I first discovered Fish Tycoon not on the Nintendo DS, but on the internet, as a shareware game. The “real-time” raising and breeding of fish stirred an interest in me because of the uniqueness of the theme. Also, it reminded me of my off-campus college days when I started an aquarium and, for a long time, raised, bred and occasionally even sold fancy-tailed guppies. I became very good at selecting guppies to cross-bred to come out with unique tail designs.
So a game that lets me relive that without all the mess, fuss and an open package of brine shrimp stinking up my freezer held a lot of appeal. I loved the game on PC because it was cheap, addictive and fun. And the real-time promise was pretty spot-on; depending on your speed settings, you could leave the game for a day and your fish would still be thriving if a bit hungry. The graphics were dated but sharp. And the game never required too much of you in any one setting.
That’s where the Nintendo DS version falls short by comparison. Although the touch-screen feature is incorporated well into the game, for some reason the DS doesn’t handle the “real-time” thing very well. While reviewing the game, I had a busy weekend where I played the game briefly Saturday morning and couldn’t get back to it until around noon on Sunday.
Every single one of my fish was dead; I was wiped out, even though I had set the game to half-speed. That’s just messed up and certainly not reflective of the original PC game. To make matters worse, the graphics on the DS look markedly worse than the admittedly-dated PC graphics. And we all know the DS is capable of better than what is on display here graphically.
That said, there are literally hundreds of fish types to breed, raise and sell in the game, and plenty of items for you to acquire and manage in your tanks as you enjoy the highs and lows of fish breeding. So there’s no lack of game depth.
In the end, though, the sloppiness of the graphics and the poor execution of the “real-time” code just kind of ruin the experience on DS. While Fish Tycoon is a long-time “casual gaming” favorite, I simply cannot recommend the DS version; the PC version has the same shareware price, looks better, and plays the way it is supposed to – in real time.
