As you can probably guess from its title, this game is about fishing. You start as an amateur fisher aiming to be the No. 1 of that field. To achieve your goal, you must journey to the various fishing spots around the world and tackle the creatures of the deep that dwell in them.
Along the way, the player will encounter various supporting characters, who will help the players improve their skills, one way or the other: such as Rachel, the player's guide and steadfast companion, Steve, a retired fishing master who serves as the player's mentor, Victor, the egostical fishing champion who constantly challenges the player to fishing matches just to prove himself the superior angler, Camilla, a shop owner who desperately wants the player to defeat Victor, and many others.
The game provides examples of:
- 100% Completion: Numerous "fishing milestones" are awarded when the player reaches certain levels, caught a certain number of fishes, used a certain number of special skills, etc. Achieving the more difficult milestones would earn the player special rewards, such as potions and cash.
- Art Evolution: The art style for the characters have wildly evolved from its first release. It starts out as somewhat cartoony, like this
. Now, it's become more semi-realistic, like this (yes, those two are meant to be the same person). - Bribing Your Way to Victory: Most of the best items and equipments can only be bought by Cash, which can be purchased by real world money. You can try to earn them in-game by levelling up, catching boss fishes or completing certain quests, but they would take a very long time to accumulate.
- Defeat Means Friendship: After defeating Victor in the Ace Fishing Championship in Marianas Trench, he becomes a lot friendlier and more willing to acknowledge the player's skill. Doesn't mean that he'll stop making excuses if he loses a challenge, though.
- Early-Bird Cameo: The player can "encounter" Victor in the fishing leaderboards, where he'd usually sit on the No. 1 position, from the very start of the game. However, the character doesn't personally show up until the 4th location.
- Excuse Plot: For a game whose sole objective is to catch fish, there's a surprising amount of backstory and tangled relationships among the NPCs, which would be alluded to the player as these characters assign them with Main Quests. However, these quests are just incentives for the player to catch fish and/or upgrade equipments for extra gold & EXP, and they really don't require you to do anything different from what you'd normally be doing anyway. Furthermore, the quests' instructions rarely even have anything to do with the actual dialogue that those characters have.
- Exposition Fairy: Rachel is the player's companion who introduced the player to the world of fishing and explains the game's mechanics during the Tutorial. She is also the one who informs the player if their catch escapes, and manages the Daily Quest offers and rewards.
- Featureless Protagonist: All that is ever seen of the player character in-game is his fishing equipment. We do know that he's a guy from his voice, though.
- Fishing for Sole: No actual boots or soles, but the game does feature several "junk"/worthless catches in the form of empty bottles, fishing helmets, starfish and sea urchins.
- Freemium Timer: The game gives you an energy bar with an initial cap of 15 (which increases by 1 point every level up), and you use up 1 energy (or 2, if you're playing in the Secret fishing spot) to cast your reel. Each energy point takes 10 minutes to fill up, although you can purchase energy drinks from the store with real money to refill the bar faster.
- Gotta Catch Them All: Each fishing spot has about 14—17 different types of fish that the player can catch, and catching them all would give various rewards.
- The Ingenue: Almost all the major NPCs harbours some sort of bitterness against someone else. Only Rachel manages to remain upbeat and innocent throughout the conflict, and curiously wonders why everyone can't just get past each other's differences and be happy.
- Jerkass: Victor is a smug bastard who is extremely condescending and disrespectful to both the player and his former teacher, Steve. He constantly challenges the player to unofficial matches to prove himself the better angler. He'll gloat if he wins, and accuse the player of cheating if he loses.
- Jumping Fish: Downplayed. The fishes don't actually jump out of the water if you leave them be, but if your catch doesn't jump at least once while you're reeling them in, it's most likely not a fish.
- Large and in Charge: Boss Fishes are typically the largest fish that can be found in the area. Wild Fishes, which are basically a more powerful version of those Boss Fishes are even larger.
- Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The player's two main sidekicks, Rachel and Camilla respectively represent Light and Dark. Rachel is the friendly, outgoing blonde who accompanies the player throughout their fishing journey. Her good friend Camilla is a serious, demure brunette shopkeeper who, for the most part, only supports the player because she wants them to beat Victor, whom she hates.
- Limit Break: Every time the player catches a fish, it fills up the Fever gauge. When full, it can activate the "Fever Mode" where, for a certain period of time, the player's attack is greatly enhanced.
- Luck-Based Mission: The "Time Attack Quest" may qualify to an extent. While proper equipment and skills are required to actually catch the fish, there's no guarantee that you will actually find the required fish within the time limit, especially if the game assigns the rarer types fish to catch.
- Old Master: "Fishing Master" Steve was once a famous angler of his own right, being Victor's former teacher, and now serves as one of the player's guides to become a fishing ace.
- Posthumous Character: David is Camilla's husband and Victor's older brother. The other NPCs discuss about him frequently, but the player never encounter him because he's dead. His death is the cause of enmity between Camilla, Victor and Steve.
- Premium Currency: Cash—which can either be earned (painstakingly) by leveling up, catching Boss fishes and completing rare quests, or bought with real money. Most of the good equipment in the game requires Cash to purchase instead of regular gold.
- The Rival: Victor is the current fishing champion and is the one the player must surpass to achieve their goal.
- Scenery Porn: The game has beautifully rendered, almost picturesque, backgrounds.
- Secret Shop: Ashley's shop sells a random assortment of rare equipment and potions for a small bit of cash, but it is only available as a random pop-up that occasionally appear after the player catches a fish.
- Sibling Rivalry: Implied with Victor and his older brother David, both of whom trained under Steve. Victor later admits that the reason he can't stand the player so much is because the PC reminds Victor of his brother.
- Socketed Equipment: The fishing rods and reels have slots that can be equipped with pearls. The pearls have random bonus stats, ranging from an increase in attack power, EXP or gold bonuses, etc.
- Teen Genius: One of the NPCs you'd encounter is Alexa, a 15-year-old girl who has a university degree in Marine Biology and is currently doing research on various fish species.
- Timed Mission: The "Time Attack Quest", which requires the player to catch 3 specific types of fish within 4 hours to earn gold.
