Another Fisherman’s Tale review

• Reviews by Matt Aukamp
• Published:

Mind-bending VR mechanics and a poignant story will reel you in and keep you hooked

I’ll admit, as I was starting the first chapter of Another Fisherman’s Tale, I was concerned. InnerspaceVR’s groundbreaking adventure, A Fisherman’s Tale, was so singular, so full of brilliant surprises, heartfelt storytelling, and innovative uses of the virtual reality medium that I couldn’t imagine how they could follow it up. And in the first moments of its sequel, I was not persuaded. Though, as I’ve found out, sometimes the magic of a game takes more than a moment to reveal itself. And any worry I felt through that first chapter soon gave way to the deep immersion I was seeking, in a surprising and unique experience that complements its predecessor in just about every respect.

Early on you go through a series of challenges that introduce you to the mechanics of the game. You return as Bob, the fisherman/puppet/storyteller, only this time you find yourself stranded on an island, shattered into pieces. The tale is told through an excellent voice-over cast, with Bob (Augustin Jacob) telling the story of his adventure to his daughter Nina (Margeaux Lampley). As you play, Bob narrates your efforts to reunite the pieces of his body into one gestalt unit, controlling each aspect independently. 

Your hands, once reunited with your body, can detach via a button press (I played on a Quest headset with Touch controllers) and launch across the room. Directed by the twist of your wrist and propelled by the squeeze of a trigger, your hand will scutter across the floor, grabbing items and pulling them back to you. Your head, once back upon your shoulders, can likewise be launched from your body, giving you unique views of your situation, allowing you to see things from new perspectives and guide your body in third person… or… first person deferred? I suppose English isn’t quite prepared for that change of perspective. Anyway, you can throw your head up into a tree to see a destination on the horizon, or you can toss it into a locked room to help you guide your crawling hand to a lever or some other thing.

This is how the first chapter progresses, with you, as Bob, gathering body parts and traversing the island upon which you’re stranded. You learn that you can switch your hands out for other things like crab claws or hooks, each of which have unique ways to interact with the environment. While the first game told a small, personal story, warping your sense of perspective through infinite recursion in a way that functioned as a metaphor for the character’s own journey – a unique gameplay idea, and a comment on virtual reality as a whole – the sequel starts out seeming like something less. It appears to promise a silly, rollicking adventure, which may warp your sense of perspective through viewing your limbs as independent entities and navigating space from new angles, but feels a bit more like a puzzle-platformer than anything else. 

Then the first chapter ends, and the curtain is pulled back to reveal the real premise of the game, and I went from underwhelmed to overwhelmed in seconds. I will reveal the central conceit of Another Fisherman ’s Tale here, so if you don’t want to know anything and would rather go in blind, now would be a good time to skip reading the next few paragraphs. 

We good? Okay.

As the opening chapter ends and Bob finds himself surrounded by pirates, a phone rings. The scene fades away into a dingy basement. When you look down, your hands are human, and quite different from Bob’s. There, on the table beside you, is a replica of the island you were just traversing, and standing atop it is a small carved figure of Bob.

The ringing phone is actually an intercom, and from it comes the voice of your mother, asking if you’ve boxed up all of Dad’s things yet. You hear yourself answer in the adult voice of Nina, the little girl you heard at the beginning, and discover that this story is one of recollection. It’s about a woman coming to terms with the people she remembers her parents being, and the impression they’ve left in her mind. As she recalls her father’s exaggerated stories of heroism and packs up her ailing mother’s belongings, she must reckon with the ideas of memory and legacy. These sections come at the end of each chapter and serve as an incredibly affecting framework that elevates Another Fisherman’s Tale immeasurably.

