Another Fisherman’s Tale Review: Members Overboard in This Innovative Sequel

Another Fisherman’s Tale arrives on Quest 2, PSVR 2 and PC VR today, marking a new installment in the story that began four years ago with A Fisherman’s Tale. Does the sequel do well through stormy seas or does it sink to the bottom of the ocean? Here’s our full Another Fisherman’s Tale review.

Upon its release in 2019, A Fisherman’s Tale from Innerspace brought a whole new perspective, sometimes quite literally, to VR puzzle games. Its mind-bending puzzles were the star of the show, backed up by a charming narrative style and pleasing visual style. It all came together to form a compelling, albeit slightly short, campaign. Four years later, Innerspace is back with a sequel, Another Fisherman’s Tale, which explores new ground while retaining some familiar threads from the original.

To run away

Once again players will take on the role of fisherman Bob, this time venturing away from the lighthouse and out to sea for a more pirate-like adventure. Divided into chapters, the game also introduces us to Bob’s daughter, Nina, whom the player occasionally plays in sequences that see her reflect on her family history and her father’s maritime adventures. Without diving too deeply into spoiler territory, the narrative plays with the concepts of storytelling and memory, using metaphors to blur the lines between reality, fiction, past and present.

It’s certainly a more ambitious narrative than the first game, though the jury is out on whether its creative approach to storytelling delivers a satisfying conclusion. That said, the dialogue between Bob and Nina is charming and often witty, and the story serves its purpose in justifying the introduction of new areas for Bob to explore.

Innerspace also touches on more cinematic sequences in Another Fisherman’s Tale, where the player becomes a third-person observer of animated vignettes featuring settings and characters that resemble toy models. Reminiscent of Gloomy Eyes or Madrid Noir, each sequence is a feast for the eyes. There’s a wonderful cinematic direction on display, using light, movement and scale in a way that makes virtual reality feel first in nature.

These cutscenes are especially stunning thanks to the gorgeous art style carried over from the original game, which is expanded to a host of new settings. While the game’s visuals are simple in nature (and therefore well suited to standalone headset systems), Innerspace executes well creating a distinct style that feels cohesive in every environment.

A wider reach

That’s a good thing, too, because there’s a lot to explore in Another Fisherman’s Tale. In this new adventure, Bob leaves the lighthouse and sets sail, offering much more varied environments than the first game. of the ocean and sail through a sleazy disco of sea creatures.

However, the selling point of the original game was the mind-bending puzzles, which tied their most impactful moments to gameplay that was only possible in virtual reality. Luckily, Another Fisherman’s Tale doesn’t fall into the trap of continuing those same storylines and creating a Greatest Hits remix of the first game. Innerspace valiantly introduces new mechanics to the sequel, which see them continue to experiment with the medium in engaging ways.

The main mechanical concept introduced in Another Fisherman’s Tale is the ability to detach parts of Bob’s body and make them function independently in the environment. In its simplest form, this allows the player to aim Bob’s hand in any direction and launch it as a projectile, completely detaching it from his arm. Once the hand lands on the ground, you retain basic motion control and can pilot it around the environment like Thing from The Addams Family. Pulling the controller’s trigger will cause it to move forward, while the direction can be adjusted by physically rotating your hand/controller.

Your detachable hand can be directed into small nooks and crannies, pull levers, or be pulled through windows to explore otherwise inaccessible areas. The hand can also pick up objects when detached, which it brings with it when called back to Bob’s body using the grip button.

This forms the basis for a series of puzzles about detachment from the body that Innerspace explores throughout the campaign, slowly growing in complexity and offering new variations over time. You can swap Bob’s usual hands for other varieties if needed, for example. A pirate hook hand can attach to the attachment points and pull Bob up towards them, providing new vertical platforming abilities, while the crab hand can cut ropes to unlock items or new areas.

You also gain the ability to detach Bob’s head from his body by holding down two controller buttons to activate a projectile ability that launches your head in the direction you point it. This serves two purposes, it allows the player to toss their head elsewhere to get a different perspective on an area, but it also allows you to separately control Bob’s detached hands and his headless body from a point of view at the third person. No matter how many parts you split Bob into, you stay in control of them all at all times, thanks to a combination of motion controllers and buttons.

This leads to some truly original puzzle scenarios that force you to rethink movement from an entirely new perspective, both literally and figuratively. You’ll find yourself moving Bob’s arms, hands, legs, and head independently of each other, detached and spread out in an environment, which often requires good coordination.

A few quirks

For the most part, these new mechanics result in intriguing scenarios with unique interactions, merging first- and third-person gameplay into one. However, there are quirks that make all the moving parts feel a bit overwhelming at times. A good example is directing your detached hand, which requires turning your physical hand and controller in the desired direction of movement. Human wrists don’t have a full 360 degree range of motion in a horizontal plane, so sometimes you find yourself twisting your wrist in an awkward direction that makes it quite difficult for the detached hand to function properly.

There are similar glitches in the underwater sections of the game. These provide larger environments to explore via swimming, which adds a new vertical dimension to movement. However, swimming controls a combination of joystick acceleration, head direction, and arm movements that never feels very intuitive to use. Once you combine the underwater movement with the various body detachment mechanics, there are points where it starts to feel a little clunky and hard to manage at the same time.

The game relies heavily on racing with the theme of body detachment throughout the campaign, basing the vast majority of puzzles around it. I finished the campaign in about four or five hours. That makes it longer than the original, and its wider scope is proof that Innerspace is stretching its creative legs into new territory. However, halfway through the campaign, you start to wonder if Another Fisherman’s Tale has revealed most of its big cards yet.

A Fisherman’s Tale had puzzles that worked on multiple layers as part of a larger concept, all building towards the big meta-puzzle of the lighthouse itself. By contrast, Another Fisherman’s Tale trades that for a more linear campaign that sprinkles variations of its new mechanic across a wider range of environments.

These mechanics are still incredibly innovative and successfully experimental in the way they rethink physicality in VR, but the ensuing puzzles never quite reach the same mind-bending level as the original. Things start to feel a bit repetitive once you get past halfway through the sequel, and by the time you get there, it makes the game’s big final sequence feel a little underwhelming as a finisher.

Another Fisherman’s Tale Review – Final Verdict

Even if the overall package doesn’t always reach the same high bar set by the first game, Innerspace nonetheless presents a worthy sequel to Another Fisherman’s Tale. It’s a game that successfully pulls for a wider scope, while experimenting with unique mechanics that engage with virtual reality in exciting new ways. Fans of the original should be happy with how the sequel expands on its predecessor, while newcomers to the series might be impressed with the originality on display. For both groups, Another Fisherman’s Tale is recommended.

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Correction: An earlier version of this review included the incorrect launch price for this game. This is now correct.