Follow TV Tropes

Following

Fishing Minigame

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/b6118820_5a44_4732_9517_14a8e54cf6b9.png
"I am Noctis, prince of Lucis, and king of fishing!"
Noctis Lucis Caelum, Final Fantasy XV (and Dissidia Final Fantasy NT)

Many video games are made in Japan, and one of Japan's leading food industries is fishing. This is a culture where squid and octopus are seen as delicious daily treats on a level with McDonald's, so fishing is pretty ingrained into the culture. So if the video game you are playing has enough sidequests & minigames, then you're likely to find a fishing mini-game somewhere in there. Fishing Games on the other hand have this as the major goal.

Fishing minigames also occasionally appear in Western games, mainly those that fall on the more "simulationist" side of the "game"/"simulation" line. Since fishing is a hobby that can be either relaxing and engaging or dull and boring depending on the player, these types of minigames are usually not made mandatory to finish the game (usually).

Whether or not it's luck based depends on the game, much to players' annoyance. Sometimes, fish aren't the only thing you can catch.

Sometimes, the catches can be used in Cooking Mechanics.

The land equivalent is Game Hunting Mechanic, and the non-video game equivalent is Fishing Episode.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 
    Action 
  • Finny The Fish And The Seven Waters: Inverted; being a fish, you need to fight off fishermen. If you get caught by the baits, you'll need to escape via a reverse-Fishing Minigame to either break the string (which nets you the bait) or get off the hook.
  • Hades: If you buy the "Rod of Fishing" from the House Contractor, fishing spots will start spawning randomly in the Underworld, recognizable as a white, glowing spot in any body of liquid (this includes all four biomes, the Realm of Chaos, and the surface). Activating the point starts a short minigame in which you try to catch the fish as soon as possible to the moment you see a splash. The better your timing, the better fish you get. Any fish caught there can be given to the house chef for various rewards.
  • Honkai Impact 3rd: In the Sakura Samsara area of the Open World, there are two areas where you can send Higokamaru into a pond to gather fish, which earns you Ingredients that are used to cook dishes that give your character bonuses.
  • Sunset Overdrive: The "Mooil Rig" DLC has the Mooil Fishing Challenge, which "fishing" is actually just Scoring Points by "tossing explosive barrels" into the water so they explode and send up fish to collect.

    Action-Adventure 
  • ANNO: Mutationem: At Harbor Town, a man near the water can offer his fishing rod to catch as many fish to collect. There's no limit to how many fish can be caught, which especially helps as the fish can be sold at shops for a higher price than the usual junk items, making room for easy money.
  • Dead Head Fred has one, plus you have to go find and gather your own giant mutant worms in another minigame to use as bait (or put through a special grinder to make healing and buff drinks). This involves sneaking up on a worm's location and pulling it out of the ground without pulling it apart.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening for the Game Boy is the first in the series to feature a fishing minigame; it's fairly limited, with only small fish ("runts") and large ones ("lunkers"). The remake on the Nintendo Switch fleshes it out a bit with multiple lures and adds the ability to catch a Fairy Bottle, Bloopers, Cheep Cheeps, and Ol' Baron.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: The Fishing Pond in Lake Hylia hosts a playable fishing activity. Link will be given a rod so he can capture a fish and then take it to the pond's owner to weigh it. In the past era, if the fish weighs 10 or more pounds, he'll receive a Piece of Heart as a reward; and in the future era, bringing a fish that weighs 15 or more will net him a Golden Scale.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask was going to have a fishing minigame, but it was dropped during development. The Nintendo 3DS Video Game Remake would later bring it back. It's the most elaborate one yet, with a wide variety of fish to catch, and two separate locations (the Swamp and the Ocean), each of which has fish that can't be found in the other. Many fish require use of the transformation masks or other masks to find or catch. There are even boss fish (including a swordfish, a shark, and even a mini-Lord Jabu-Jabu) that play the actual boss music when you hook them (usually by catching a smaller fish first and letting it dangle in front of them).
    • The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker is missing an actual fishing simulation (which seems odd until you hear that the ocean is described as empty and fishless), but purchasing and using All-Purpose Bait to attract the map-drawing Fishmen is nevertheless an important part of filling up the Sea Chart.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess has one too, and is even more elaborate than the one in Ocarina of Time. You also get a regular fishing rod without a reel as an item that you can use at any time, which eventually comes in handy in order to complete a certain quest.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass has it as one of the many sidequests related to the Old Wayfarer from Bannan Island. Link chases down a number of increasingly elusive ocean fishes from his boat, culminating in a hunt for the legendary Neptoona.
  • Ōkami has a few, most notably when trying to catch a fish that ate the Moon's reflection in the lake of Agata Forest.
  • Shenmue III: Ryo can rent a fishing rod and go fishing in certain locations, and can sell whatever fish he catches for money. By completing certain requests, Ryo is given access to new fishing locations that he cannot fish at otherwise.
  • Solatorobo: Red the Hunter has a fishing spot in Basset where you can fish for gigantic hermit crabs carrying scrapped air ships on their backs. Not only is it Mundane Made Awesome, but fishing for enough scrap pieces lets you forge some of the best stat-boosting blocks in the game.
  • Vernal Edge features an action-oriented variant. Taking place on a platform with a pair of fishing nets on the edges, the minigame centers around using your combat abilities to quickly knock various types of jumping fish out of the air and onto the ground before batting them into the nets.

