Fishing, as a pastime or hobby, may not be equally popular across every country but at the very least, everyone has an idea about how relaxing or how exciting the activity can be. Fishing is also a sport and while it may not adhere to the conventions of most other sports in terms of having a standard playing field, it abides by the rest of what makes any other sport a sport, like the existence of rules, being open to competition, and the requirement of skill, experience, and knowledge to excel in.
Although the idea of engaging in competitive fishing can be far-fetched for some people while at the same time being a bore for others, fishing in video games can appeal quite differently. Com2uS’ Ace Fishing Crew is one such adventure that would most certainly appeal not just to fishing enthusiasts, but also to mobile gamers in general, even those who are not particularly interested in fishing in real life. For one, the absence of physical requirements makes it a lot easier to get into virtual competitive fishing and the simplified controls and mechanics are sure to shorten, if not diminish the experience and learning curve requirements.
Ace Fishing Crew perfectly encapsulates the thrills and excitements that come with competitive fishing and makes it even more appealing for people who actually cannot afford to engage in actual competitive fishing or even have time to spare for some casual fishing experience. The introductory video, coupled with the overall quality of the game’s graphics and overall introduction, can appear overwhelming at first. However, a quick hop into the tutorial and the initial sessions that follow unravel a fairly simple and surprisingly addictive adventure that just about anyone can hop into.
Whether you consider fishing as a sport or a hobby and whether or not you have experience in reeling in a catch in real life, Ace Fishing Crew can be considered a unique adventure that can be surprisingly addictive even if you have no experience or desire to partake in the activity in real life. Although you can make progress even as a complete beginner, our Ace Fishing Crew Beginner’s Guide can help you discover your perfect team and dominate every fishing spot!
1. Master The Basics
Seeing the opening video in Ace Fishing Crew can certainly seem overwhelming as the quality of the cinematic intro seems to suggest that the adventures before you are ones covered with complexity and flooded by an abundance of details. While Ace Fishing Crew does contain a plethora of content to dive into and revel in, the gameplay mechanics it offers are relatively simple, making it fairly easy to get into even for complete beginners.
Ace Fishing Crew welcomes players with a simple tutorial that takes you straight into the action at sea. As much as it is as straightforward as can be, you can expect that there will be bigger challenges ahead past the introduction. In this sense, it is best to master the core gameplay mechanics as soon as possible to ensure a faster and more efficient path towards growth moving forward.
Upon arriving at the fishing destination, you will automatically cast the fishing line and will not have to wait long before catching a glimpse of potential catches. Although there will be several instances where numerous fishes are swimming back and forth within your screen you can always swipe left and right to check for more. Sometimes, this can be done as well to see a wider selection of what you can catch from your current session.
There is an on-screen reticle of sorts that you need to keep on the specific fish you want to attract and any fish that stays within its sights will basically be lured and consistently move towards you, ultimately taking a bite out of your bait. Immediately after the fish latches on to your fishing hook, there is a quick time event you need to complete to secure your fishing hook on the target fish. Be sure to tap on the screen when the shrinking ring aligns with the yellow section of the circular gauge. Once this is done, the battle with the fish starts.
A new meter appears on the screen once the battle starts as the fish struggles to escape from you. You are reeling in the fish and this is where timing and quick reaction times play a vital role. You should tap and hold on the reel button to fill up the meter. The smaller blue section on the right side of the meter is where you should release the hold and accomplishing this will damage the fish, lowering its hit points or HP.
Releasing your hold on the reel button prematurely can still damage the fish, but it will be significantly lower, and lower damage means taking a longer time to catch the fish, risking its escape in some cases as well.
On the other hand, going beyond the blue area of the meter will yield the worst results as doing so will result in an overcharge of sorts and damage your crew members. Reducing the fish’ HP will result in you finally catching it but reducing your team’s HP to zero ends your fishing run. Although the initial fishing sessions will make it all seem like a breeze, you can expect the challenge to grow as you progress through the story and visit other fishing destinations.
If there is a way to attract fish, there is also a way to scare some away. In some cases, the fishing spot will hold an abundance of fish, some of which may be less of an attraction to you as you progress through your journey. It can certainly become more challenging to attract the specific fish you want as they will all keep moving about with 2 or more occasionally falling within the sights of your reticle.
To scare some fish away, you can tap on them. This may seem to take some time to get used to as you ought to be focused on reeling in your target but given that you can do all the attracting and reeling in with just 1 hand, you can easily manage to tap on fish and other objects on screen with your other hand.
