When most of us encounter aquatic life in VR, it tends to involve fishing. Either as a mini game or as a full-blown simulator. Rarely (if ever) has it involved stepping into the watery scales of a half-man, half-fish hybrid. But that’s exactly what you get in Salmon Man. Our friends over at 131XR decided to review this bizarre platformer, finding that Salmon Man might be one of the most difficult VR games available for Meta Quest.
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Become a Salmon (sort of)
So, as a fishy hybrid with legs and scaly arms, what do you think you might do? If you know anything about salmon, you’ll know that during their mating season, they head into the rivers and swim upstream to where they were born. This is an arduous task as rivers tend to be fairly unforgiving when it comes to going in the opposite direction. And then you have environmental obstacles to contend with, like rocks and massive waterfalls.
And so that’s the basis of Salmon Man. But rather than swimming, you’re on foot. And instead of walking and running with your feet, or climbing with your hands, you have an oar; one singular oar.
Salmon Man Review
To say the setup for Salmon Man is bizarre is an understatement. But we like weird VR games here at XRSource, and so does 131XR. What’s less desirable is when the difficulty is set to max before we’ve begun, and the punishment for failure is harsh and repetitive.
Salmon Man is a through-and-through platformer, where you have to navigate difficult terrain as smoothly as possible. The difficulty comes from that paddle. It’s your only form of locomotion. Hit it on the floor or walls to move, the harder the hit, the further you’ll go. However, there’s no course correction once that movement is in motion. If you’re leaping over a gap and find you’re heading a little too much to the left or right, tough. Unless you can hit something with your paddle, then that’s the direction you’re headed.
And because you’re heading up a river (to begin with), miss that jump, and you’ll be swept back to the start. And that’s just the first level. 131XR finds that while Salmon Man is technically proficient and looks good, its high barrier to entry means many will likely be put off before getting into the wilder later levels. But for its low price, it might still be worth a pop.
More Platformers
Platform games in VR are nothing new, although they tend to be far easier and often third-person. Titles like Ven VR Adventure, Lucky’s Tale and the more recent Bearly Escape come to mind. But there are games like Outta Hand which offer first-person platforming.
What’s your favourite VR platformer? Will you be giving Salmon Man a try? Let us know in the comments.