Another Fisherman's Tale

Genre:	Adventure, Drama
Presentation:	Realtime 3D
Theme:	Pirates
Perspective:	First-Person
Graphic Style:	Stylized
Gameplay:	Environmental puzzler
Control:	Motion
Game Length:	Short (1-5 hours)
Difficulty:	Low

In between, within each chapter you will return to Bob as he escapes pirates, scuba dives in the sea, and seeks out the fabled pirate island of Libertalia. The challenges get bigger and bigger, as does the world, as the few mind-bending but humble mechanics you learned in the first chapter are stretched to breathtaking levels. As you will find, Bob’s divergence from the intimate, personal storytelling in the first game is the point. Recollecting (or fabricating?) his wild adventures is his intentional effort to escape from the grim realities and complexities of life, and to misdirect his daughter about his less-than-ideal past. And each one is bookended with a trip back to the basement, as Nina packs up her memories into cardboard boxes, leaving the world of fantasy behind, piece by piece.

The puzzles, over this two-to-four-hour game, range from fairly simple to deeply smart and engaging. From a scavenger hunt for missing pieces of a broken machine, to a Return of the Obra Dinn-style puzzle where you must investigate a crew’s quarters for clues to match puppet hands with their owners, you’re bound to find something that will stretch your brain. And much like in the first game, if you take any time at all to stop and think (even with hints turned off!) Bob will slowly begin to reveal more details to you until he basically gives it away.

The physical aspects can be frustrating, however. Trying to bend your wrist at odd angles to make your crawling Addams Family-esque hand move in the right direction can be a real pain. You’re often a disembodied head, ten feet away from your body, looking at yourself and trying to figure out what direction your hand should be turning. Some of these obstacles are much more like platforming challenges with finicky tank controls than true “puzzles.” And be forewarned that no matter what you’re doing, pressing the palm trigger will recall your hand to your body, so you could be five minutes into making your way through some delicate maze and suddenly reset back to the beginning by accidentally closing your fist in real life. It might be different on other controllers, but at least with the Quest, one mistaken button press can reset all your hard work.

Adding to this frustration are those pesky voice-over nudges. If you take a while to accomplish a difficult challenge, Bob will continue revealing “hints” as if you need help figuring out what to do next. Once he exhausts his series of dialogue hints for each situation, he’ll repeat the last one over and over and over at intervals until you accomplish your goal. Thus, you might be slowly and carefully navigating through some series of obstacles with your disembodied hand, and Bob will keep “wondering” if the exact place you’re exploring might hold the thing you’re actively looking for. Why do you think I’m here, Bob!?

The graphics are, as with all InnerspaceVR games, stunning. As the cartoonishly styled 3D world becomes bigger and bigger, the views become more jaw-dropping. From navigating the tight hallways of a ship’s crew quarters to swimming through a vast, bright turquoise ocean, and even to the gooey innards of a mighty sea beast, Another Fisherman’s Tale is a treat for the eyes. Combining these fully realized landscapes with excellent sound design, the game can feel truly transportive. The lapping of the waves against the boat, the sound of seagulls in the distance, the tip-tapping of a wooden hand across a metal floor – all these sounds hit perfectly to keep you in the illusion that VR provides. The music is also deployed judiciously, with a relaxing Caribbean soundtrack to start you off, and tense cinematic orchestras as you navigate your way through a cavern full of floating explosives, culminating in a wild musical number sung by your very own narrator that will leave you either laughing, cringing, or singing along.

Final Verdict

I’m glad I stuck with this game through its underwhelming initial chapter. Not that first impressions suggested a bad game in any way, but I was pleased to find my fear that it would fall short of my expectations to be unfounded. Once it picks up, the game tells a moving and surprising story that’s simultaneously intimate and grand, with stunning graphics and challenges that bend the mind. The voice cast is amazing at capturing both the comedy and the drama of each moment, and also comforting, as if it were your grandparents reading you a fairy tale. A few frustrations aside, the mechanics and amazingly designed world take full advantage of the VR medium, sucking you in and refusing to let go, and the variety of puzzles will keep you fully entertained while you’re there. I continue to be amazed by what InnerspaceVR (whom I don’t think it would be overstating to call “The Pixar of Virtual Reality”) has accomplished, and Another Fisherman’s Tale is, for me, an instant, if slightly obstructed classic. 

Matt played Another Fisherman's Tale on Meta Quest using a review code provided by the game's publisher. 

• Advertisement
• Help support AGH by advertising with us