3rd Gen ... Oh, a Bite!

The third generation had a rather difficult fishing system, in my opinion. In these games, a string of dots will appear until there's either a bite, or nothing. You have to press A at the right time, or the Pokemon will get away. The third generation games are the only games where you have to press A multiple times after hooking a Pokemon. Later games revised this mechanic by having a ! above the player's head.

What did you think of the fishing system in generation III? I've honestly always hated it for making fishing such a long process, when generations i and ii made the mechanic so simple.

I guess it depends on what you're looking for in a fishing exercise. I abolutely sucked at it when I first played Ruby. I just assumed it was the same as the old games (kid me didn't have the ability to recognize that game mechanics can change in sequels). But that just left me frustrated about getting nowhere with it. Once I figured it out, though, I thought it was kinda neat. It was a way to make it more engaging. Having to go through more "A" prompts with the Super Rod made the end result more rewarding, especially if you hook a strong Pokémon. And if you managed to get a Feebas out of it, it felt really satisfying. In the words of EA, it left me "with a sense of pride and accomplishment."

Something tells me that most Pokémon players aren't wanting to simulate more accurate fishing, though. They want their Rod to catch a Pokémon, and they want it with as little extra effort as possible. I was disappointed at first when the Gen IV games largely did away with it, but I understood why it was changed. It's probably for the best that it's more streamlined again.

oh honestly like. i liked it lol it does make the process longer, but back when gen III was new, i had never fished in gen I or II bc i hadn't played them yet. idk. i guess i didn't mind bc it was where i started. but after playing games where the fishing is more simplistic, it does make gen III's stand out bc it can get lengthy and you can lose those big bites like wailord and sharpedo at the last bit of the fishing session.

I don't really remember having any issues with getting the timing down for fishing in any of the games, though it does get tedious or boring as hell sometimes

I effing hated it at first. It took me months to figure out how to fish in R/S because the fishing system was different in Gens 1 & 2. But when I finally got the hang of it, it was no worse than fishing in the older games except that it took perfect timing.

Gen III....fishing.... all I can think of is try to catch Feebas. Make it stop. 😭

Oh god that brings me back. I only love it because of nostalgia.. but fishing was definitely annoying when gen 3 was new.

this thread reminds me of those times I was trying to catch wailmer, carvanha (? or sharpedo can't remember?), and feebas. I only got wailmer haha. feebas was rare as hell and I found out the hard way ;-;

the fishing mechanism was fine though. sometimes it gets by too fast but that's just me getting bored

I don't think I ever had a problem with that when playing Gen III games. Looking at it now I get that it might be frustrating, but I like the struggle it brings. Like the real life fishing.