    Adventure 
  • Fallen London: The annual Fruits of the Zee Festival event allows you to fish at Mutton Island for catches that can be traded to people at the festival for Menace reductions or unique items that can't be obtained anywhere else. Since Fallen London is a mainly text-based game, fishing is done by choosing from a variety of options that succeed or fail based on your Quirks (are you Heartless? Use the blood of a dying fish to lure in bigger prey! Are you Steadfast? Wait for the fish to come to you instead) or using Map-related items. And since Fallen London is set in a Lovecraftian version of London, your fishing catches are... rather strange:
    At first you thought you'd caught a pair of gossamer eels. But no. One eel; two heads. They both frown at you.
    Your catch flops around in the bottom of the boat, droning like a bored bee. It would look like a starfish, if starfish had a guileless brown eye blinking on each arm.
    Oh, look. Just what fish needed: pedipalps. You get a close look at them as it gamely tries to catch your head in a net of sodden silk.
  • In Professor Layton's London Life, resolving some of the quests involves catching specific fish in mini-games.
  • A Short Hike: You can start fishing once a local fisherman loans you his spare fishing rod. Fishing is a lot faster with bait, and any fish caught can be sold to a local sailor or traded for more bait if he already has the breed being offered. After several fish are sold to the sailor he gives you a Fish Journal that lists the specific body of water every breed can be found. Completing the fish journal upgrades your fishing rod, increasing the chance of finding a rare color variant of each breed that brings in significantly more money or bait.
  • Yonder The Cloud Catcher Chronicles has a minigame where you have to pull the analog stick in the direction of an arrow to pull the fish toward you.

    AR Games 
  • The Nintendo 3DS's built-in AR Games include two fishing games — one where you have two minutes to earn as many points as you can from catching fish, and one where you have infinite time and can catch as many as you want without worrying about points.

    Hack & Slash 
  • Samurai Warriors Spirit of Sanada adds a fishing minigame as one of the new things you can do instead of beating up waves of mooks. The fish can be used for item crafting or given to other characters as gifts.

    Horror Games 
  • Andy's Apple Farm has a rather repetitive one. The game involves you repeatedly fishing out the same fish, as a voice clip of Felix continues to loop each time you catch it. Then a corpse appears in the water with nothing else to catch; once you do, that same audio begins to distort as the characters gain black eyes.

    MMORPGs 
  • The Elder Scrolls Online: It's possible to fish, and achievements can be unlocked for catching all the rare fish in a particular area. The achievements for catching all the fish in a faction earn you a dye color for your armor, and if you catch all of the fish in the base-game zones, you unlock a boat decoration for your homes.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has Fisher as one of the Disciple of the Land jobs, alongside Miner and Botanist. The actual fishing minigame is actually within the Spearfishing territory, which has you dive underwater to find and spear your catches with good timing, with an interface that lets you be selective on what you're looking for. There's also a dedicated set of skills for this minigame to augment your results such as extending the timer before the fish disperse, or shooing away fish you don't want. The fish (and occasional other catches) can of course be used for cooking — or, for that matter, desynthesizing into very rare crafting materials.
  • Mabinogi has a fishing game where you can catch fish for cooking skill, treasure chests, quest scrolls, and worn-out equipment which you would need to repair for it to be useful.
  • RuneScape has fishing as one of the main skills that you can level up. Outside of regular fishing, there are two minigames where you catch fish. In the Fishing Trawler, you try to keep a ship from sinking while the ship catches fish for you in a large net. In the Fish Flingers activity, you both compete and cooperate with other players to catch as much weight in fish as you can in a limited time, and it uses different mechanics than regular fishing. To catch the heaviest fish you have to find the location and best bait, hook, and number of weights for each fish, which change each game and you get a for finding the best combination for all six fish.

    Mobile Games 
  • Last Cloudia: In at least one spot, Kyle can whip out the fishing rod (once he obtains it) and use it to catch several fish a day. There are prizes for catching fish such as catching a number of a certain kind, every kind in the current area, and the max size of every kind.
  • Pixel Petz: While in Adventure Mode, players can fish, with a chance to fish up exclusive partz and clothez.

