River King feels more like a Harvest Moon demo than it does it's own game. It's unfinished, ugly, and simply not
I was hoping and half expecting this game to be a nice, simple companion piece to the fantastic Harvest Moon: Magical Melody, released on the same day for the GameCube. Instead, what I found was a product that should have never left Natsume's offices.
The game starts off by having you pick one of four members of a family a last name of your choosing. You can choose Bro, Father, Mother and Sis. I chose Bro. The opening cut scene, which is rendered in the game engine doesn't explain much other than the fact your dad (Father) has wanted to catch the elusive River King his entire life, but can't right now because he has athlete's foot. Mother decides to go shopping, and Sis goes to play. Bro tells his whimpering Father that he will make the old man's dream come true by catching the River King.
The first thing you'll notice about the game's graphics is that the engine looks like a hybrid of the Wonderful Life games and Animal Crossing. It favors an isometric type view as opposed to a more 3D type found in the Harvest Moon series to date. The second thing you'll notice is that the game is not that nice to look at, especially up close. The textures are all of low resolution, the on screen text is actually blocky and hard to read and there's and pop-in and frame rate issues to boot. I could forgive this if the water and surroundings were photo-realistic, but the DS can push out a better 3D engine than this.
Even if this game was released 5 years ago on a PlayStation or Nintendo 64 it would not have looked all that good at all. This makes me think that River King started it's life as either a demo for Magical Melody, or possibly a DS or PSP title. The PlayStation2 may not be the most powerful system on the market these days, but it's much more capable than what's here.
The graphical problems are so bad, that they in effect, break the game play. The first task in the game is to try and cross a bridge to the north of town. You're stopped by a junior college student who instantly becomes your fishing rival. She sends you to catch an Ayu and explains about different bait types. Sounds simple enough, until you get to a location where the specific type of fish are.
Once you spot a fish, you'll regularly see it pop in and out of existence in the river, sometimes even disappearing into rock. Presumably, this was to give the effect of a fish swimming through grass or another obstacle. Since you never see anything of the sort though, it just looks like sloppy, pop-in riddled graphic design. There were also a number of times that I knocked fish out of existence by hitting them with my lure. It’s frustrating at best. I literally spent an hour trying to catch a fish in the spot my Rival sent me, only to find out it wasn't the right kind of fish.
The mechanics of fishing are about as awkward and unnatural as you could find also. They sound good on paper. Hit X to cast your line, when the fish bites, it will pause a moment. Then you hit O to toggle an underwater view of the so-called action. The idea is to reel in the fish when it's not swimming away. The real problem with the fishing mechanic is that in order to re-aim your fishing line's cast, you actually have to unequip your rod, then move around, then equip your rod again, then cast again. You find yourself repositioning more often than actually having bait in the river. Real fishing is less work. I put another hour into the game while writing this review, but didn't make it much further, and I highly doubt I'll come back to it anytime, well ever. Obviously not much value to be had for me.
The RPG aspect of the game is also substandard. There's no connection to any of the characters in the game, and in fact, most NPCs even have generic names like "Man" and "Boy". There's no voice work in the game at all, and even the scrolling text onscreen is silent. Not exactly the most engaging game.
The games sound is the one aspect that doesn't suck completely. The river, and other natural sounds like birds, insects and wind are all pleasant sounding. The soundtrack is typical MIDI-style fare. Upbeat, and totally forgettable.
When I first saw this game, I thought it would be a title that only Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing fans would really get into, but sadly those people are likely to be the most disappointed by River King. It has none of the charm, humor and addictive game play that those series offer. It's not a good or even decent fishing game or RPG, and should be avoided. Even if this was the only disc that worked in your PS2, you'd probably have more fun moving your save files around in the BIOS.