Pack your fishing gear, because the time has come: The Catch: Carp and Coarse is available for PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One as a digital download. The developers of Dovetail Games, who created Euro Fishing and Fishing Sim World, among others, have created a new fishing simulator. In our test, we reveal whether the virtual fishing trip is worthwhile. So much has to be said: patience is the top priority.
The Catch: Carp & Coarse is a species hunting fishing game about passion and the pursuit of what lurks beneath the waters. You're going on the fishing trip of a lifetime, chasing fish as big as monsters around the world. As a non-fishing enthusiast, how do you test a game that is supposed to be a simulation? Quite simply, you determine how much fun you can have virtual fishing even though you are barely able to tell a carp from a blue whale.
Boss fishing: off to the lake!
Catch: carp and rough is about the hunt 35 fresh seals. Players (think anglers) will need to work out strategies, skills, and tactics to catch all 125 trophy fish - great bosses of the sea - anywhere.
It's about patience but also about adrenaline as you carefully choose your fishing spot based on the time of day, weather conditions, and the perfect fishing gear. Then we go into the water to fight and catch these elusive creatures. There are five fishing spots to choose from: from Loch Mickle in Scotland to Lake Pearl Sea, the Ebro River in Spain, Maas in Rotterdam and Lake Oxlease in England on the famous linear fishery. And the landscapes look breathtakingly tempting even after the holidays. If I had to imagine what it is like to fish on a real lake - one way or another - it would be my idea of an idyllic place on the water.
There are several ways to visit these five fishing spots. Fishing trip is the simplest of these options: just you, the location of your choice, and the fish you want to try your hand at. It's the default option and by far the best way to get to know the water. The highlight is the one player tournament mode where you can choose a body of water, target species, or a range of species and fish against some of the most famous names in the fishing industry.
Multiplayer also does what is promised and allows up to four participants (think: anglers) to compete based on either the number of fish, the weight of the fish, or many other criteria. Alternatively, you can just have a convivial meeting and share ideas on how to catch the lakes' various fish bosses. But you can also just enjoy the idyll together and fish your fish in peace. Cool idea.
The Catch: Fishing to level up
It's not just standing by the water, so Angel cleans it in cold water. And here you discover a playful trick that you would hardly expect from a dry fishing simulation. The Catch: Carp and Gruba offer a kind of role-play trick: the bait and fishing gear that you can access as a shiny new angler are a bit limited at first, but catching fish doesn't just earn you EXP that helps you level up but also tackle points (TP).
These TP can be used in the in-game store to purchase new equipment, whether it be stronger cables, bigger rods to keep throwing, or different types of bait to attract a particular type that you are looking for. However, only certain baits can be bought if you have the right equipment for it, e.g. this gives the game another level of realism so that it feels more and more like real fishing.
Fishing - and I'm speaking in absolute layman's terms - just takes a lot of patience and even more patience. This is also the case in Ulov, where it can take up to 15 minutes for the fish to bite. But when it's time for the adrenaline to kick in and you get into one, I call it "I'll get it now or I'll have to wait another 15 minutes." The tension builds and when you've got one on the hook, the game calls for one Lots of finesse. Because if it's a bite, you have to physically hit it with a sharp lift of the tip of the pole.
Depending on the speed of your reactions and the direction of the stroke - which is pleasantly intuitive - the fish will be hooked when determining hook hold quality. This is where the mechanic of the game, which I call the "hip counter," comes into play. Although I'm sure there is a more technical name. On the left side of the screen is a tension meter that shows how much fish is pulling - if you pull the frequency or if you let the cable go slack, the meter will shrink until the hook eventually falls out of the fish's mouth, causing it to be lost goes. You have to play with the tow and constantly adjust it to keep the tension in the right place, I'm told a real fisherman would do just that. So there is no lack of realism.
After all that realism, preos preos preos has only achieved one. Graphically, The Catch doesn't look like a 2020 game but it doesn't have to be with what it delivers in terms of realism and content, I think graphics are secondary. However, the controls could have been a little more precise and fluid, but it's not something the patch couldn't fix. For those who love fishing and those who want to learn to love it, The Catch is definitely worth a look and for just under $ 25 you can't go far wrong.
Infobox
Number of players: Solo / online multiplayer
Age: from 0 years
Difficulty: easy to difficult
Long-term motivation: medium
Publisher: Dovetail Games
Developer: Dovetail Games
Year of publication: 2020
Platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One
Language: German, English
Cost: 24,99 Euro
Conclusion
The bottom line of what I have about The Catch is easy to put into words. The graphics are not the yellow of the egg, but in the simulation area they belong to the best of what I've seen so far. The fighting or fishing mechanics are intuitive and the variety of venues means that it will take you time to learn a number of different fishing methods. Put simply, this is arguably the most recommended fishing game on PC, Playstation 4 and Xbox One that the genre currently has to offer. Because: Dovetail Games actually managed to get me excited about fishing with The Catch.
In particular, this is achieved through the motivating XP mechanics - and of course the "boss fights", i.e. boss fish. Successfully pulling the legendary chunk out of the virtual water should also encourage many a non-angler to try casting the bait. Not infrequently you will actually get stuck with The Catch: Carp and Coarse, not forever, but for a few hours. Not least because the pretty natural surroundings invite you to linger.
The Catch: Carp and Coarse has to be denied that it is suitable for the masses. It is a game for lovers, but it can offer its narrowly defined target group the fun that they expect - with deductions in the B-grade at least. One has to criticize the poorly detailed character models, as well as the repetitive fishing activities. The drill often feels the same: fish swims to the left, fish swims to the right, the camera holds onto it, the eye is irritated.
On the other hand, the revised float fishing was successful. Oh yes, and finally there are eels! In contrast to its predecessors, not much has changed in the end. Is The Catch: Carp and Coarse the perfect simulation that realistically depicts fishing? Probably not. Does that really bother real fans of the genre? Good question, after all, new angel simulations are comparatively seldom on the market, so that connoisseurs will surely forgive the developers for one or the other carelessness, especially since the price of just under 25 euros is fair for the content offered.
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