    Party Games 
  • 100% Orange Juice! has the "Fish-a-Fish" minigame, where the players cast lines to catch fish to score points to get Stars and Wins.
  • Garfield Lasagna Party: The "Catfish" mini-game involves Garfield, Odie, Nermal, and Arlene fishing. The goal of this mini-game is to catch as many fish as possible before time runs out. The bigger the fish, the more points they are worth.
  • Mario Party:
    • Mario Party: In the minigame Cast Aways, the players have to use a fishing rod with a glove as bait to grab the coins, coin bags, and treasure chests floating in the sea.
    • Mario Party 3: The minigame Hand, Line and Sinker. Three characters are disguised as fish swimming in a round moat, while the remaining solo character uses a fishing rod with a glove used as a lure. The solo player has to capture the other three characters by using this special rod. If they succeed, then they win; if 60 seconds pass and at least one of the fish characters manages to survive by evading the lure, then the team of three wins.
    • Mario Party 5: Fish Sticks takes place in a pond with Cheep Cheeps located in the middle of the sea, and the pond is surrounded by a solid border with twelve fishing rods. The characters have to see what fishing rods are being pulled, as it means their lines' baits are being bitten by the Cheep Cheeps, so a character can pull back the rods and capture them. A red Cheep Cheep is worth one point, while a gold one is worth three. Whoever scores the highest after 30 seconds wins.
    • Mario Party Advance: The minigame Reel Cheep has a solo player attempt to capture Cheep Cheeps from a sandy shore. Once the fishing rod's bobber is thrown at the water, the player has to move it to lure a Cheep Cheep into biting it, and then press buttons L and R in a specific sequence to successfully pull it out of the water. If the player takes too long to press the full sequence, or one of the presses is wrong, the Cheep Cheep will swim away. Only the heaviest that is captured will be accounted for. In Shroom City mode, the player must capture a Cheep Cheep that is heavier than the minimum weight required under a time limit to win.
    • Mario Party-e has Cast Away Mario!, where the player must catch a fish specified by Peach.
    • Mario Party DS: In the minigame Cheep Cheep Chance, all characters are standing atop a beach float that has several ropes to capture the swimming Cheep Cheeps with. Each player has to choose and rope and hope that it's one of the ropes that get a Cheep Cheep upward when it's lifted. If it isn't, the player will lose the balance and fall onto the water, losing the minigame; if it is, the player wins. It's possible for more than one player to win as long as less than four do or unless there are only two players in Duel mode; otherwise, the minigame will end in a tie.
    • Mario Party 9: Pier Pressure places the players on a pier out on the ocean with a selection of fishing rods, the number of which is dependent on the number of players. Players take turns choosing one of the rods in hopes of picking one that will let them catch a Cheep Cheep, but if they select one that catches them an Urchin instead, they will be knocked into the water and lose. There is no way to know which rods are safe without picking one, so victory is dependent on luck.
    • Mario Party: Island Tour: The minigame Cheepers Keepers has all characters stand on a pier to capture Cheep Cheeps with fishing rods. For each character, a button is shown in the screen, indicating the one that has to be pressed repeatedly to reel the rod's line. The score each character receives in each round will depend on how many Cheep Cheeps are captured in a row, which in turn will depend on how much the characters reeled. Whoever captures the most Cheep Cheeps after three rounds wins.
    • Mario Party: Star Rush: Cheep Cheep Reach is a Coin Chaos minigame where players use a fishing line with a white-gloved hand on the end to catch Cheep Cheeps in a river to earn coins while avoiding the Urchins.
    • Super Mario Party:
      • Rumble Fishing (not to be confused with the minigame of the same name from Mario Party 4) places four players atop a cloud floating above the ocean, and the objective is to use a fishing rod to catch a larger Dragoneel than anyone else. The players can move around to search for Dragoneels under the water, and when the Joy-Con rumbles, they will know they've found one. The stronger the rumble is, the larger the Dragoneel is.
      • In Net Worth, four players take hold of one corner of a large fishing net in a river with a school of Cheep Cheeps swimming by. The players must work together to catch as many Cheep Cheeps as possible by simultaneously raising the net when as many Cheep Cheeps as possible are above it. They get 30 seconds to catch as many as they can, and receive a better rank based on how many they catch.
  • Pac-Man Party has a minigame called Master Angler, where the objective is to catch a larger fish than anyone else. The players must wait for the fish to bite their lures, then raise the Wii Remote to raise their rod and catch them. Whoever raises their rod fastest will get the largest fish, but raising the rod too early results in an instant loss.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants: Lights, Camera, Pants! has a Fishing Minigame where instead of fishing for fish, you fish for random junk to increase your score. This is understandable, since the characters fishing live in a world where fish talk and behave like people.

