Dorsal Shores review - "A slow-paced fishing experience"

• Cute anthropomorphic fishermen to recruit
• Slow-paced automated missions
• Level up crewmembers to unlock all their traits

If a life of fishing across rivers, lakes, and seas spikes your interest, you’ll want to take a gander at Dorsal Shores. The debut title from developer Girthy Garden Games is a casual management experience in which you take on the role of Head of Missions, sending brave souls out on fishing expeditions.

Dorsal Shores is a Simple Fishing Experience

Dorsal Shores isn’t very complicated. After designing your avatar, you’ll recruit fishermen at the tavern and send them out on randomly generated missions to catch fish. You can view all available missions by tapping on the fishing boat. 

Each member of your crew has an affinity for either ocean, river, or lake fishing. Further, every recruit has skills that make them better equipped to deal with certain hazards.

Deploying a crewmember with the Filtration Unit skill can counter Polluted Waters. The compass skill, on the other hand, counters thick fog. Pay attention to the success chance rate when choosing which fishermen to send on a mission.

Level up Your Adorable Crewmates in Dorsal Shores

You can also level up your team members to unlock more traits. Each recruit also has a nationality, which grants them a buff. For instance, Irish crew members reduce mission duration when a full crew is deployed, while Canadian crew members increase the experience gain for low-level teammates. 

The adorable anthropomorphic crewmates you’ll unlock are perhaps the most entertaining part of this simple fishing experience. Each fuzzy fisherman is dressed in adorable fishing attire. You can always purchase new outfits in the shop and equip your recruits with them to give them a new look. Unfortunately, there’s not much to this dress-up mechanic.

On the downside, missions in Dorsal Shores usually take hours to complete, with some early missions taking up to 8 hours. While there is a buff you can use to shorten mission time, it does not make a significant difference.

Considering one of the captains can be unlocked after you finish a mission, taking over 36 hours to complete, it's clear that missions can take much longer. Once you start a mission, there's nothing else to do but wait until it ends.

Everything Takes Time in Dorsal Shores 

In fact, everything in this fishing-fueled management sim takes time, from obtaining new recruits to purchasing gear and island decorations. You’ll accumulate gold and whims (the currency used to gain new recruits) very slowly, meaning it’ll take a while before you’ll be able to afford to make most purchases.

After several days of play, I managed to accumulate only 2,600 gold. Compared to the cost of decorations, hats, and outfits (some costing upwards of 50,000), it’s a pittance.

Overall, Dorsal Shores is a cute, casual fishing town experience that’s more than a little on the slow side. The crew members you’ll collect are adorable, and their various skills add a bit of strategy to the gameplay.

However, the long missions and lack of content make this an acquired taste. Plus, shop items are excessively expensive, so you’ll need to grind quite a bit to equip a recruit with a new outfit or hat. Unless you are looking for a slow-paced fishing-themed experience in which you don’t actually get to fish, you’ll want to sail past this one.