- Developer: Humongous Entertainment
- Publisher: UFO Interactive
- Release Date: 3/1/2021
- Price: £13.49 / $14.99
Introducing: Freddi Fish 3 Review
Let’s just get it out of the way that this is not going to be an unbiased review in any way. I have a huge nostalgia attachment to the Humongous Entertainment games of the 1990’s and early 2000’s. Spy Fox, Pajama Sam, Putt-Putt, I played them all! That, of course, includes the subject of our review for today, Freddi Fish. It might seem strange that the third game in the series is the one being brought first to the Switch, but it’s nor really that surprising if you know this series. Each of the games is standalone in nature and the third Freddi Fish game is one of the most well known of the 5 games (not counting spinoffs), so let’s take a look at if this 1998 point and click for kids still holds up today!
A Forlorn Festival
Freddi Fish and her friend Luthor are taking a journey to the tropics for a founder’s day festival on invitation of one of Luther’s relatives, but when they get there, they find that things have gone very wrong. You see, the conch shell and it’s three golden pipes have gone missing. They’re traditionally used to announce the beginning of the festival proper so the fact that they’re gone is obviously a big problem. Worse yet, Luther’s Uncle Blenny has been blamed for the theft since he’s the keeper of the conch and has the easiest access. He asks that the aquatic duo find the conch and the pipes in order to clear his name. So, the duo set out to do just that, solving the mystery of who did it along the way.
This game really hits in the best spot for kid’s entertainment. Not only are they a lot of fun in the scripting, but the stakes feel like they’re big and important for the target age group. In this case it’s kids under the age of ten, but even as an adult, I had a lot of fun returning to this game. It’s the Freddi Fish title that I played perhaps the most as a child and I have to say, I’m glad that I can get all the jokes I missed when I was little. Is it going to be the most groundbreaking thing in the world if you’re an adult who has never played before? Absolutely not. However, if you’re willing to meet it on it’s level, you’re going to have a lot of fun.
For kids, it’s an exciting adventure, perhaps even more so because the game is very replayable! There are six suspects, who could have done the theft and it’s not the same answer as to who did every time. There are actually six endings, one for each, meaning that kids can give the game another go in order to see the other endings and play through the puzzles over again. Speaking from experience, I played this game dozens of times over as a kid.
So Much to See
Don’t worry about a kid getting bored either! Each of the three golden pipes has a few different places that they can pop up in during the game. It’s actually pretty impressive the amount of variety that is available. You see, when the game starts up, it rolls a choice on each of the pipes to decide where it will end up this time around, but each of the pipes is classified into a different level of difficulty. There’s the easy pipe, typically able to be retrieved with nothing but what is in the same room that it is found in. The medium pipe might take a little back and forth to find, perhaps even a few steps. The hard pipe, though, is going to be the longest chain of things to figure out, coming in multiple steps that will take you all over the game map. With three options for the easy pipe, three for medium, and two for the hard, there are 18 different combinations for the three pipes to end up in!
Beyond finding the pipes, though, there are minigames that can be played along the way too. Sometimes the carnival organ or the puyo pop minigame will be needed to get the pipe, but on other playthroughs they can just be a fun distraction like the build-a-fish-criminal minigame. There’s a lot of funa variety to be had, even if just fooling around. Freddi Fish 3 isn’t very long at all. If you’re just going from point A to B, you’re going to be done in under an hour for one run. Then again, that’s assuming you’re an adult that doesn’t need to do any thinking about any of the puzzles because, hey, this is meant for 8 year old kids. However, the little points to click on literally every screen of the game provide tons more entertainment through all sorts of little comedy asides that still stood out vivid in my memory all these years later when I saw them again.
Oh yeah, and one more thing… this is an educational game! Well, not in the traditional sense of sitting down and learning all about one subject, but more in having the goal of teaching kids problem solving. I can think of only one instance in all the routes of the game that felt like moon logic, and I still was able to get it when I was little so it can’t be as out there as it might seem at first glance. Everything follows a logical path that teaches kids how to put things together and figure them out. For example, to get the nut to open the cage, you need a tool to get it off the narwhal’s horn, which is in a prickly plant, so you need to use the thick safety glove to protect yourself. It’s all about finding the right tool for the job! Heck, I credit titles like this for giving me my love of puzzle games all these years later so they’re an excellent place to start if you already love the genre and want to share that with your children!
A Colorful Coral Reef
Visually, the game looks just as it ever did, which is to say that it looks like it’s from 1998. The graphics are a little bit of a lower resolution, but you see it much more holding it in handheld than when you toss it up on the tv across the room. However, the lower resolution really only shows on the characters as the backgrounds look just as beautiful as they ever did. All the colors absolutely pop and while there are a variety of different areas, the whole thing has a wonderful sense of cohesiveness.
The best part is the animation of the characters, all hand drawn and absolutely beautiful. There was a Freddi Fish game brought to the Wii back in the day that had some pretty severe issues with stuttering animations, but that’s clearly no longer a problem in the case of this game as everything looks downright excellent!
Lost in Translation
The sound is where we’re running into some problems. If you’re worried about the voice acting or sound quality of an older game, don’t be. It still all sounds wonderful and the actors all knocked it out of the park back in the day. Everyone sounds delightfully cartoony to go along with all the absolutely excellent cartoony sound effects that fill the world.
No, the problem is that the game is lacking just about every piece of music that was ever included in it. It sounds strangely silent without the signature jazzy steel drums that characterised the music of the series. At first, I thought that it might be some kind of licensing issue, despite the fact that none of the music was licensed and was all made for the game. However, as it turns out, this is all just a massive bug in the game. None of the music plays and the devs have confirmed that they are looking at getting a patch out to remedy this. There won’t be a problem at all once this is fixed, but until it is, that is a pretty big problem.
A Small Hiccup
Besides the missing music, I never ran into a single other problem, not that I would expect it from a game that was released in a pretty perfect state back in the day already. Everything ran smooth as butter. There was even a little bit of a quality of life update in the way that the game now allows you to skip animations. It’s not something I saw a big use in, but I can see if you clicked on one of the parts that kicks off a song and don’t want to sit through the whole thing, it might be nice to be able to make your way past it a little more quickly.
My Greedy Recommendation
Freddi Fish is a series that I will always love for being one of the games that started me down my path to loving puzzle solving games. Not only is it great to be able to go back to it on a bigger screen than I ever could as a kid, I’m thrilled that young kids will be able to find these games anew! Even with the issue of the music not being fixed quite yet, I can do nothing but highly recommend this title for anyone with younger kids who need something positive and educational to play on the switch.
Pros
- Very replayable
- Perfect at giving kids a bit of a challenge without getting them too stuck
- Funny and cute as ever
- Holds up amazingly well
Cons
- Launched with a pretty significant glitch
Verdict
Despite a rocky launch, Freddi Fish still holds up just as well as I remember, making for a wonderful experience for the young and young at heart.