    Platformers 
  • Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge has a fishing minigame. The mini-game pops up several times with several different "skins," and while it is indeed about fishing in some of them, in its first version, it's about catching sheep.
  • Donkey Kong Country: In the GBA port, Funky Kong gives you a choice between his jet barrel and a fishing minigame. This is also present in the Game Boy Color port, except it's only accessed through the bonus menu and not through the main game.
  • Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy: There's a minigame in Forbidden Jungle where Jak has to capture 200 pounds of fish with an aquatic net while avoiding the poisonous eels (as they can spoil the whole catch, thus leading to instant failure). The minigame will also fail if more than 20 pounds are missed. The reward is a Power Cell, but it's also required to win in order to get the Fisherman to let Jak use his boat to get to Misty Island.
  • Kirby and the Forgotten Land has a Blipper fishing minigame in Waddle Dee Town called Flash Fishing that is unlocked after 155 Waddle Dees are rescued. The game revolves around quick-time events in which the player must quickly press one of the four buttons before they disappear. Like the other minigames Star Coins are awarded based on the weight of the Blipper caught with an additional trophy that is needed for 100% Completion by catching the Bling Blipper. To catch the legendary Blipper one simply needs to continuously fish without getting up from the chair as well as pressing the buttons quickly until the telltale sign of the Bling Blipper in which the player has to press seven buttons to catch it.
  • Sonic Frontiers: By collecting Purple Coins and then finding a special portal on each island, Sonic can access a fishing minigame hosted by Big the Cat. Each fish (and other random junk) that he collects earns him tokens that can be exchanged for items, including scrolls that allow for fast travel to certain points on that island, and audio logs left by Dr. Eggman that provide a surprising amount of lore for the game's setting.
  • Super Mario Odyssey: In some levels, Lakitu can be seen fishing Cheep Cheep in a lake or pond (even if it's toxic). Mario can possess him to fish for a Power Moon.

    Racing Games 
  • Excite: One of the various mini-games played while racing in Excitebots involves using a fishing rod near a body of water, and pressing a button at the right time in order to reel in the biggest fish possible.

