One other Fisherman’s Story Evaluate: Members Overboard in This Revolutionary Sequel

One other Fisherman’s Story arrives on Quest 2, PSVR 2 and PC VR at present, marking a brand new installment within the story that started 4 years in the past with A Fisherman’s Story. Does the sequel do nicely by means of stormy seas or does it sink to the underside of the ocean? Here is our full One other Fisherman’s Story assessment.

Upon its launch in 2019, A Fisherman’s Story from Innerspace introduced an entire new perspective, typically fairly actually, to VR puzzle video games. Its mind-bending puzzles have been the star of the present, backed up by an enthralling narrative fashion and pleasing visible fashion. All of it got here collectively to type a compelling, albeit barely brief, marketing campaign. 4 years later, Innerspace is again with a sequel, One other Fisherman’s Story, which explores new floor whereas retaining some acquainted threads from the unique.

To run away

As soon as once more gamers will tackle the function of fisherman Bob, this time venturing away from the lighthouse and out to sea for a extra pirate-like journey. Divided into chapters, the sport additionally introduces us to Bob’s daughter, Nina, whom the participant often performs in sequences that see her mirror on her household historical past and her father’s maritime adventures. With out diving too deeply into spoiler territory, the narrative performs with the ideas of storytelling and reminiscence, utilizing metaphors to blur the strains between actuality, fiction, previous and current.

It is definitely a extra bold narrative than the primary recreation, although the jury is out on whether or not its inventive strategy to storytelling delivers a satisfying conclusion. That mentioned, the dialogue between Bob and Nina is charming and sometimes witty, and the story serves its goal in justifying the introduction of latest areas for Bob to discover.

Innerspace additionally touches on extra cinematic sequences in One other Fisherman’s Story, the place the participant turns into a third-person observer of animated vignettes that includes settings and characters that resemble toy fashions. Paying homage to Gloomy Eyes or Madrid Noir, every sequence is a feast for the eyes. There is a great cinematic route on show, utilizing mild, motion and scale in a means that makes digital actuality really feel first in nature.

These cutscenes are particularly gorgeous because of the beautiful artwork fashion carried over from the unique recreation, which is expanded to a number of latest settings. Whereas the sport’s visuals are easy in nature (and subsequently nicely suited to standalone headset methods), Innerspace executes nicely creating a definite fashion that feels cohesive in each atmosphere.

A wider attain

That is an excellent factor, too, as a result of there’s so much to discover in One other Fisherman’s Story. On this new journey, Bob leaves the lighthouse and units sail, providing way more various environments than the primary recreation. of the ocean and sail by means of a sleazy disco of sea creatures.

Nevertheless, the promoting level of the unique recreation was the mind-bending puzzles, which tied their most impactful moments to gameplay that was solely potential in digital actuality. Fortunately, One other Fisherman’s Story would not fall into the lure of continuous those self same storylines and making a Biggest Hits remix of the primary recreation. Innerspace valiantly introduces new mechanics to the sequel, which see them proceed to experiment with the medium in partaking methods.

The primary mechanical idea launched in One other Fisherman’s Story is the flexibility to detach components of Bob’s physique and make them perform independently within the atmosphere. In its easiest type, this permits the participant to intention Bob’s hand in any route and launch it as a projectile, utterly detaching it from his arm. As soon as the hand lands on the bottom, you keep fundamental movement management and may pilot it across the atmosphere like Factor from The Addams Household. Pulling the controller’s set off will trigger it to maneuver ahead, whereas the route will be adjusted by bodily rotating your hand/controller.

Your removable hand will be directed into small nooks and crannies, pull levers, or be pulled by means of home windows to discover in any other case inaccessible areas. The hand also can decide up objects when indifferent, which it brings with it when known as again to Bob’s physique utilizing the grip button.

This kinds the idea for a collection of puzzles about detachment from the physique that Innerspace explores all through the marketing campaign, slowly rising in complexity and providing new variations over time. You’ll be able to swap Bob’s common fingers for different varieties if wanted, for instance. A pirate hook hand can connect to the attachment factors and pull Bob up in direction of them, offering new vertical platforming talents, whereas the crab hand can reduce ropes to unlock objects or new areas.

You additionally achieve the flexibility to detach Bob’s head from his physique by holding down two controller buttons to activate a projectile capability that launches your head within the route you level it. This serves two functions, it permits the participant to toss their head elsewhere to get a distinct perspective on an space, but it surely additionally permits you to individually management Bob’s indifferent fingers and his headless physique from a viewpoint on the third particular person. Regardless of what number of components you cut up Bob into, you keep in management of all of them always, because of a mix of movement controllers and buttons.

This results in some actually unique puzzle situations that drive you to rethink motion from a wholly new perspective, each actually and figuratively. You may end up shifting Bob’s arms, fingers, legs, and head independently of one another, indifferent and unfold out in an atmosphere, which frequently requires good coordination.

A couple of quirks

For essentially the most half, these new mechanics lead to intriguing situations with distinctive interactions, merging first- and third-person gameplay into one. Nevertheless, there are quirks that make all of the shifting components really feel a bit overwhelming at occasions. A superb instance is directing your indifferent hand, which requires turning your bodily hand and controller within the desired route of motion. Human wrists do not have a full 360 diploma vary of movement in a horizontal aircraft, so typically you end up twisting your wrist in an ungainly route that makes it fairly troublesome for the indifferent hand to perform correctly.

There are comparable glitches within the underwater sections of the sport. These present bigger environments to discover by way of swimming, which provides a brand new vertical dimension to motion. Nevertheless, swimming controls a mix of joystick acceleration, head route, and arm actions that by no means feels very intuitive to make use of. When you mix the underwater motion with the assorted physique detachment mechanics, there are factors the place it begins to really feel somewhat clunky and onerous to handle on the identical time.

The sport depends closely on racing with the theme of physique detachment all through the marketing campaign, basing the overwhelming majority of puzzles round it. I completed the marketing campaign in about 4 or 5 hours. That makes it longer than the unique, and its wider scope is proof that Innerspace is stretching its inventive legs into new territory. Nevertheless, midway by means of the marketing campaign, you begin to marvel if One other Fisherman’s Story has revealed most of its massive playing cards but.

A Fisherman’s Story had puzzles that labored on a number of layers as half of a bigger idea, all constructing in direction of the large meta-puzzle of the lighthouse itself. In contrast, One other Fisherman’s Story trades that for a extra linear marketing campaign that sprinkles variations of its new mechanic throughout a wider vary of environments.

These mechanics are nonetheless extremely progressive and efficiently experimental in the best way they rethink physicality in VR, however the ensuing puzzles by no means fairly attain the identical mind-bending degree as the unique. Issues begin to really feel a bit repetitive when you get previous midway by means of the sequel, and by the point you get there, it makes the sport’s massive last sequence really feel somewhat underwhelming as a finisher.

One other Fisherman’s Story Evaluate – Ultimate Verdict

Even when the general bundle would not all the time attain the identical excessive bar set by the primary recreation, Innerspace nonetheless presents a worthy sequel to One other Fisherman’s Story. It is a recreation that efficiently pulls for a wider scope, whereas experimenting with distinctive mechanics that interact with digital actuality in thrilling new methods. Followers of the unique must be proud of how the sequel expands on its predecessor, whereas newcomers to the collection could be impressed with the originality on show. For each teams, One other Fisherman’s Story is really helpful.

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Correction: An earlier model of this assessment included the inaccurate launch worth for this recreation. That is now right.