I Am Fish, the sequel to the undeniably unique I Am Bread, was released almost two months ago. It’s a title I was looking forward to, especially given that it was provided on Xbox Game Pass. Although other titles kept me from getting around to it, I finally made the time to play an adorable game about controlling very adorably animated fish.

Amidst my excitement, however, there was a lingering thought in the back of my head. I couldn’t help but wonder why I hadn’t heard more about the game. Controlling a sentient piece of bread is certainly more bizarre and meme-worthy than intelligent fish, but I felt certain that the gorgeous visuals and cute fish designs would have won more people over. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for me to see that a few key issues define the whole experience.

Before I go into further detail about what I disliked, I want to sing the due praises for what this game does right. The first of those is by far the visuals! All four of the playable fish are incredibly cute and well animated. There’s no dialogue shared between them, but each one does have a little personality.

A consistent cartoony design is extended to the goofy-looking seagulls and the humans seen in cutscenes or in passing. From the guy fishing out of a stream to partying and drunk people at a club, everyone has a charm about them that really pulls the player into this strange world.

Where the visuals truly stand out though, is in the environments. I have to give a lot of credit to Bossa Studios for crafting such beautiful environments that almost perfectly straddle the line between cartoony and realism. While there were a few moments where it felt like the fish I was playing stood out like a sore thumb, most of the time I was able to enjoy the environment without a second thought. To clarify about standing out like a sore thumb, I more mean in terms of design, not because the fish was moving a mop bucket in a club.

I believe a strong reason for this is the lighting. There are some truly wonderful environmental setups already, especially with such varied stages. However, the lighting is always what takes it to the next level. Whether it’s the sunlight peeking through the trees and shining through holes in a cave ceiling or the speeding headlights of passing vehicles on a rainy street, the game always looks fantastic. I’ve stopped in the middle of playing a game to take in environments before, usually in a narrative-heavy or open-world game. I Am Fish became another game on that list.

Speaking of things that made me stop playing just to stare, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention how great the water looks as well. It looks as great in a downward stream as it does in a giant lake. My attempt to play around with the controls in the first few minutes of the game was immediately beset by me moving back and forth to watch the water inside the fishbowl.

Water is obviously an important part of this game because the fish need it to survive. Two of them have abilities that let them travel outside of water for a bit, but generally speaking, they’ll be swimming in some shape of water all-throughout. The developers needed to nail the water not just feeling good but looking good too and I’m happy to see that they accomplished that.

As amazing as the visuals are, the soundtrack is another wonderful surprise. I really enjoyed the general tones for each fish as well. The Goldfish’s tracks are very upbeat, aquatic, and even a little electronic to serve as the intro to the game. As a counterpoint, the Puffer Fish has jaunty loud tracks that would befit an inflated fish.

The game isn’t too long and although quite a few levels did take longer than I wanted, the music never got on my nerves. I believe that’s because although overall it’s very relaxing and cheery, each one is a fun track. Additionally, there is more than enough variance for each track to stand out.

Now, if you’ve played any of Bossa Studios’ previous games from the prequel to this game to the more recent Surgeon Simulator 2, then there’s probably not much I need to say about the story. At its heart, it may be a simple tale of four fish buddies working to reunite with each other. However, that takes a back seat to the whacky over-the-top situations that each fish finds itself in during their respective journeys.

Although it is a sequel to I Am Bread, which was loosely connected to Surgeon Simulator, there’s no need to play those games to understand the story in this one. There are some strong connections to those games and fans will enjoy the expansion of this unique universe. All that considered, they are mostly more relevant to particular sections in gameplay than they are to the overall plot.

If I were to stop right here, you might be left with quite the pretty opinion of the game. To be honest, when I think about it myself I even begin to form the same opinion again. I Am Fish looks amazing, sounds catchy, has great ideas, and the story is rather funny. It has all the makings of a great time if it weren’t for the gameplay.

It should come as no surprise that this game (like the developers’ previous games) can be difficult when it comes to controls. Not in a buggy way or anything, but in an intended part-of-the-charm way. Like its predecessor, this is accomplished with a heavy focus on physics when it comes to movement.