    Role-Playing Games 
  • Battle Chasers: Nightwar: Selling the fish you catch to the Fishmonger is one way of earning Shadow Coins, which can be used to buy special gear.
  • Breath of Fire: Fishing minigames are present for most of the games. In most, if you get a strong enough rod, you can actually snag treasure chests, or even fish-creatures named Manillos, who sell you stuff and usually charge you fish.
  • Chantelise starts providing fishing poles to the pair of protagonists about midway through the game. Immediately upon receiving her pole, the swordswoman's older sister Chante comments on the newly obsessed look in Elise's eyes and how clearly they'll be doing a ''lot'' of this from now on. While poles are available, it's impossible to buy bait or lures anywhere, leading to another funny moment when the instructor says she just needs to find something small and sparkly with feathers or something. Chante (who is currently a fairy) retorts that they couldn't possibly be expected to find anything like that anywhere, and notices Elise has that creepy look again... and is looking at her now... and this is going exactly where it sounds like. Fortunately, Chante is very good at surviving close encounters with fish.
  • In Crystal Story The Hero And The Evil Witch, the appropriate rod is needed for each dock, casting the line is automatic, but a button press is needed to start reeling a catch in, and tapping the button is needed to keep a marker inside a range inside a bar where the marker's position slowly moves out of the range.
  • Dark Cloud and its sequel, Dark Chronicle, have a fishing minigame. In the second game, you can then race your caught fish in a "finny frenzy". There's also a "fish weigh-in" contest, where the combined weight of three wild fish gives you a prize.
  • Digimon World: In the first game, the player can fish at Dragon Eye Lake once they've obtained a fishing rod (whether the Old Rod from Trash Mountain or the Amazing Rod by cashing in merit points at Volume Villa, though only the Amazing Rod is really worth a damn). The fish you catch can be used as currency to play curling against Penguinmon, though certain types of fish have useful benefits (aside from sating their hunger) if fed to your Digimon partner, such as increasing all their stats a little bit, or extending their natural lifespan. One area of the game note  is inaccessible until you can fish up Seadramon, the lake's guardian.
  • Fable: You can fish anywhere there's water. Even a puddle. The later instances become so finely balanced that fishing up that last Silver Key can take upwards of ten minutes. Needless to say, these are the most annoying ten minutes of the entire game, and lots of players used an exploit to avoid having to fish up the last few keys.
  • Fate has a fishing game based on reaction time. The fish can be used to temporarily or permanently turn your pet into a more powerful creature, or they contain artifacts or gems (sometimes much larger than the fish).
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Final Fantasy VI requires the player to catch and feed fish to the game's Cid. Feeding him slow fish kills him rapidly. Moderately speedy fish can also kill him, just more slowly. The only way to save Cid is by a steady diet of fast fish. However, whether he lives or dies makes no difference to the plot, except for character development for Celes. If he dies, however, Celes is Driven to Suicide via a Leap of Faith over Cid's death.
    • Final Fantasy XI introduced a minor minigame aspect in an attempt to ward off botters. It didn't work, as a botter could simply hack the client and tell the server they mined a fish, and the server gleefully gives it to them every time.
    • Final Fantasy XII has a fishing minigame, notable because its completion is one of the conditions needed to obtain the Wrymhero Blade, a very powerful weapon in the game.
    • Final Fantasy XIV has Fisher as a Discipline of the Land non-combat class. It has a very robust system where the type of bait and weather patterns affect what you can catch, starting off small by fishing off the docks of Limsa Lominsa to fishing off desert sand or the clouds to catch even the mightiest sea monsters across the world.
    • In Final Fantasy XV, each of the main characters has their own personal exploration skill, and Noctis' involves fishing.
    • Chocobo's Dungeon allows you to catch fish. Your storage increases each time you bring a species to the fat chocobo who holds your items for the first time; any others are Shop Fodder.
  • Fire Emblem: Three Houses has a timing-based fishing minigame where you have to press the A button just as a rapidly shrinking ring enters the green zone to make a "Good" catch. These fish can be used in meals that increase your Relationship Values with the other students, and some can even be cooked into meals that provide temporary stat boosts for the month.
  • Fuga: Melodies of Steel has Scrap Fishing as an activity you can do during the intermissions. While they're completely automated, the success of whether or not you pull any good crafting materials stems from the type of line you use and the success rate influenced by the difficulty which can be raised if the child you fish with has a high enough affinity with the rest of the party).
  • Granblue Fantasy: The "Bzzt! Amped Up Summer" event has nodes that allow the player to play this kind of minigame. The player is given limited chances to cast their reel in a specific node, and they must properly time their clicks when the indicator reaches a highlighted spot in the sea (where creatures named "eals" also become visible). The mini-game gauges the timing of each click and gives bonus eals for every perfect one. These accumulated eals can later on be used to trade for rare materials in the game.
  • NieR has one, and it can be quite frustrating, partly because the in-game explanation is wrong. In NieR: Automata, your Pod is used as the lure.
  • Paper Mario: The Origami King has several fishing spots in some areas where Mario can fish for Cheep-Cheeps, Bloopers, or lost Toads and Treasures.
  • Persona:
    • Persona 4 has a fishing minigame that seems entirely luck-based at first, but once you figure it out, it becomes slightly skill-based, if tediously mashing the square button can be considered a skill. It can net you rare items and is required for maxing out the Hermit s-link.
    • Persona 5 reuses the fishing minigame from 4, with you again casting a line and then mashing buttons during certain timed intervals to reel in a fish.
  • Solatorobo has a mostly optional fishing minigame (you only have to do it three times during the course of the story, but you can come back and do it whenever you want) but you're not really fishing for... fish. You're fishing for giant hermit crabs which wear battleships as shells. With a harpoon the size of your Mini-Mecha. Capturing them nets you points based on junk salvaged from the battleship; the points can be exchanged for Power Crystals and rare parts for the Dahak.
  • Suikoden has fishing minigames, that double as ways to collect special items and armor (or worthless junk like old shoes.) Of particular note is Suikoden V, where it takes the form of a competition between the Prince, Subala, Logg, and Lun. Notably, it doesn't really matter if you win or lose the contest; you keep everything you caught regardless.
  • Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 2 has this as a minigame. You can gain points that can be traded for hard-to-find items.
  • Tales of Berseria has one, but it's generally considered the weakest "mini-game" in the game. As described by one player "You basically select the bait and the RNG decides which fish you get." For the record, there are three different types of bait, which can be obtained through random sparkly spots throughout the game, but even then, it's still a random chance, and you don't actually do anything other than choose a bit and then sit back. Each spot has a "Guardian" which you can get as a key item, but there's really little point to it, other than to possibly pick up a few additional items to help gain an achievement / trophy for unique items.
  • Tokyo Xanadu: Kou can visit the city arcade and play a fishing game starring Rean Schwarzer, with locations seen in Cold Steel.
  • Torchlight has a fishing game based on reaction time. The fish can be used to temporarily or permanently turn your pet into a more powerful creature, or they contain artifacts or gems (sometimes much larger than the fish).
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails: You're introduced to it through a member of the Fisherman's Guild, and the protagonists become an honorary member. There's an achievement in each game for catching all fish and various other rewards. Fishing spots are found throughout pretty much all of the areas the party travels to.
  • Yakuza 0 and Yakuza 3 both have Fishing as one of the numerous minigames. Depending on where you are and what you're using, it's even possible to catch a great white shark using a fishing pole.
  • Ys:
    • Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana: A fishing game is present via fish appearing near the surface of water sources. It's possible to catch treasure chests thanks to signs of glittering, while there's also a chance players might not catch fish, but rather an enemy monster.
    • The fishing minigame makes a return in Ys X: Nordics with Adol and Karja being free to fish around the various lakes and seas scattered through out. The fish can be netted for points via the local fisherman Joel Asrad.

