Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits

Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits is a fun game, especially if you enjoy collectathons. Many of the games come down to luck, but this title will keep you entertained for a few hours.

Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits is strange. The fishing is easy to learn but difficult to master due to the lack of tutorial or feedback system. The coin concept is off-putting enough until someone has a surplus of coins to play with. The story mode does a better job of easing you into the game mechanics because it removes the token mechanic and provides focused goals. The minigames and online play are fun, but they're terrible for the overall goal of the game. The coin-pushing game is a very slow burn unless you get lucky. There is an audience for this type of quirky game, but you need to have enough patience to learn the system.

For fishing game enthusiasts, Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits offers a good experience with several real aquatic species and other fictional, but very creative. As it is a gacha, completing the catalog becomes more difficult with each new species collected, but we have good options at our disposal to earn coins and tickets, and it is even possible to just use the roulette wheel daily. Finally, the possibility of playing simulating a fishing rod can be very exciting for fishing enthusiasts.

Tt’s pure, cathartic, and an unapologetic sensory overload. It’s pure nonsense. It’s a game that doesn’t excite with its visuals and overexcited sound design, but it’s so bizarre you will keep on playing it out of sheer amusement. There isn’t anything else like it on the Nintendo Switch or any other console.

Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits is a curious mix of gacha arcade and fishing. Unfortunately, the game fails to offer a detailed learning to new players and the complexity of its mechanics may be frustrating without bringing enough reward for learning the proper way to play. Even so, the good gameplay mode variety and its apparently genuine obsession with the fishing context and aquatic creatures may be enough to make the game something very pleasant for some players.

Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits has a charming and cute appearance to it, and it can provide some decent time-killing, but it feels so much out of water outside its home country, honestly feeling more like a companion title for those who already were fans of the arcade game and wanted to try out the experience from the comfort of their home.

While it’s hardly a fishing sim, there’s plenty of simple family-friendly arcade action to be had here

Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits combines the Zen of fishing with an arcade-esque gameplay loop that'll keep players coming back for more. Not every game mode is a hit - with Shark Fever and Ace Angler Party standing out as duds - but Ace Angler+, Legend of the Poisoned Seas, and the core gameplay loop more than make up for it. There is a massive variety of fish to catch, with several different stages and Rods to unlock as well. The actual fishing mechanics aren't explained too well in-game, but they're intuitive no matter the control scheme. Load times are on the long side and the gacha elements needed for unlockables aren't exactly welcome, but they're not deal-breakers, either. At the end of the day, it's just fun to sit back and experience a more action-packed take on fishing. Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits offers fishy fun for everyone.