This is especially apparent when confined to a container such as a fishbowl or a bottle. I’m not able to immediately take off or stop on a dime. It takes a bit of pushing before the container begins rolling and after reaching a considerable speed it can take a bit of pushing in the opposite direction to stop. There’s nothing wrong with this inherently. It adds a lot of challenge and difficulty to the game and truthfully I have no problems with the physics. The issue is that some elements don’t mix with physics in a fun way.

A shining example to start with is the bottle container. Movement in any of the containers always feels a little frantic, but it’s the worst with the simple bottle. With the spherical fishbowl, I can push it easily in any direction. The cylindrical shape of the bottle means I can move forward and backward with no problem, whereas it’s more of a pain to move towards the sides. To do so I would simply have to push forward or backward while on the opposite side of the bottle, i.e. pushing on the left side will push the left side forward and therefore turn the bottle to the right.

It’s a welcome challenge and a great way to feel separate from the fishbowl. However, it can be quite frustrating. Turning in it is an absolute pain because the faster I’m going, the quicker I’m turning. At a slower pace, I might need to move closer to the outside of the bottle, while a quicker pace just needs the slightest nudge from the middle to begin shifting direction. It’s incredibly unwieldy although I imagine it captures moving in a bottle pretty well.

Again, I do want to stress that I am aware that physics-based movement is not synonymous with easy play. There usually is some difficulty when it comes to games like this. If it was just the physics that were difficult due to their realism, I wouldn’t have too much issue. This all leads back to my point that not everything mixes well with the physics-based gameplay.

Going back to the bottle example, the first introduction to it is in a wide-open space. It’s a wonderful way to get situated with how it controls. The following area is almost entirely made of tight paths, some of which are made tighter with collapsing boards. As turning is already a pain, correcting movement is even worse and that takes up a decent amount of time because it happens a lot. Unless the fish is moving at a literal snail’s pace, turning with the bottle in tight spaces is a series of three-point turns at best, and I’ve-lost-count-how-many-times-I’ve-gone-back-and-forth-point turns at worst.

I thought I was going to scream during one bottle segment that had me dealing with homing seagulls. Even though it was a lot more open than rolling along boards, there were plenty of bench legs to hit as I was trying to hide. Each time a seagull managed to hit me it would send me rolling in the direction they were flying, and then another seagull would notice the movement and eventually fly towards me, beginning the quick cycle again. It’s a very simple challenge, but unwieldy controls made it anything but fun.

I wish I could say the issues were constrained with the bottle segments, but unfortunately, they weren’t. The camera was another challenging aspect. At any time it could make any precise segments requiring movements more difficult than they needed to be. It certainly made the bottle segments as well as the Flying Fish levels much worse.

Flying around was already a little difficult to begin with and my quick crashing the first few times gave me strong Battlefield nostalgia. As much as I did really like flying around once I got the hang of it, the camera didn’t always follow behind me and the controls are respective to the fish. Turning typically ended up with the fish close to being entirely perpendicular to the camera, which made the controls feel abysmal as I tried to correct myself.

Checkpoints weren’t always great either. Sometimes they’d be close together, while at other times they were few and far between. In a game with difficult controls, this can be annoying. What made this just the more frustrating though is the starting point for some of them. Respawning is satisfyingly quick. Moving again is not.

I like to contrast it to an overly difficult platformer. It’s easy to keep retrying with difficult platformers because respawning and moving again can be instant. It’s easy to overlook how many times you’re dying because the gameplay cycle is responsive and punchy. This isn’t a platformer where I can promptly begin moving at from a respawn though. Momentum is a key factor.

Many checkpoints are placed before a big jump. The physical starting point however will never start from a place that I would be able to successfully jump out of and clear. I’d have to slowly move back or down a bit first before slowly accelerating forward to leap with enough momentum. It’s a very small thing, but it adds up to a major annoyance when I’m constantly returning to that checkpoint.