    Roguelike 
  • Revita: One of the NPCs you can save unlocks fishing by the pond. You can catch a variety of fish (or hook new lures with different stats for fishing) and then sell the fish to the NPC for soul coins.

    Sandbox Games 
  • Lost in Blue: An integral part of the game, as fish are the most efficient food source. Fish can be caught with a spear, a fishing rod, or a trap.

    Simulation Games 
  • In APICO, you can use a fishing rod to catch fish from deep water. To cast the rod, wait for the cursor to land on the target before clicking. Then, wait for the fish to touch the lure before reeling it in. There are different kinds of fish to catch, each being attracted to different lures, which are made with feathers and bee produce.
  • Graveyard Keeper allows you to fish for various catches, using a borderline-minigame mechanic where you simply need to click quickly enough to reel in the catch when it bites. A much more important challenge is figuring out which fish can be caught where, when, and using which bait.
  • Magician's Quest: Mysterious Times also lets you go fishing. Rather than sell the fish, though, you give them to a magical book so he can turn them into useful items.
  • In Potion Permit, there are four fishing spots in all, three in Moonbury Town, and one hidden in Glaze Grotto, which is unlocked with a Level 2 badge and the highest fishing rod upgrade. Fishing involves casting your rod depending on how strong you throw it, and then waiting for the tug and reeling in your catch while the line is white. If the line turns red and the catch gets angry, stop reeling, otherwise the line will snap and you'll have to start over. There are different kinds of fish you can catch (and even treasure if you're lucky) depending on the fishing spot, and you can try beating your record of the weight of your catch.
  • In Roots of Pacha, you play a spearfishing minigame since it takes place in prehistoric times. It involves hovering your cursor over the fish and waiting until the bar is full before catching it. However, you must move the cursor away in a few seconds if the fish spots you or else it'll get away.
  • The Sims:
    • MySims: Both games have it in a few places. Despite one being purely Mini Games, and the other a bunch of Fetch Quests with a few item-gathering Mini Games.
    • The Sims 2: Castaway has fishing "mini-games". On the PS2 your sim stands next to a school of fish with a spear, then has to wait for a fish to jump into the air in order to stab it. On the DS, the scene is changed to a mini-game where you stab the fish with your stylus.
  • Stardew Valley: The player is introduced to a fairly expansive fishing minigame on their third day on the farm. Cast your rod into any body of water and wait for the tug. When you respond, you have to play a sort of Missile Lock-On/tug-of-war game where you have to keep on target to build a progression meter - when it fills, you catch the fish, and when it runs out, the fish escapes. There are different varieties of fish depending on what time of day you're fishing and whether they're ocean-going or freshwater fish. You can also catch random treasure (but only if the fish is successfully caught as well) and even buy high-quality customisable rods. Fishing is Difficult, but Awesome; if you get the hang of it early on, it will provide a lot of the income you will need to get the farm up and running.

    Survival Games 
  • Organ Trail provides you with the option of fishing in the Director's Cut. You can gain food, scraps, zombie heads (which provide no effect), and other supplies.

    Toys-to-Life 
  • Skylanders: SWAP Force has a fishing minigame. It's first introduced in an early level, where you must capture piranhas to make a river safe. It pops up in a few main and side areas after that, and a fishing hole gets added to Woodburrow so you can play it any time you like.

    Others 
  • Nintendo Labo: The Variety Kit allows you to construct a papercraft fishing rod and use that to catch various fish.
  • ULTRAKILL: The secret level on Wrath is one of these, but it's given enough strange mechanics and Guide Dang It! moments to make it surprisingly frustrating for what is otherwise a serene and calm level compared to the other levels in this chapter and the game as a whole, reflecting the nature of this particular Circle of Hell.

    Web Games 
  • AdventureQuest Worlds includes one as the very first "trade skill" introduced in-game.
  • Club Penguin has Ice Fishing, where you get as many fish as you can before the game ends or before you run out of worms (which you lose if a crab cuts the fishing line, a jellyfish zaps you, or a shark eats your worm).
  • Generic Fishing Game lets you encounter different minigames about fishing.
  • Lorwolf: One of the professions. The minigame itself drops fish items that can be eaten or cooked and is played by clicking on ripples in the water when they appear.

Examples of fishing being the primary goal:

    Arcade Games 
  • Sega Bass Fishing (Get Bass in Japan) has this as your primary goal, your goal is to participate in various tournaments and find the largest bass.

    Mobile Games 
  • Ace Fishing is the mobile game counterpart, your goal is to catch different kinds of fish.

    Role-Playing Games 
  • DREDGE is a open-world variation of trope.
  • River King: This is the entire point of the series, which is the sister series to Harvest Moon.

