Kawa no Nushi Tsuri 2 Review Part 1

I've decided to split this review into two parts: The first part will be about the influence this game has had on me, and the second part will cover more of the technical details. So, without further ado, here's my review of Kawa no Nushi Tsuri 2 (part of the River King series).

As you might deduce from the fact that I'm splitting this review into two parts, I really like this game. I think I either borrowed this game from a friend or received it as a gift and played it to death. It's the type of game that you can turn on in your spare time and play for 15 minutes and actually make some progress.

This was the game that really turned me on to fishing. I don't enjoy fishing as much as I once did, but I had a friend in Jr. High that went fishing all the time, and he showed me the ropes. Pretty soon I was introducing my other friends to the art of fishing, and making excursions every opportunity possible. I have fond memories of those times, in spite of all the travel expenses and hours upon hours of walking.

In fact, I also remember walking to the local fishing store (which wasn't exactly 'local'), almost every Sunday after church. I had already walked a solid 2 kilometers to church, so this added an additional 4 to 8 kilometers to my walk. I go to great lengths for my passion. I loved hanging out with my friends and fueling my passion in the process.

My life has been about community. It always has been. I like to get other people excited about what I'm excited about. I love the adventure and excitement of fishing (some of you are nodding in agreement, others are shaking their heads in disbelief), but most of all it was about spending time with good friends.

I remember taking a trip out to a dam on the weekend. My friend told me that there was a good fishing spot he knew about, so I decided to tag along. We must have ridden the train for an hour or more. Then we started walking. We found out we were walking in the wrong direction, so we backtracked a long ways, and continued walking until we found the dam. Unfortunately, we weren't on level ground with the dam, as it was much higher up. There was a little creek to the side of where we were walking, so we decided to stop and fish there awhile. Nothing. My friend decides that we need to climb up this wall of concrete and get up to the dam. Somehow, we made it up safely. Then we couldn't find any good spots to fish because we were surrounded by trees. We started treading through the forest, but we couldn't seem to find a good place to cast out. Eventually we turned back, climbed down, and headed home (ran into a snake on the way down). If that's not adventure, I don't know what is. I look back on those events fondly, even if we didn't really get to fish.

Where was I...? Oh right, the game. What can I say? It's a really awesome game. It's too bad it was never ported to English. If you can figure it out, it might still be worth playing in Japanese. This is where my Japanese comes in handy. :P

Kawa no Nushi Tsuri 2 Review Part 2