Animal Crossing: New Horizons is in no way a difficult game. You can take it as slowly as you want, shaking down trees with as much commitment as this guy and catching bugs as laconically as David Attenborough on opiates. There’s practically no challenge whatsoever, it being the complete opposite of a competitive game in which you chat to animals and make basements that serve as Satanic shrines to hamsters.
Well, it’s not totally without challenge. You earn Nook Miles for completing milestones, the large majority of which you will unlock from purely dedicating the time. However, one of these milestones, Cast Master, is my Mount Everest, an almost impossible task that requires my brain to co-ordinate with my hands consistently and reliably (read: not something within my DNA).
Cast Master asks you to catch a set amount of fish in a row without messing up, starting off on ten, then fifty and finally (I presume) a hundred. This is easier said than done.
The milestone teases you with how easy it is to start off with; ten in a row is really nothing. But fifty? That’s a tall order, especially with how finicky the fishing is and how dastardly unpredictable the fish themselves can be.
Lining up the perfect cast can be fiddly, to say the least — even the Pro Controller doesn’t offer a lot of precision when it comes to positioning yourself properly. By the time you think you have yourself in the right spot, the fish will have had enough of humouring you and then just swim away, resetting the ordeal. Too many times have I cast my line, thought I messed up, and then reeled it back in only for the fish to get spooked as they had, in fact, seen the line after all. Twats.
Most heartbreaking of all, however, is when fish tease you about taking the bait and your brain thinks it knows the pattern, only to get it totally wrong; the streak shattered. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been in a fishing groove only for my brain to let out a tremendous fart, the noxious fumes of the stupidity making my finger press A far too early. It’s harder to take than coming second in a battle royale game, or the fact that Mr Resetti isn’t (yet) in New Horizons.
Even using my Very Serious Gamer method doesn’t always help. When I know that I have a fish lined up properly, I close my eyes, focusing my chi and shutting out all outside distractions so that the only thing I focus on is the sound of the nibbles. It’s weird to be so focused on such a simple thing, but it certainly helps. I inevitably cock up, though, when my mind drifts or I begin to fall asleep as I haven’t slept properly in like six months.
I don’t know if I will ever manage to dust off Cast Master in New Horizons. The closet I have come to even the second part of it is 47, which was a failure so devastating so close to completion that I let out an audible scream. Just the thought of catching one hundred in a row makes me break out into a heavy sweat.
It is my white whale. I may one day become the Catch Master, but at what cost?
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is out now exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. From our review:
“New Horizons is a great continuation of an already fantastic series of games, and paying back Tom Nook’s loan has never been so fun.”
MORE NEW HORIZONS:
– Animal Crossing: New Horizons: How To Predict Turnip Prices
– Animal Crossing: New Horizons: What Does The Aluminum Briefcase Do?
– PSA: Paying Off Your Final New Horizons Nook Loan Isn’t Worth It
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