Legend Of The River King 2

Fishing isn’t exactly the most interesting of sports. Sitting on a freezing riverbank for six hours, drinking Special Brew and avoiding the wife might be a vital, sanity-restoring part of many men’s weekends, but it’s hardly the greatest of concepts for a videogame, is it? Previous attempts at arcade-based bass-bothering have been notable only because they never fail to make the person playing look stupid.

Thankfully, Legend Of The River King 2 on the Game Boy Color is far more than a mere fishing game. That’s right: it’s a fishing RPG! Okay, don’t all clap at once!

Riverdunce

In this fairly transparent attempt to blog £24.99 out of weak-willed Zelda fans, you must wander about average-looking environments doing little tasks for other people. Now then, in Zelda, these tasks include killing things heroically, stealing valuable items at great personal risk, and trudging about in the dark. We at Gamefabrique would like you to guess which of these elements Legend Of The River King 2 has retained. Any offers? That’s right – trudging about in the dark! Hurrah! Once you’ve completed all the annoying tasks in one area (random example: collecting flowers) you can progress to the next.

The sense of general disappointment is lifted occasionally when you get attacked by various wild animals that roam the land. Weirdly, the animals that seem to go for you most often are cats. Why moggies? Your guess is as good as ours... (Attracted by the fish, perhaps? – Roy)

There’s nothing desperately wrong with this game, it’s just that the tasks you have to perform to get anywhere – like catching an eel so you can trade it for a roach fish, because someone’s asked you to get one for them – aren’t very interesting.

After a while, you’ll just cease to care about the whole thing, and go back to Zelda. River King 2’s not a really bad title, but why would you bother paying for a game as relentlessly average as this, when there are so many out there that are superior?

Take an RPG with a plot revolving around Mountain and Sea Gods, lost jewels and more, then add in a whole mess of fishin' and here's what you get. There's over 60 types of fish and insects to collect, trade (with the Harvest Moon 2 cart as well) or toss back into the wild. Natsume's releasing LotRK2 this fall.