Legend of the Skyfish (PlayStation 4) Review

Legend of the Skyfish tasks the player with saving the world from the titular Skyfish. It was awoken by the players little brother, and now it is wreaking havoc on islands all over the world. By this it's meant the Skyfish is dropping some monsters on islands, and it is your job to defeat them and destroy its totems, which spread its influence. The story isn't very interesting, but it serves its purpose well enough. The central mechanic is based around a fishing hook, which pulls the player to various marks on the ground, and allows them to pull enemies to themselves - Scorpion style. Across the games three worlds, this mechanic is stretched to its absolute breaking point. Oh, and break it does.

Before the inevitable whining portion of this review commences, it's important to point out the visuals. They are extremely pretty, though not wholly unique. The player character is especially well drawn, as are the bosses. Enemies are largely fine, but each world only has three types, most of which are just re-skins of earlier enemies. Oh, no, folks, this might be "the whining portion…." See, everything in Legend of the Skyfish is extremely mixed in terms of quality. Level design is mostly good, save the second world which introduces an annoying beat the clock style mechanic. While most of the game is spent trying to figure out how to reach switches, these add a time limit to reaching your goal that is thankfully not employed in the final chapter. However, later levels feature a new take on the switch mechanic that actually felt like it was cleverly implemented.

The game's central mechanic, the fishing pole, is also a mixed bag. You aim it with the right stick, then tap R1 to toss the lure. This is fine when just aiming at enemies or trying to snag a far-off switch. It is not fine when trying to do anything that requires quick precision. It just feels too loose for that, and inevitably results in failure to beat that clock or pull oneself onto the next platform without doing another lap. Enemies are - you guessed it - also hit and miss. While each enemy, even the re-skins, has a new and clever mechanic, it's all too easy to just reel them in, which stuns them, then wail on them until they die. There are hidden treasures that can upgrade the equipment, and once you find the one that stuns enemies after every hit, it's very uncommon to have any issues in a fight.

The one glaring issue are the previously mentioned sections which require precision. These are almost universally awful, resulting in moments where you take damage that should have been easily avoided, only because of the amount of sit and wait that needs to be employed. Yet, even with that, there is a bright spot that is almost universally good as well. The three bosses are great, mostly. The first one is very bland and predictable, but the second two are great and very well thought out. The final boss does employ mechanics Zelda fans will recognize immediately, but that's used to largely good effect.