Moonglow Bay by developer Coatsink takes you on a fishing trip like no other you’ve experienced. The blends a mix of a bit of Animal Crossing, a bit of RPG, a lot of angling, and a whole bunch of wholesome content to deliver you a chill experience in a blocky designed world.
Pick up where you left
At the start of the game, you choose 1 of 4 characters to play as and a significant other. I chose the old bearded guy and a sassy-looking wife to start with. When you pick different starting characters the game’s intro might alter a bit but the bottom line is still the same. Moonglow Bay was once a thriving community with an active fishing community. In true fishers’ town fashion, the tales of monsters lurking in the nether regions of the ocean were plenty. Suddenly a shift came about when weird things started to happen and people actually started to believe the legends. More and more people left Moonglow Bay and the once-booming town became a bit of a ghost town. To top things off, your partner disappears on a fishing-related incident never to be found again. The little hope that is left of ever finding your partner alive is almost gone a few years after the incident as you re-connect with your daughter who decided to put some life back in town and subsequently… in you
Fishing journal
A present left from your partner was laying around for all these years. Reluctant to open it you’ve kept it the way it was in hopes of one day getting it out of the hands of your lost partner. Finally, you decide to open it and find a fishing journal. Under the impulse of your daughter and the discovery of the fishing journal, you decide to continue the legacy and start fishing again. Your decision has many townsfolk frowning because most of them are still convinced the waters should be avoided at all costs. Despite the obvious warning signs you ignore all of them and head for the deep waters. With a lot of biomes to explore you’ll catch numerous different species of fish.
Next to fishing, your partner was also fond of cooking up recipes that involved seafood. So in honour of your partner, you decide to start cooking up recipes. These meals can then be sold or given to certain townsfolk for certain favours. Money – in the form of shells – can be used to do all sorts of things in Moonglow Bay. Updating your boat, angle equipment or even investing in town are all amongst the possibilities. The investing part is definitely necessary to restore Moonglow Bay’s appeal for the upcoming centennial. A booming town means booming business so there are some personal motivations attached too.
Fetch quests
Interacting with the people from Moonglow Bay will give you all sorts of information from different species and where to find them to information about the “monsters”. Along the way, you’ll come across different tasks to perform. These are essentially fetch-quests. Catching different types of fish to donate to the museum, fishing in different biomes, catching lobsters, … will all help in developing the story of Moonglow Bay. The game is all about having a chill experience without much hassle. If you want to just go out fishing you can totally do that. If you want to discover new areas, just go out and explore. If you need more incentive to continue this chill experience you can go for the quests.
Monsters and QTE
If you decide to follow along with the story you’ll soon encounter the tales of monsters again. As you are naturally curious because of what happened (allegedly) with your partner you are fond of further investigating these. Essentially you’ll find out the tales weren’t entirely made up as you’ll encounter these “bosses”. Battling these is probably the only thing coming close to a frustrating ordeal. These feature timed events and some hassling around to get through. Luckily you’ll have mastered the art of Quick Time Events by now. Making the recipes involves numerous QTE inspired mini-games that feel neat the first time around but become stale after doing them over and over again. It’s nice to involve you in the process of making the meals. How well you perform these reflects in the quality of the said meal and determines the asking price. I wish this could be made optional after doing it over and over again.
Wholesome
The QTE caveat mentioned before shouldn’t deteriorate you from trying Moonglow Bay. The game is such a great vibe all together I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent during this review period. Going on explorations and discovering all the wonky fish is great fun by itself. Seeing the town evolve and discovering the different stories is truly wholesome. My dad goes fishing to relieve stress. I’m not into fishing myself but just might’ve found my angling-inspired stress release for the near future.
Conclusion
Moonglow Bay is a fun and quirky game for those in need of something different from the action-packed gaming experiences. Exploring, renovating, cooking all combine in this neat little package.