2. Prioritize The Story Campaign
Considering what we have discussed so far, Ace Fishing Crew is less of a fishing simulation game and more of a mix of an adventure game with RPG elements. What can be a bit of a surprise is the inclusion of a story campaign that gives you more than just an introduction and narrative to the journey ahead but also gives you some background about the different characters and lore of the fishing world within.
Following the completion of the tutorial, it only becomes natural to plunge into every available banner and menu and it is okay to do so. As there may be plenty of areas to explore, we recommend keeping your focus on progressing through the main story. The “Go Fishing” button on the home screen takes you to the vast map of fishing sites around the world but to progress through the story, you should pursue progressing through the “Story” icon on the lower left side of the 1st map.
The story mode is divided into locations, each with its own set of chapters and stages. Naturally, there are regular rewards from each stage as well as a first completion bonus. For now, the focus is to complete each stage once to unlock and conquer the next one. Some of the stages come with short storyboards and while you can skip through them, we advise you to read through the conversations and learn more about Ace Fishing Crew as well as its colorful cast of characters.
Conquering a stage regularly earns you coins, which is a basic but very useful currency, and Level Up Points for your crew. If you are inclined to replay previously conquered levels, keep in mind that the amount of coins and level-up points increase with each stage. For this reason, it is best to push as far as you can and replay at later stages to earn more rewards for your time and effort.
Beyond the valuable resources and one-time completion rewards, crew members who participate in conquering a stage earn valuable EXP. This means that they can reach new levels and become more efficient the more you use them. There is also an account EXP earned with each journey and reaching higher account levels earns you extra rewards and a fuel refill, on top of bragging rights!
Finally, and most importantly, Ace Fishing Crew’s other contents are locked at the start of your journey and the key to opening and enjoying them lies through your progression on the main story. Just as important as it is to reach higher chapters and stages for the coins and level-up points as rewards, having access to the rest of Ace Fishing Crew’s content at the earliest possible time also means earning benefits and enjoying them sooner.
Just like stamina or energy in other adventures, Ace Fishing Crew has a fuel mechanic that gets consumed with each travel to a fishing spot. Fuel replenishes over time but will only do so if the amount you have is less than the maximum amount. You can expect Ace Fishing Crew to shower you with an abundance of fuel at the start of your adventure and given the relatively lower EXP requirements to reach the next account level early on, it will be a challenge on its own to expend all the fuel you have amassed.
Just the same, we recommend making the most out of this rare occasion of having an abundance of fuel as this serves as your main opportunity to jumpstart your adventure and progress efficiently early on. Keep in mind that the farther in your adventure you reach on your initial sessions, the more rewards you will earn every step of the way moving forward!
Before we forget, Ace Fishing Crew also has an idle earning mechanic that lets you gain resources over time. Being online and adventuring or being offline and away from the game has no impact on the amount of rewards you can gain and the maximum length of the auto-fishing mode. The farther you progress in the story, however, the better the rewards get and the longer the auto-fishing feature will continue to earn you rewards.
Various fishes with different levels of EXP, diamonds, and just about any resource can be earned from auto-fishing. This seals the deal with regard to progressing the story being the most important priority to focus on your adventure.
3. Get To Know Your Crew Members
In all honesty, just traveling across a wide variety of fishing hotspots and filling up your compendium of fishes you have encountered and caught makes Ace Fishing Crew an already addictive adventure. However, the title itself should give you an idea of what sets it apart from other fishing games, even the Adventure RPG types. If you guessed it right, the crew you assemble and develop in Ace Fishing Crew is what gives you, like any other player, a way to customize your experience and strategy as you approach and conquer the various challenges that come your way.
At the start of your adventure, you will instantly have a full team of 1 fisher and 2 support crew members. Soon enough, the number of allies who will join you in your adventure will grow and while you can very much survive and conquer most of the early stages and chapters, paying attention to your crew and revising and improving your team as needed, will be a critical factor to how fast and efficiently you can progress in your adventure.
To start, crew members and equipment can be acquired from drawing. Like in strategy RPGs that host an abundance of characters, drawing both crew members and gears follows the gacha mechanics, making it exciting as you will not know which characters and equipment will be drawn and at the same time more challenging to obtain some units and items.
Crew members have 4 rarity grades common (white), premium (blue), heroic (purple), and legendary (gold). Naturally, the higher the rarity grade, the better the stats and perks, and the more difficult to acquire. Aside from crew types being fishers and supporters, and the above rarity grades, each character is made unique by their active and passive skills, along with their type and specialization.
