REVIEW | Pronty: Fishy Adventure

LifeisXbox’s rPonty: Fishy Adventure review | I didn’t know too much about Pronty Fishy Adventure going into the review. At first glance, it looked a bit like an adventure exploration game with some light combat that harkened back to the days of Echo the Dolphin. An undersea creature that has to save other animals or recover lost artifacts kind of thing, but scratching beneath the ocean green surface reveals so much more. What we have here is very similar to a twin-stick shooter but with its unique twist added on. Essentially it can be classified as a single stick shooter because it uses a lot of those mechanics but then adds on special abilities and other items for Ponty to utilize. Developed & Published by 18LIGHT GAME LTD, Ponty Fishy Adventure is a heart-warming tale of a fish and his robotic partner defending the once-great city of Royla from an invasion of altered sea life.

The Boss Battles had me on the edge of my seat!

ℹ️ Reviewed on PC | Review code provided by PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion from the writer.

What we liked!

• Art Style | Whenever I sit down to play a 2D sprite-derived game, I always appreciate the effort designers go through to make these games work. Animating 2D isn’t easy, but what the creators have achieved here is pretty well done and has high quality. The animations are smooth and look nice for each of the main characters and enemies, but it goes beyond that. In Pronty Fishy Adventure, there are a series of 2D animated backdrops that also get high-quality treatment. The whole package is well designed here & makes the game feel complete with even the tiniest of details such as bubbles and fish swimming in the background. Even the colours from time to time can be really exciting to see. See the image above of the emissive red crystals.
• Combat | The combat in Pronty Fishy Adventure is very similar to that of a twin-stick shooter as I mentioned earlier. If playing with a controller, you move the right analogue stick in the direction you want to attack and then hit the right trigger button. This causes your robot fish partner Bront (who is similar to a swordfish) to swipe at the enemy and eventually take them out. There are special abilities to unlock as you progress through the game which can be combined with your attacks such as the rush attack which leaves a mark on an enemy allowing Bront to take them out in one go. Throughout the game, you will also come across memory boards which allow you to equip passive abilities such as electrical currents when performing your rotating attack. It’s pretty well thought out and you can swap these in and out whenever you find a save point and can access the machine.
• Abilities | Alongside combat abilities, you also have your defensive abilities such as dash. This allows you to evade when necessary and take no damage from boss attacks, obstacles, and environmental damage. Combine this with some of the combat mechanics mentioned above and you have a pretty nifty attack pattern that you can use to destroy even the most dangerous of enemies.
• Sound Design | The sound design is excellent. The underwater caustic effects and sound suit the game and make it feel like you are underwater. Certain noises such as the screams of one of the bosses in the game are muffled and all aspects of this have been taken into consideration. The music also feels very fitting, with epic boss battle music to accompany even the simplest of fights, to sombre empty drones of the empty ocean as you swim around looking for your next objective.
• Epic Boss Battles | The game surprised me with its boss battles. They are well designed and thought out. Some of the colours are amazing and the attack patterns they use are just difficult enough to the point where they won’t induce frustration. Most of the bosses I fought while playing Pronty Fishy Adventure had me on the edge of my seat excited for the fight. There was always an awesome introduction to each boss and each one ended spectacularly. The inside of the whale boss Citia Worm was something to see.

Somewhere between

• A bit wordy | The game has a story but it’s certainly not one that I feel is worthy of so much dialogue. The intro to the game is very slow as your hand is held through the most mundane of tutorials. The game offers some hand-drawn animated cutscenes which I feel would have played out better as tutorials, like gifs to allow the player to play and pick it up at their leisure. Once this initial opening is done though it is a little more toned down and easier to swallow.
• The Map | The map can be brought up with the options button on the controller and shows you areas that you have explored. I would have liked to have had an easier way of seeing what has been completed though as this isn’t visible on the map and ended up having me backtrack quite a bit before I found my next objective.
• No waypoints | The game is a bit hit and miss here. The initial opening has a guide to show you where to go, but after that, there didn’t appear to be any waypoints that I could see that told me where to go. It felt like a game of hiding and seek sometimes and due to the map also being largely unhelpful, it was a bit of trouble to find the next place. The game overall has a semi-decent-sized map so be prepared to get lost quite often.

What we disliked

• No VSYNC | For a PC game to have no VSYNC is pretty bad. The screen tearing here was pretty bad because a,.ot of the time you are moving from horizontal to vertical and back again so the apparent screen tearing is noticeable and pretty bad. From my experience, coding in a VSYNC option in Unity & Unreal is very simple, so whatever engine they are using, I would like to see this game updated with it.
• Accessibility | I would have loved to have seen some more options in the game that allows for more customisable gameplay. Graphical options, disability-friendly modes, colour blind options since 90% of the game is a blue colour, people who suffer from tritanomaly will find this game uncomfortable to play.

How long to beat the story | 15 Hours
How long to unlock all achievements | 15 Hours+

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