I am a big fan of the Harvest Moon series, but when I first saw Harvest Fishing I was slightly perplexed - fishing is usually included in the regular Harvest Moon games as a mini-game, but a game totally dedicated to it? Regardless, I decided to give it a try.

PLOT: Your sister has fallen asleep and wont wake up. To help her, you have to find the River King, the biggest fish in the river, because for some unexplained reason finding the fish will get your little sister out of her coma. Yeah.

Ok, so the plot is a little weird and doesnt really make much sense. Surely if your sister FALLS INTO A COMA, the first thing you should do is call an ambulance, not go out on a fishing spree. And the best bit is that other characters in the game totally think it's cool that your sister is in a coma and are willing to help you with your fishing. Not one even mentions the possibility of getting medical help, which seems more than a bit thoughtless. But I guess Harvest Moon games have never been the most realistic - I mean, in real life, girls wont usually agree to marry you because you visited them every day bearing gifts of fish soup and iron ore :/ So I'll let the kooky plot slide for now.

Gameplay itself is fairly simple, you use the touchscreen to actually reel in the fish, and the game tutorial does a good job of running through all the basics with you the first time you play. The object of the game is to travel around various different 'fishing spots' - ponds, lakes, rivers, etc - and catch fish. Catching fish gives you points based on the size of the fish and its rarity, and you can use these points to buy better fishing rods or lure. By visiting different fishing spots at different times of the day, you can run into other characters who may be able to help you in exchange for catching them a certain number of fish, or competing against them in a fishing competition, and this does add variety and interest, but to be honest I don't think this game is for a lot of people as gameplay is very repetitive and can get boring, but I myself quite like this kind of game genre (I am a huge fan of Harvest Moon, Cooking Mama, Project Rub, etc) so I found this game really addictive and a good way to keep my hands busy while watching tv without being too distracting.