Types can be strength (fist), life (heart), or agility (arrow). A crew member’s type symbolizes their strength in terms of dealing more damage to similar types of fish and should not be confused with stat types that each crew member possesses. Stats are, in the case of strength, being able to deal more damage. For the stats as well, being able to sustain more damage from fish battles is indicated by defense and health, and having a higher accuracy in attracting and reeling in targets is influenced by agility.
Specialization will either be Freshwater or Seawater and at some point, you will want to have 2 separate teams to venture into the 2 specific types of fishing hotspots you explore and adventure in as crew members will have higher defense values in the type of fishing spot that matches their specialization.
Aside from better stats, it is important to note that a character’s rarity grade determines the number of skills he or she has. To start, a common grade crew member will only have an active skill while a premium grade one has 1 passive ability. A heroic crew member has 2 passive skills and legendary ones have 3 passive skills.
Even if it feels too early to delve into character selection and enhancement at this point, at least familiarize yourself with the traits, skills, and abilities that crew members can have so you will have an improving idea of what your dream team would look like as you work your way towards creating your ultimate crew.
While efficiency in progressing through your fishing adventure in Ace Fishing Crew seems to dictate investing in the top-tier crew members, Ace Fishing Crew makes it so that time spent on even the common grade characters makes it worth your while. This likewise makes it a good idea to recruit members early on and thanks to Ace Fishing Crew being very generous with recruitment tickets at the start of your adventure, you will be sure to enjoy having a lot of crew members even on the first day of your adventure.
While viewing a crew member’s details after clicking on their portrait on the crew member’s menu, you will notice a story icon at the upper right side of the screen, just below the lock icon used to lock characters you do not want to accidentally sell. Progressing a character’s story gives you a better idea about their background but more importantly, earns you rewards for each milestone.
The first mission here only requires a crew member to be at least level 1, so this means that you will instantly accomplish this after recruiting the character. Diamonds can be earned and bonus stats will be provided for all your crew members so be sure to check this out for every new crew member you recruit so all of them earn some extra permanent stat boosts moving forward.
4. Be Selective With Crew Upgrades
You will definitely enjoy an abundance of resources at the start of your adventure as stages and chapters will be beaten more quickly and easily and there are also extra benefits to be earned from completing missions and partaking in special events. Even without much skill as a beginner, simply engaging actively enough and spending more time fishing will yield you sufficient resources to keep your crew in top form. However, it is a well-known fact that resources tend to dry out much faster than you can earn them, especially if you do not exercise prudence.x
Once you have been introduced to the idea of enhancing characters and equipment, you are likely to have an almost unquenchable itch to engage in them. While there is nothing wrong with that if you are having fun doing so, you may find yourself needing those same resources at a later time, for characters that may fit your ultimate crew much better than one of its current members.
At the start of your adventure, Ace Fishing Crew will provide you with Anamika, as your premium grade fisher, partnered with Evelyn and Ashley, as your legendary grade and heroic grade supporters, respectively. While we feel that it is okay to invest in the 2 higher rarity grades, it can happen that you will obtain better crew members sooner than you would expect. In the case of Anamika, you have a good chance of securing a higher-grade fisher, so we recommend holding off on resources you may want to invest in her.
The most basic way of enhancing crew members is through leveling them up. Taking them on adventures with you will earn them experience points for that but you can also grant a crew member extra EXP by using EXP points or sacrificing other crew member cards to do so. You also need to spend some coins to level crew members up and the cost depends on the EXP to be given. This likewise hints at just how precious every bit of coin you have is.
Each crew member, regardless of rarity grade, has an initial level cap of 20 and once he or she reaches the max level, you need to awaken them to increase their level cap by 10 more. Awakening stages have different requirements but it typically involves sacrificing some crew member cards of a specific grade, along with spending some coins. It is best to be certain as much as possible to be able to afford awakening a crew member before maxing out their level as taking them to an adventure would mean wasting the EXP they could have been earning.
Aside from leveling up the crew members themselves, you will also need to level up their respective skills. Again, higher-grade characters have more skills and while this concept entails needing to spend more resources on them, it also means that they become exponentially more efficient than their lower-grade counterparts as you invest more in their skills. Skills can be leveled up using type coins as well as regular coins. To some extent, having a trio of crew members with differing types can have an advantage in the sense that they will not be consuming the same type of type coins when you upgrade their skills.
The max level of a crew member’s skills depends on their star grade, which maxes out at 7 stars. To increase a star grade or level, you need to promote a crew member. This is perhaps the most difficult enhancement option for crew members, especially heroic and legendary ones. To promote a crew member, you will need to sacrifice their duplicate character cards and also spend some coins.
Despite the coin costs attributable to each promotion going higher with each higher star level, the difficult part is securing more duplicate cards for the characters you want to promote. In this aspect, you will have a much easier time promoting lower-grade crew members than legendary ones.