Non-minigame examples of video game fishing:

    Action-Adventure 

    Casual Games 
  • StreetPass Mii Plaza: One of the later additions is a game called Ultimate Angler, where you travel between islands and try to catch fish using bait supplied to you by other players. Bait types are dependent on the Mii's favorite color, and combining baits into larger ones are required to attract some of the rare fish.

    Construction and Management 
  • Dwarf Fortress gives Dwarfs (and humans/elves if you mod the game to control them) the ability to fish, but it's entirely out of the player's hands(as are most things, it being a God Game). Some of the fish are extremely likely to eat the Dwarfs involved in the exercise due to a popular glitch.
  • Minecraft: Fishing rods are used for two purposes. One is to pull mobs; the other is to fish. All bodies of water, even ones you make yourself, contain fish; you fish by throwing out your line and waiting for the bobber to go down. Once you have fishing rods, water, and a suitable supply of sticks and string to replace your rods,note  your food problems are solved. Version 1.7.2 ("The Update that Changed the World", released October 25, 2013) greatly expanded fishing by adding in multiple types of fish as well as making it so that the player can fish up treasures (such as enchanted items) or junk (like a pair of severely worn leather boots); the game also added two enchantments exclusive to fishing rods called "Lure"note  and "Luck of the Sea."note  later, version 1.13 ("Update Aquatic", released in July 2018). You can also catch fish with a bucket, and they'll be alive and well when you empty it.

    Management Games 
  • Spiritfarer has a fishing mechanic where you can reel in your catch as long as the fishing rod doesn't turn red. If you continue to fish after it's turned red, you'll lose your catch. In fact, fishing is required not only for cooking ingredients (as you need to reel up fish to make food), it's also the way you obtain a certain passenger.

    MMORPGs 
  • Black Desert Online has a fishing minigame. Despite being Nerfed a few months in, it's still fairly lucrative, especially since it's the best way to get Relic Shards, which are used to create Relic Scrolls, which reward you with Memory Fragments, which are the best way to repair costly gear. It's also possible to just wait three minutes and win the fishing minigame automatically, making AFK Fishing a popular activity for players who are asleep.
  • EverQuest lets you fish, but tries its hardest to avoid letting to make money off it.
  • Rift: The 1.8 patch added the Fishing skill and the companion Survival skill. You can make cakes with some of the fish.
  • Runescape not only has fishing as a craft skill: it has a fishing-based minigame too.
  • Toontown Online and the private servers have fishing ponds in every street and playground. Some players try to max their fishing by getting all 70 species of fish.
  • World of Warcraft has fishing as a craft skill. Also, since fishing requires actually equipping a fishing pole, some players keep one equipped at other times as a Self-Imposed Challenge or perhaps for the purpose of Cherry Tapping weaker enemies in a humorous way (though there's also a large fish one can catch that is also equippable, with largely the same results). Before the weapon skill nerf, it was possible for a maxed fishing skill to make your fishing pole an unusually deadly weapon for its level.
  • Warframe:
    • The game introduced fishing in the Plains of Eidolon update, which is necessary to acquire materials to advance one's standing ranking with the Ostrons as well as craft valuable items like the Archwing Launcher and Zaws. Unlike many examples, you fish with a mechanized spear rather than a rod. This was later repeated with the Fortuna update, only with robotic fish and a special taser spear.
    • The Deimos Update turned this on its head, with Infested fish that float in the air. However, some remain beneath the liquid-like endocrine that flows throughout the area and requires its own, specialized spear to pierce through.

    Platformers 
  • Shovel Knight: You can cast a fishing rod into any pit that goes below the screen to reel in stuff like health-restoring (raw) fish or useless junk like bones or bits of apples, unless you cast the hook into a sparkling pit in which resides a golden fish worth treasure or a troupple eager to fill in your chalices with ichor. The fishing hook can also be used to reel in treasure that lies below you, including bags of treasure you may lose when falling into a bottomless pit.
  • Sonic Adventure: The goal of Big The Cat's stages is to fish Froggy out of a body of water. The B-Rank Missions require him to catch a fish weighing at least 1000g and then Froggy, and the A-rank missions require him to catch a fish weighing at least 2000g and then Froggy.

