Rule with an Iron Fish is a super slick pirate fishing RPG. You unlock different zones to fish for various different fish and sea creatures, as well as fighting tentacles and pirate ships. It’s simple and a lot of fun, with numerous quests and extensive (text) dialogue with quirky pirate characters. Unlock and craft different boats to access new areas.
There are plenty of upgrades, from your fishing hook and line to bobbers that increase the gold value of your fish to better kinds of bait that are more likely to attract the “rare” fish. These flash yellow so you’ll want to focus on catching them as often as possible. There’s also a simple farming and cooking feature, where you can make recipes to instantly summon rare fish and get extra exp and gold.
The battle and fishing mechanisms are both pretty simple – this is very much a fun game, more about collecting than having to have lightning fast reflexes. There’s a trophy room to store various prizes from quests, you can unlock hats and pets (cosmetic only, they have no stat benefits) and there’s also an aquarium. It would have been cool to expand this feature – perhaps to have the quest awards as aquarium decorations – there are only a few basic decorations you can buy.