5. Give Your Top Trio The Best Gears
Another layer of excitement that comes with Ace Fishing Crew is how your crew members can further be enhanced through the equipment they use. You can access equipment via the tackle box icon at the bottom of the home screen with basic equipment being divided into 4 main categories. The Rod increases attack while the Reel boosts the crew member’s agility. The Line improves HP and the Lure augments defense.
The equipment mechanics in Ace Fishing Crew is much simpler than what you might expect as gears are ranked by tier and every piece belonging to the same tier is the same. Naturally, higher-tier equipment offers higher stats but that does not necessarily make the lowest-tier equipment useless. Tier 1 gears are probably best left unequipped as removing or changing equipment also has its attributable costs in coins.
To level up equipment, you need to consume Shards and Power-up Stones. The success rate starts at 100% but as the Power-Up Level increases, you can expect the probability of success to go lower. Power-up components can make up for the decreased success probability and up to 5 components can be used at a time. Although you can use the power-up function multiple folds at a time, we recommend doing it one level at a time as the probability shown will only apply to the initial power-up attempt.
As we mentioned earlier, tier 1 equipment will still be useful in Ace Fishing Crew as gears can be ranked up in terms of a tier by fusing 2 similar equipment within the same tier together. As an example, you can upgrade a tier 1 rod to tier 2 by using another tier 1 rod as a material. This process will consume Shards as well but will always have a 100% success rate.
6. Regularly Tend To Your Restaurant
Although Ace Fishing Crew is a fishing game, one of its unique contents is the restaurant feature, which lets you have a bigger purpose for the fish you catch on top of simply selling them for coins. The restaurant serves as a means of earning extra profits and the meals prepared can also be used as a way of providing buffs to your crew members before their departure towards their fishing spot.
As a beginner, you are likely to go past this feature after the quick introductory tutorial that comes after you unlock it. After all, we recommended earlier that your main focus ought to be progressing through the story campaign. Despite the earlier chapters and stages being relatively easy, even to a complete newbie, fishing continuously through the story can become tiring too. As such, we recommend taking a break from actually fishing every once in a while to check on your restaurant and invest in some improvements.
Before a dish can be served and before you start earning coins idly, you need to secure a dish recipe first. This will require obtaining the necessary ingredients first, which all come from fishing. Unlocking a dish is just the start of your side hustle to earn extra profits from fishing as additional fish you capture can be used to increase the dish’ cooking level. A higher cooking level means more idle earnings over time and a higher efficacy rate for the buff that the meal provides.
Food Research you can perform to increase the dish’s level is not always a guaranteed success but using higher grade fish, or fish with higher star levels, increases the chances of success. As specific fish will sometimes be needed as a cooking ingredient, you can always check the fish and click on its habitat to see the list of stages where you can catch the needed fish. Going back to our earlier recommendation of focusing on the next higher stage in the story campaign to move forward, revisiting previously conquered stages now has an important purpose.
In addition to idle earnings, you can also take orders from customers who visit the restaurant for some rewards. Note that in addition to coins and resources, crew shards can also be obtained from tending to customer orders. You can only tend to a limited number of VIP customers each day but Ace Fishing Crew also provides an ad boost that yields you some extra customers to tend to.
7. Accomplish Missions And Achievements
Surely enough, the instant rewards you get with every voyage into any fishing hotspot should be attractive enough for you to keep going so long as you have fuel to spare. On top of that, as well as the idle earnings we talked about earlier, Ace Fishing Crew provides even more rewards for you to further propel your virtual angler career forward and the missions feature is one of the sources of these extra resources.
Missions or quests in adventure games and RPGs are common and, at times, these features can be regarded by some as extra layers of activities that entail additional work. In most cases like in Ace Fishing Crew, however, missions directly align with the regular activities you engage in as you go through the adventure and, for the most part, you will realize that you can accomplish a good number of the missions without even knowing what they specifically are.
Missions can be accessed via the medal icon at the upper left side of the home screen. Often, you will see a red dot indicator on it, meaning that there are rewards you have already earned waiting to be claimed. Missions are divided into daily mission and guide missions, with the former resetting every day and the latter offering one-time rewards.
Daily missions include the most basic targets like catching fish, recruiting a crew member or even simply logging in. Guide missions revolve around the story chapters and you will have to accomplish all chapter 1 missions before unlocking the next set. In essence, Guide missions are like achievements in other games and while they offer only one-time rewards, the rewards are typically bigger than what you can earn from completing daily mission objectives.
