Fish Slayer

A hungry animal, a sea full of fish, and 90-second waves

Fish Slayer's pitch is a familiar wave-survival formula filtered through an unusual setting: you play a small animal, starting with an otter, that needs constant calories to survive, hunting down fish across 90-second waves while collecting gold and stacking stats and weapons into an increasingly powerful build. Beyond a straightforward Normal mode, the game offers a Fog mode that adds a spreading hazard you have to actively clear while fighting, a Missile mode built around baiting homing projectiles into enemy hordes for chain-reaction explosions, and a longer, branching Campaign mode that several reviewers describe as the game's most structurally interesting addition. It's a clear descendant of the Brotato-style wave-survival genre, and its small early review base is explicit about recognising that lineage while still finding plenty to single out as distinctive.

Hand-drawn art as a specific, repeated selling point

The single most consistent theme across Fish Slayer's entirely Simplified Chinese-language review sample is its art. One detailed reviewer writes plainly that "all the assets are fully hand-drawn, with no AI-generated material," calling that especially rare in today's indie landscape, and praising visible brushwork across characters, monsters, environments and effects that avoids the repetitive, assembly-line feel they associate with many current releases. A separate reviewer independently reaches the same conclusion using almost the same language, specifically praising "purely hand-drawn art, not that AI-stacked texture," and crediting the visual identity as the thing that first drew them to the game. Multiple reviewers single out specific character designs, particularly a small otter and a later-unlocked penguin, as especially charming and satisfying to actually play once their kits come together.

A developer reviewers say is genuinely listening

Beyond the art, reviewers repeatedly credit the small team behind Fish Slayer with an unusually attentive post-launch presence. One reviewer states directly that the developer's attitude toward player feedback is a major point in the game's favour, noting that "quite a few reasonable suggestions have already been implemented in version updates," a sentiment echoed by a separate reviewer who specifically praises the studio for taking bug reports and balance concerns seriously rather than treating the release as a finished, walk-away product. That perception lines up with a visible post-launch patch cadence, including a full UI overhaul, a new unlockable character, and multiple rounds of balance and bug fixes within three weeks of the 20 August release.

Where the detail reviews start pushing back

Set against that praise, the sample's more detailed accounts are specific and consistent about where the game currently falls short. One reviewer who logged roughly three hours writes that the game's "foundation is solid" and its "sincerity is obvious," but says outright that "optimisation is something I have to complain about now," describing noticeable stutter and frame drops alongside UI interaction issues, partially obscured or cut-off text, and controller support that "basically doesn't work" on UI-heavy screens despite functioning fine during core combat. A separate detailed review flags a specific Campaign mode bug where the game reportedly locks up entirely as soon as a wave's countdown timer hits zero, and another describes being forced out of a Campaign run immediately after clearing just its second stage.

Too many items, not enough differentiation

A further recurring critique concerns the game's item-stacking build system itself rather than its technical execution. One reviewer, while still recommending the game, argues bluntly that the sheer number of stackable items, numbering in the hundreds by their count, creates a real choice-paralysis problem without a correspondingly large amount of genuine build differentiation underneath, adding that a handful of specific item effects are tuned so strongly they can make a run trivially easy if drawn early, while their absence leaves a run feeling comparatively grindy. That reviewer frames this as a fairly standard problem for the wave-survival genre generally rather than a fatal flaw specific to Fish Slayer, but it's a clear-eyed complaint from someone who otherwise rates the game positively for its low price and approachable difficulty curve.

What the achievement curve suggests

Global achievement data, spanning 21 tracked milestones, shows a typically front-loaded distribution: starting a match and unlocking a first new character both sit above 68%, while maxing out a single talent point sits at 48.1% against just 29.6% for maxing every talent point available, a meaningful drop-off that lines up with reviewer accounts of a build system with real depth once a player commits to going deep on it. Clearing a match at the game's higher difficulty tiers falls away sharply, from 18.5% at the second difficulty level down to 7.4% at the fifth, while unlocking every character sits at just 1.8%, suggesting the game's full character roster and hardest challenge tiers remain the province of a small, dedicated slice of its still-small early audience rather than something most buyers have pushed through to yet.

Final verdict

Fish Slayer is a low-priced, hand-drawn take on the wave-survival roguelite formula that's winning over its small, entirely Chinese-language early audience specifically on the strength of its art and an unusually responsive developer, while its most detailed reviewers are equally consistent that performance stutter, unfinished UI polish and unclear unlock conditions are real, currently unresolved problems rather than minor nitpicks. None of the reviewers who raised those complaints walked back their overall positive recommendation as a result, framing them instead as the visible seams of a small team's first major release rather than a sign of a project headed nowhere. At NZ$6.39, this is a reasonable, low-risk pick for wave-survival fans drawn to its underwater setting and its refreshingly hand-made visual identity, with the understanding that its technical rough edges are still a genuine work in progress.