    Role-Playing Games 
  • Arx Fatalis: You can combine a pole and string to make a fishing rod and catch fish to cook and eat from most any water area.
  • BoxxyQuest: The Gathering Storm lets you fish in two specific ponds, one of which is inside a dungeon. That one ties into a puzzle, but the other is there purely for the sake of relaxation (and earning a bit of quick cash by selling your catches). The fishing is mainly based on luck, although different tiles do seem to have slightly different odds.
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: The Anniversary Edition of the game comes with the much-hyped Fishing Creation (a Creation is, essentially, an officially-sanctioned Game Mod.) Fishing can only be done at certain fishing spots, and what kind of fish you get depends on biome, the weather, time of day, and the rod you're using. Some fish are rarer than others, and there are fish that only can be found underground, fish that can only be found in frozen waters, and even fish that only come out when it's raining.
  • Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth: Party characters can learn how to fish by investing one Skill Point each. The fish obtained can be cooked alongside other ingredients gathered to prepare meals that can restore large amounts of TP (Mana Meter) and/or HP (health).
  • Fantasy Life: One of the jobs consists of this. They can be used for cooking by cooks or players with experience in cooking. Another option is to change some of them into paintings.
  • Monster Hunter allows you to fish at specific spots, and you don't even have to bring a fishing rod. As long as you have bait, your character will produce a rod and cast the line. Apart from there being fish you can have cooked to eat later, there are types of fish you can use to mine ore and sharpen your weapon. In the third-generation games, you can use fishing as a method to get Gobul, as well as Plesioth, out of the water.
  • Pokémon allows you to go fishing with a rod in order to initiate wild Pokemon battles and capture Water Pokemon. In early installments you have no real control; the process is "use fishing rod, wait a few seconds, game randomly decides whether you caught a Pokemon or not, repeat." Later games do, however, introduce timing as a measure of whether you'll be successful. Pokémon Sun and Moon changes the mechanic so that you can only fish in specific spots.
  • Ultima Online has a full regular skill for fishing. In Ultima Underworld, this is a convenient way to get food, as a body of water on nearly every level has fish in it. This is fortunate, as your player character needs food not just to heal damage but for food.

    Simulation Games 
  • Animal Crossing: In all versions, there's a fairly extensive mechanic where the player can catch a variety of fishes, ranging from commonplace to extremely elusive and varying in availability over the year and depending on whether the player casts their line in the sea, river, lake or pond. Once caught, these can either be donated to the museum's aquarium or sold for varying amounts of money. Some people on the AXA board would go so far as to say that fishing for coelacanths on rainy nights, along with selling the fish and spending the money on furniture, is the main game in AC and everything else is the side-quest. One member there claims to have bought a 1.4 million bell mansion after five to seven nights of fishing, compared to the more typical two months of growing fruit. Of course, there are No Cartoon Fish, but there are cartoon frogs and octopodes. Along with regular frogs and octopodes. One can be your friendly neighbors, and the other you feed alive to a fat walrus for wallpaper. Frog and Octopus neighbors may ask you to catch a fish for them (to eat), to which you can respond by giving them a frog or octopus you fished out of the water. They have no problem eating it.
  • Disney Magical World: There are fishing spots in many areas that you may sit down and fish in. Fishing is an important, though not essential, part of the game, as certain valuable materials can only be dropped by fish, and there are several stickers that are acquired through fishing, all of which count towards 100% Completion.
  • Little Dragons Café: You can fish in order to get ingredients for your café.
  • In Lonesome Village, the player can catch fish in the lake in town or at the beach. There are three different fishing rods that can be obtained, with Earl giving you the first one near the beginning of the game, and which one you use, as well as the location and the time (day or night) determines which types of fish you can catch.
  • The Sims 2: Seasons includes Fishing as an activity your sims can perform, along with a skill badge that (somehow) affects the quality of fish you catch. The Sims 3 also has fishing in it as well. This is high level, so no mini-game.
  • Story of Seasons: All games feature this trope as a fairly enjoyable but not particularly essential side activity. Occasionally fishing may trigger rewards or bonuses in the game. In Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness, catching and shipping 50 fish is the only way to get a certain character to move in. In the original game you could only fish in a single pond, however future games give you a fishing rod.

    Survival Horror 
  • Resident Evil 4: Early on in the story, Leon comes across a lake, a boat, and an infinite supply of harpoons. He can use the harpoons to spear fish, which he can either eat or sell (you can also harpoon Colmillos on the opposite bank from the safety of the boat). However, do not try to shoot any fish with your guns before crossing the lake, or else it'll result in instant death for Leon.

    Wide-Open Sandbox 
  • Red Dead Redemption 2 features a fishing mini-game where you can eat and cook your catches. It's included in the multiplayer and even includes competitions
  • Terraria eventually added various types of fishing rod to craft or otherwise obtain, along with various sources of bait required to fish with. The types of catches available depend on when and where you're fishing, what rod you use, what bait you use, and any equipped items that add to your fishing ability. Additionally, an Angler NPC offers Fetch Quests where certain rare fish are exchanged for useful items. Other catches include the usual junk, crates with random goodies inside, fish you can make various potions or food from, fish you can use as bait for more fishing, and even fish you wield as weapons or tools. Additionally, a new aquatic boss can be summoned by fishing under the right conditions.

Top

Relaxing with fishing

Seiji spends some time away from the fighting in the big city by fishing.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (2 votes)

Example of:

Main / FishingMinigame

Media sources:

Report