A great re-imagining of an old favorite – Fish Tycoon 2 Virtual Aquarium Review

I played the original Fish Tycoon (along with some of the other "Virtual" games) back in the original iPad days, and was delighted to see the developers still kicking, updating their old apps, and releasing new ones! The early-game is a little grindy, while you try to earn enough money to upgrade your tank environment so that rare fish can survive (it's VERY hard to do any serious breeding if rare/uncommon fish cannot survive), I was lucky enough to get two common Magic Fish of Nutrition, and bred them together to sell tankfuls at exorbitant prices. It's a charming little game that you can leave to run in the background and return to tend a couple times a day. The game allows you to pause time, too, which is great for if you know you can't visit it for a while or need to step away and resume later, and you can still look at your fish in the meantime! If you want to find all the fish, I recommend picking either a single base species or fin-type to breed together (currently I have a couple tankfuls of goldfish I'm trying to get the last few breeds on), and sell any other fish you get. Sell all your duplicate fish in your chosen species. Keep a few high-earning fish around to breed for extra cash. The art style of the shop and menus have been very much improved in this version (though I admit, there was a certain charm to the original UI and tank background), but it plays much like I remember! There are in-app purchased currency and ads in this one, but they're actually way more fair than I expected. You can just as easily revive a fish by watching an ad as you could pay a couple gems. You can also pay to make things in the game happen faster, but this really is the kind of game that it's nice not to have to babysit all the time. You'll get TONS of seashells throughout the day (each containing two gems), which can reasonably be saved up. You get minor ads for their other games when going between the shop interface and the tanks, but they don't get in the way of actual gameplay. If that paid aspect is a deal-breaker, you can always buy the original game, it's the same game but self-contained and with older art. I will say, I think the fish art is the same between each of the games, their animation and movement is a bit limited. If you wanted a super realistic fish tank, this may not be the game for you. If you want to be a... well, fish tycoon, the game is very aptly named. I quite enjoy discovering new species and racking up cash in the process. I don't know if the magic fish are the same or different in this game as they were in the original, I only have two so far.
Review by bookshelfpassageway on Fish Tycoon 2 Virtual Aquarium.