It has fishing, so it's 10/10. Jk but seriously, I always liked fishing games, so this one immediately caught my attention. After trying it out I was honestly not disappointed, and if I remember correctly, I got sucked in for a good little while.
After getting past the title screen, you get placed into Port Jackson, which is essentially your base of operations. This is were you go through the tutorial, meet the nice NPCs that run the shops with stuff you will be interested in, and that's also where the aquarium is. I have to say, I got excited at the mention of an aquarium, because I do like looking at them fishies that I've caught.

In general, the gameplay is alright. You catch the fish, you sell them, you get money, you spend that money to get better equipment to catch more fish. I think that's what you would expect from a fishing game. I've played Fishing Resort before and I love that game! And the loop is pretty much the same, with just the side stuff being different. And the fishing itself I suppose. This is probably where I could say that Fishing Simulator is a little lacking, which is perhaps a bit funny, because that's the core of the game! But yeah, the fishing just needs you to click/tap on a valid body of water to cast your lure, and when you see the bubbles, you click again to start reeling. Then you keep clicking with the right timing to keep the little white bar within the green part of the meter that appears. The lure with the fish you got will make its way to you, and when it's close enough, bam you got the fish. Done! After doing that a few dozens of times, it can get a bit repetitive, but on the other hand, sometimes I feel like I enter some kind of zen state when I do this. I also feel like it's a good game for having a podcast or something on the side. I can definitely say that if the fishing was made a bit less simple and more varied, it would be way more engaging.

But don't worry! I'm just scratching the surface here. The biggest point of the game is to Reel 'em All and complete your Fish Index. And boy... that is a LOT of fish. And it doesn't end there! They come in 5 sizes, from baby to huge, as well as like 5 or more genetic mutations. Putting it all together, you have over 3500 variations of fish to catch! Yeah yeah, the mutations just make the fish be a glowing neon color (except the rainbow one) and that's basically it. The sizes aren't that huge of a difference either but it's visible. Is all this perhaps a way to bloat the game and make it seem like there's more fish than there actually are? Maybe! Am I bothered by it? Not really. You can aim to only catch the regular kinds of fish, and regardless of size if you want! You can set your own goals just fine. Or you can go with the Index missions shown at the bottom. There's a mission in two parts for each area. Doing them nets you varying rewards.

Here you can see that the grand prize for your hard work will be a neat mount... I think.

Okay okay, so what if you get tired of the constant reeling? What else is there? Well, there's quests that various characters can give you, and rewards vary. You can take your favourite catches to your aquarium, where you can show them off and even decorate the tanks. You can set who you allow in, if you don't want strangers snooping around. It's very nice and atmospheric in there, and I really like this feature of the game!

This area looks nice, and you might even see my fish in there if you squint.

If you need more action, you can get a boat and a weapon, and then set out to the sea to hunt wild beasts! Sharks, killer whales, and the like. Don't do this in real life. You chuck your spear at them to kill them before they destroy your boat and kill you - if you're successfull, you get the parts of their poor dead bodies. Profit! Or, if you're more of a pacifist, you can go out and look for treasure chests stashed away in sunken ships that keep mysteriously popping up. This one is absolutely NOT for people that are afraid of the ocean, because you need to dive deep to get to those, and the water is murky and might seem endless, when in fact it's just that hard to see the bottom. But if you manage to get that chest, it can give you vast riches! Maybe. To talk more about the boats themselves, you can buy different ones, each better than the last, and upgrade it as well. You get to customize the colors too! When on your vessel, you can toggle the auto-forward function, which is very handy, as well as the lights. There's also a horn that you can go honk with!

S.S. Frog out and about.

Just to touch on the presentation of the game, it's very nice! The style is pretty and vibrant, and nice for lower-end devices (like my poor laptop). For some details, I really like the character portraits, as well as the little fishies at the ends of the fishing meter. I also like how you can lock fish in your inventory so that you won't accidentally sell them. It's nice that with some effort, you can get the premium currency for free, be it from treasure chests or Raygan's quests. It's cool that pets get names randomly chosen from a predetermined list. There's events that I didn't participate in because I'm playing too many games at once with my short attention span. They apparently added baits recently and I have no clue how they work but they probably help you with buffs and stuff. Oh, and I absolutely can't forget to mention how you can hold the fish you've caught in your hand to show them off to the rest of the world! I think that's all I have to say about this game. In general it's pretty good, do try it if you like fishing.

I wonder if there's a chocolate fish...