Fishing: North Atlantic - Enhanced Edition

I had high hopes for Fishing: North Atlantic, and it was on my wishlist for a considerable period of time, but I felt I just couldn't experience all its strengths and unique qualities due to noticeable bugs and glitches. First, as a simulator, this game does an excellent job of representing a real-life fishing boat. This can be rooted in the detail of its textures and crispness of its sound. For instance, the game looks awesome when you've set anchor somewhere during nightfall--seeing the moon and the lighthouse just adds some quality that is truly unique and enhances the experience of playing the game. Also, when the water resonates as the waves crash the boat resulting in your boat rocking back and forth in perfect unison is another level of masterful execution found in the game's audio quality and graphics. Moreover, the gameplay is quite packed with the necessary elements and challenges that make its replayability high. There are a wide variety of fish and boats. And the challenges and simpler elements like going from place to place reminded me of the way I feel when I play American Truck Simulator in a way. However, the most significant drawback of the game lurks in it's various bugs and animation glitches. For example, If you try to move to different areas of the boat such as the stern or bow you get caught looping back. The tutorial is also seemingly bugged as despite pressing the appropriate button to accelerate forward it simply wouldn't be recognized. Nor on keyboard. Also, steering the boat was a real pain. You have to really finesse the motor to get it into the circles provided as visual aids but the mechanics just seemed clunky when using an Xbox One controller. Now, take these matters with a grain of salt, but its seemingly commonplace amongst those reviewing the game, then there must be a good reason for it. Conclusively, this is a game which certainly has the potential for greatness when you consider all of its qualities but it can't truly be appreciated unless it can overcome its obvious pattern of buggy behavior. Together, this truly leads to an frustrating gaming experience, which is why--at least in its current state, I cannot recommend it.

In the first ten minutes of playing this game, my boat got stuck turning in circles and wouldn't respond to my inputs despite them being detected in the tutorial dialogue. Then I got to a dock and was upside-down, clipping under the ocean floor, unable to do anything. Eventually my boat got destroyed in the glitch, costing me $8,000 and re-spawning me. Refunding.

tags claim it is multiplayer, it is not

best Fishing practice is learnt after a few hours of Fishing for me it is a lot of enjoyment the bigger boats take a little extra work to use the net system but you soon pick up the basics and with the nets overloaded stay stationary I have not broken a net using a stationary technique I take 5 to 7 crew out so one is always repairing the ship and 1 crew in the galley cooking up a storm have fun and I may see you on the ocean

Sorry i missed your call (i was on my other line)

Update Jan 26th: The bad: Late game there is still an empty hole to fill other than trying to keep ahead of the debt after buying the most expensive crab boat (it is also the most expensive ship in the game). The hole feels even worse when you cant even use all of your crab pots before its time to pick up the one that gets ready at 18h40m. The guides are all over the place because after an update they changed the UI a little bit and now you have to second guess on where the guides tell you when to drop the pots. The final hole with the late game crabbing ship is that you get the best numbers when they are spread out 500m apart. So.....with 3-4 lines of 10 pots each you cover an entire habitat with only a 1/3 of your total gear. Late game Lobster is lame. Even if you only use 10 pot strings, they still get tangled and it feels like it happens every time that you end up dragging the whole pot line way over the target you intended. Deep Line fishing is broken. You can never get more than 3 fish on a line. Even when you drop it precisely where you think it should have dropped. Even if you drop it in highly dense icons. This, coupled with a very small window of drop off, kills the fun in this game loop. Plus, with the window being so short before drop off, it feels like you cant use 60 or even 80 deep lines and get them all in a timely manner. Trawling: You can trawl anywhere it is 200m and below. The whole scanmar system is a heavy learning curve, but once you get the hang of it you realize fast that you cant really chase the fish. The turning rate while dragging the trawl is just awful, so you really cant chase fish port or starboard. Then you realize that if you just leave it down there with the spyder thing open you eventually fill the trawl. IMO the scanmar system doesnt work very well, and what you catch is really just luck mixxed with a little bit of work that feels like chores. The only fun part about this game loop was the massive amount of numbers you could catch without bait and waiting. The Good: Late game 10,000 hooks longlines are about the only thing that actually works flawlessly. Maybe too much work went into longlining that they didnt bother puting the same effort into the other game loops? I like that they went and gave each ship a quota. And that they bothered to simulate other ships in the game, but they mean ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ if they dont affect the actual habitat numbers. Instead, quota should be sold until it runs out. In other words, having a big quota doesnt feel like that important if you arent really competing with other ships. I'll come back to this game to scratch an itch, but it feels like it could be so much more/better. Cant recommend because if feels like a polished turd that barely made it out of early access.

I never write reviews, but have to for once. Waited for a great sale on this game, and purchased. But when the tutorial is bugged out and you can't complete even setting your crab pots, that ain't right.