A macro example of this occurred a few times right before a difficult segment. For example, I would need to jump out of one moveable container into the second one in another room/area. No matter how you look at it, that second container would be the starting point before the difficult gauntlet ahead of me. Whether I was moving it or jumping out of it, that second container was always the first step in a challenging section and the logical place to put a checkpoint. From how everything is designed, it simply doesn’t make sense to place them anywhere else.

However, that logic is not followed. Missing my landing or running out of air meant I would be respawned back in the first container. I’d then push against it as it slowly accelerated towards the second container, though I can’t move too fast though or it might bounce off and need me to realign it. Then I could make the simple transition to the second container and try the area once more.

Again, it’s a minor inconvenience that repeatedly takes its toll because you’ll die a lot in this game. The gameplay cycle would ideally be an attempt, death, respawn, attempt. However, it instead feels like attempt, death, respawn, 10-15 seconds to get into position, attempt. Not only does that extra time make my failures feel more weighty, but it also provided more time for me to ruminate on those repeated failures. It’s disheartening and ultimately bothersome.

Something else I noticed is that the game can fail to be consistent. Swimming in sewers should be an interesting and fun change, but it wasn’t. There are some hilariously depressing obstacles in the form of plastic six-pack rings and cups that my fish could get caught in and die from. This is fine as an obstacle, but I could sometimes get out of it if I struggled enough and I couldn’t tell if that was intentional or not. I also swam around in a cup for nearly a minute with no issue and died within 15 seconds the next time it happened, so I’m not sure what the set time is supposed to be if there is one.

Rolling around in a club as the Pufferfish was an absolute highlight, albeit some parts of that stage didn’t do a great job at pointing me where to go next. It was also annoying to sometimes be nudged by dancing people and at other times be sent flying many feet away. Some stages also featured a water spout of sorts that would push me towards a particular area.

Commonly, it would try to push me inside a container and there would be a little pull to make sure I landed in there. Sometimes that pull just didn’t work though and I’d helplessly land in the wrong spot. I’d try to flop into the container myself but this didn’t always work out. Part of the reason for that is because, to its credit, the game does make you feel like a helpless dying fish when flopping out of water. It isn’t the most responsive and it feels erratic, which I appreciated and hated equally.

There is an option to skip to the next checkpoint in case a certain section is too difficult. I do commend them for adding that to make the game a little more accessible. Personally, I decided to not use it unless I lost my patience or could not proceed. Although I came close because of the former quite a bit, my one time using it was because I inadvertently set something out of order and sent a minecart out without me in it. Restarting from a checkpoint didn’t respawn the cart back, so I did have to skip to the next checkpoint just to keep on playing.

I started this game excitedly and wound up having to take breaks during its relatively short playtime for my sanity. I wasn’t happy again until I realized I was nearing the end. There’s a neat bonus level that requires a certain number of collectibles, however, I refused to put myself through further torture replaying it. An Iron Man mode (cutely named Iron Fish Mode) unlocks after beating it that allows you to play with no checkpoints. I didn’t dare try it. There’s also the Bossa Style controls which require you to additionally sway the fins back and forth to move, and I only dabbled in that for a minute.

It all boils down to the fact that I didn’t have a lot of fun playing this. I thoroughly enjoyed the visuals, the music is absolutely charming, and each stage stands out, especially each fish’s third stage. All of this should come together with the challenging physics-based movement to make something really enjoyable, but it’s all dragged down by frustrating gameplay.

Every other aspect makes this one of if not the best game Bossa Studios has made. It’s incredibly more polished than I Am Bread. It’s far more accessible than the one-year Epic exclusive Surgeon Simulator 2. It is crystal clear that this was made with a whole lot of love. Looking at it as a whole though, even with everything great that it has going for it, the game just isn’t fun and that makes for a very regrettably flawed experience.

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I Am Fish

$19.99

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• Eye-catching Visuals
• Bopping Music
• Varied Stages

Cons

• Frustrating Controls
• Badly Placed Checkpoints
• The Camera is hard to work with
• Occasional Glitches
• An Overall Sense of Inconsistency