StreetPass Games Revisited: Ultimate Angler

Since I did this for the first batch of games, I'm back to do it again with the second batch.  Now that I've played the second batch of games for a while, what's my progress, and what are my thoughts?  Have I figured anything out that I didn't know when I wrote the original post?  Read on to find out.

Actually, before I get into discussing the gameplay and my completion thereof, I just want to say: The game's music is awesome.  It covers a wide variety of musical styles, and there's a unique song for every fishing spot.  Just think about that.  A lot of work went into the music for this game, and it shows.  If you need some examples, try Clifton Cove, Highland Lake, and Feeding Frenzy.

Progress-wise, I've completed the first five islands and gotten the second hat.  The plaza tickets come in very slowly in this one, as you essentially have to do almost everything there is to do in order to get all of them.  I'm missing the ones for clearing six/seven/eight/all islands, landing 120/all species, and A+ catches for 10 species.

In addition to the plaza tickets, there is a whole set of challenges that the game gives you rewards for completing.  All of the plaza tickets count for these challenges, but the ones that don't give plaza tickets instead give you money or fishing rods.  Not all of them are visible by default, the game only lets you know what the next one in each group is.

The game is pretty fun, even if the RNG is incredibly unforgiving.  You always have the chance to pull up random junk, even if you only have one fish left in an area, you need that fish to progress, and you have a bait that it likes.  Sometimes, the RNG just shits on you.  There's no better way to describe it.  Also, the game tells you that mixing baits improves the chances of getting larger fish, which is necessary to complete in-game challenges, but I haven't noticed any correlation between the number of bait I mix and the size of the fish I catch.

Powering up and improving your fishing rods uses a fairly straightforward crafting system, but oh boy does it ever drain your in-game money.  Everything gets more expensive the farther you go.  The best rod in the game reportedly takes 1.2 million to max out, and you can't even hold that much money at once.

You actually benefit from being a completionist early on in this game.  A good number of fish show up in multiple places, so if you catch them early on, you don't have to worry about them later and can blitz your way through islands only having to catch the fish that completes the challenge for a given fishing spot.

Also, you can farm for money, rank, and rods.  On the first island, the fish you have to catch to clear the island coughs up a good amount of money and rank points, and being a three-star fish, gives you a chance at a two-star or three-star rod.  Combining rods and improving their stats is directly related to your success in this game, so you'll probably want to farm at some point.

Adding some spice to the proverbial gumbo are the mysterious fish available in some locations.  You can't see what bait you need to catch them by default.  The only way to find out is through StreetPass.  Every 10 times you StreetPass the same person who doesn't have the game, they'll tell you about one of the mysterious fish.  If you StreetPass someone who has the game and has already spotted one of them, they'll tell you about it.  Special Miis always tell you about one of them.

Regardless of how you find out about it, its location and the necessary baits get revealed for that session and that session only.  In the case of finding out about the fish from someone who already owns the game, you get to continue from where they left off trying to catch it.  If you don't catch it, you'll send it to other owners of the game and they get to try from where you left off.  As you could infer, they take a lot of effort to catch, so hopefully you have more than one of the baits that you need.  So far, I've seen and caught one mysterious fish, due to the requirement that you have to have completed the island where it can be found before people will tell you about it.

Feeding frenzies happen every now and then, and are denoted by the water sparkling.  The sparkling gets more and more noticeable as the frenzy gets closer to happening.  Once it starts, you get to tap icons on the touchscreen in a panic and catch tons of fish without using any bait at all.  These happen fairly often, and are a good source of extra money and rank points.  Occasionally I've gotten a species I haven't caught before from a frenzy, so be on the lookout for that.

Overall, I'm not disappointed with my purchase in the slightest.