'll catch. The hotspots just appear on your map. There is no guessing where the fish could be, just have a look at the map and it will show you exactly where to go. Then set your nets and wait for 20 hours and they will be full of fish. In my opinion this makes the game way to easy and takes out all the excitement out of it. And it gets even worse once you get to the trawlers, because then you can't even decide where you go trawling, there is just one spot labeled "open waters" and once you're there with a little bit of practice you will have full nets all the time. There is absolutely no strategy in this game, no need to adapt to changing conditions or empty nets, no bad hauls or anything that could make the game even slightly interesting in the long run. That is why I can't recommend this game.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 8, 2018

  I really enjoyed the game for Hours and hours, Untill I saved enough money to buy the Hermes trawler.. Why? Because trawling is about the least fun part of this game.. I thought it would great! you know bigger boat! more crew members Etc. Etc.. All you do is drive the boat as a captain. sit in a chair, drop a net, let the boat drive itself in a striaght line for about 10 mins.. then press a few buttons to real in the net then repeat! over and over for about 5 times before youll boat is full then you drive to port empty then do it all over again. the waiting part of it really slows the game down, you cant leave open water to fast travel or make that 10 to 15 mins of lettting the net soak go any faster,,, you just sit and wait......
• gamedeal user

  Jul 5, 2018

  Great game!! Quite realistic in most aspects. Does suffer from occasional bug here and there. Overall relaxing and enjoyable to play. Rumor has it devs are working on a crabbing version, sounds interesting. It's a nice break from the pvp games i play.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 10, 2018

  I love this game, just turn on a good Podcast and have it on in the background and enjoy a chill fishing experience. The devs are really good at updating the game. I would like to see Rain splatter on the windscreen when it rains or during bad weather with high waves. It would do alot for immersion.