FULL REVIEW

Undefeated Magazine
Alfredo Lorente
January 2004
USA

Fish is a food staple for most people in the world, and Fish Eat Fish should be a game staple for most game players in the world. Set up and game play are easy enough: once each player has his five fish on the board (including neutral fish for games with fewer than five players), each player takes a turn gobbling up a fish. As player’s fish eats other fish, players add the just-ingested fish to their own fish to form a stack. As the board becomes more and more bare, if a player in unable to take over a fish (neutral, his, or an opponent’s) he must move one of his fish into a position where another player can eat it. When taking over a neutral one or one of your own fish, the result is immediate. When taking over another player’s fish, you select a card, add its value to the number of fish in your stack, and the highest value becomes the surviving (and bigger) fish. When there is only one fish left, players compare their catches, and whoever has the most points/fish wins.

Fish Eat Fish has all the qualities of a winner- short playing time, simple rules, and more depth than is apparent at first glance. Young and old alike can play the game, and the plastic pieces add a nice tactile aspect to the game. To boot, while most games have an ideal number of players (even those billed as suitable for two-to-four or three-to-five), Fish Eat Fish is one of those very rare games that do not suffer when played by a less-than-optimum number of players. The game certainly feels a little different depending on the number of players – it’s more tactical with two or three players, more cutthroat with four or five. But the fact is that it is always enjoyable, no matter how many others are around the game board.

Another benefit of this little gem is that it is a good game regardless of the age or experience of the players- as long as the players are equally skilled. Younger payers might simply pay attention to raw numbers and play accordingly, but experienced players are likely to think ahead and make less-than-optimal moves early on to set the stage for more optimal moves later.

If there is a problem with Fish Eat Fish, it is the art. John Kovalic’s worked well in Apples to Apples and Gold Digger (another Reiner Knizia title, also from Out of the Box Publishing), but it falls flat in this game. The card art is especially poor, as each image is printed by itself on a white background. The board art is slightly better, since there are other cartoons around, but it still feels out of place. However, if you decide to pass on Fish Eat Fish only because of the artwork, your priorities are sunk.

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