Thank you Ultimate Games for sending us a review code!

I’ve had many fish tanks throughout my life and it first started with a fish bowl and a goldfish named Dino that liked to hop out of it.  Fish are fun to watch, but it takes a good amount of effort to clean their surroundings.  The worst part about having fish is cleaning their tanks and this is a “game” that revolves around it.  But wait!  There’s more!  You also get to clean a cluttered basement too!  

Upon launching Aquarist, you get to choose between playing a story mode or a designer mode.  Both will have objectives for you to complete, but if you just want to make a cool tank from the get-go, I recommend starting with the designer mode. 

During my game stream, I began the story mode.  In this mode, you are gifted a fish tank from your bald dad on your fourteenth birthday.   It’s on this tank that you’ll learn the basics of setting one up.  The first tools you’ll need are a shovel and some soil.  I’ve used gravel in all of my tanks; when I think of soil, dirt comes to mind.  A bucket, net, filter, thermometer, heater, and lighting will all be required too.  

Decorations like wallpaper backdrops, rocks, seashells, and bubbling treasure chests are all part of the experience.  However, most of the items slowly unlock as you gain experience cleaning and setting up tanks for other people.  After you set up your birthday present, your father praises you and asks you to fix up his saltwater tank that has dead fish and algae inside.  Dead fish have to be caught with a net and disposed of in a garbage can or toilet.  Algae needs to be removed with a sponge on a stick.  

Each project will have a starting budget and you have to buy all new equipment every time.  Why you can’t reuse buckets, shovels, and fishnets is beyond me.  The objectives will vary by the job, but typically requires that you have a certain number of fish, plants, and decorations.  Everything will have to be happy.  To keep fish happy, they will need a certain temperature range that’s compatible with the plants and enough food and decorations.  Once all of those needs are met, they will start breeding and you can sell the excess fish for a profit.  The fun part is trying to select a fish to see its stats.  Between their movement and potential Joy-Con drift, it’s easier said than done.  

The controls in this game can be rather frustrating and even game breaking at times.  It’s easy to accidentally sell an item (for half of what you paid for it) instead of activating it.  I can’t tell you how many filters I have sold instead of turning on.   Most games highlight a menu choice to make it active; in this title, when a menu option is darkened, it’s active.  As frustrating as that is, it unfortunately gets worse.  After cleaning out your dad’s tank, and setting up a replacement tank for your friend, it's time to setup shop in your parent’s basement.  Naturally, the basement isn’t showroom presentable and needs to be cleaned up first.  

After the basement is cleaned up, it's time to get to work.  You can scrub algae off of tanks indefinitely it seems for $100 a pop.  However, in order to progress the campaign, you have to move one of the tanks on hand to the workbench to work on them.  While the A button moves everything else in the game, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to move one of these tanks to progress my game.  I figured, maybe the tank had to be emptied.  So, I removed the dead fish, water, and was forced to throw out all of the plants in it.  Despite the tank being empty, I still could not move it to the workbench to progress the game.  My aquarist career didn’t launch further than my parents basement.

The visuals are a little dated, but functional.  There have been some moments where I was able to see behind walls when it was not intended.  I was surprised to see a yard and bushes in place when the level is meant to be indoors.  

The background music is lounge room or elevator jazz.  It’s not my style, but other people may enjoy it more.  It’s fitting I suppose.

There’s nothing to complain about morally.  You’ll encounter dead fish that need to be disposed of.  That’s about it.  

Aquarist is available on Steam for the same price of $9.99.  At the time of this review, the game is still in Early Access.   Why it was ported over to the Switch in its buggy state is mindboggling to me.  I can imagine the controls and performance to be much better on PC if this game piques your interest.  Why anyone would enjoy scrubbing off algae and cleaning basements is beyond me.  To each their own I guess.