Most especially as a beginner, it is best to visit the missions menu even if there are no indicators on it. Given the number of menus and features to peek into as you step into the world of Ace Fishing Crew, you can forget about tending to some specific activities that only take a few minutes or seconds to complete. For this reason, the sets of missions do not function as merely extra avenues for more rewards but also serve as your basic guide towards progressing fast and efficiently in your fishing escapade.
The list of Achievements can be accessed through the menu button at the lower right side of the home screen. In contrast with the daily missions and guide missions, achievement objectives typically take some time and effort to complete but staying active consistently will naturally take you a step closer towards achieving all of them. Some targets, like those that require higher-grade fish, may take some luck to accomplish, but just like any other objective, you will eventually be able to conquer them with some time and effort.
8. Take Advantage Of Special Events
Login rewards as well as extra rewards from missions and achievements, mixed in with the auto fishing feature in Ace Fishing Crew, ensure that even just a few minutes of adventuring into a fishing hot spot will yield you resources that contribute to your progress. Just like most virtual adventures, however, a more active adventurer will certainly be rewarded more and Ace Fishing Crew has plenty more of extra rewards to provide to the most active of players.
There are special events that take place within a limited period. These special events almost always grant handsome rewards with minimal to zero extra effort, provided that you are actively engaging in the usual activities consistently like spending enough time fishing to clear as many daily mission targets as possible. There are event banners that constantly cycle around at the upper right corner of the home screen and you can also access these events by tapping on the menu button at the bottom right side of the screen.
There are event missions that not just directly relate to your normal routine but also align with the usual missions. Every Event Mission objective you complete earns you rewards and achieving milestones reward you 10x summon tickets. As much as summon tickets can be earned in a variety of ways, simply exerting a little more effort to accomplish these simple feats to get 10 of them will be a great help to your progression, in addition to the other rewards.
One of the standard special events is the 7-Day Challenge that commences on the 1st day of your adventure. Each day and for 7 consecutive days, you will be presented with a set of objectives that are well in line with the usual activities you engage in. Just like the missions we talked about earlier, the 7-Day Challenge also doubles up as a handy guide for beginners.
Activity points are earned with every objective cleared. After earning a certain number of points, rewards can be claimed at the top of the event page. Huge sums of diamonds, coins, and other valuable resources can be earned from this challenge, along with tickets that can net you some new crew members as well as new equipment.
9. Additional Quick Tips
The fishes you have caught in your adventure as well as ideas on other species you have yet to encounter are catalogued in a book. The Book Score can be accessed through its icon on the upper left side of the home screen. Fishes are recorded and categorized by habitat or area and in addition to being an eye candy for fishing enthusiasts and a record of your progress, the book also serves as a tool for improving subsequent encounters with previously caught fishes.
After catching a certain number of similar fish, you can click the analyze button at the bottom of the page. An increase in the level of any specific fish here will improve your performance in your next encounter with them. Each higher proficiency level increases the damage you deal to them and improves your defense against battles with them.
Not every reward you earn goes straight into your invisible inventory as some special rewards are directed toward your inbox, which can be accessed through the envelope just above the fish tank. Although we recommend taking most of these rewards as soon as you can, given that they will expire after a few days, fuel should be held for as long as you can or until you are certain you can expend them. Be sure to constantly check your inbox for some event rewards as some will prove useful in strengthening your crew for the challenges moving forward.
Some special fish that you catch go directly to your fish tank. These can be transferred from your fish tank to a shared one. In a way, this can be helpful to your friends in need of a fish you may have and if they catch one from your tank, you will earn friendship coins. As you gain more friends, you can visit their shared tanks as well and obtain up to 10 fish per day. The shared fish can be used for a variety of purposes save for content associated with quests and rankings.
There are also very helpful ad boosts in Ace Fishing Crew and while we have already mentioned attracting additional VIP customers at the restaurant earlier, the rest of the ad boosts are, at the very least, equally attractive. Inside the drawing page and the shop, you can play a 15 to 30-second video ad to earn some crew members, equipment, and other resources.
The auto fishing feature as well as the idle income earned from your restaurant also has its share of ad boosts that are simply hard to ignore. Playing a short video ad in either feature will add an extra 2 hours’ worth of earnings, which means that the value will grow consistently with how profitable both have become.
Ace Fishing Crew is brimming with a lot of content and features that are collectively challenging to squeeze into one guide but we are confident that the tips, tricks and strategies we shared with you should be more than sufficient to propel your progression in this unique fishing adventure. If you have spent a considerable amount of time diving into the world of Ace Fishing Crew and chanced upon some more tricks and strategies, do not hesitate to share as many as you can with us in the comment area!