Main Gameplay
The main gameplay obviously consists of fishing. As you play you unlock various places where you can fish, each place has a different kind of fish you can catch. You unlock these places by meeting the required goal, such as catching a fish of a certain size, or catching a total amount. You then pick your rod, hook, bobber, and bait. I really like using the pencil bobber, its such a great aesthetic. You're presented with a screen of your fishing area, amongst it are little fish silhouettes. You can move the rod side to side to aim your cast. When in the water, you have to quickly click when the fish bites. When done correctly you enter an underwater screen. The fish then grabs the bait and the timing of your reaction has to be PERFECT, or the fish gets away. You then enter a strategic tug of war with the fish, letting it swim off, and reeling it in, until its tired and you caught it. I found it pretty difficult at first, but once you figure it out the game becomes really easy. Some areas the initial hook in the water acts a bit differently, giving a bit of variety. There are only a few different fish to catch though.
Graphics
The graphics in this game are really amazing. The game is very atmosphere focused, so the fishing holes all look like real images, actually I think they are photos of real places, with water that looks real running down the rivers. Of course this is on PS1 so its not HD or anything, but it really does look amazing, and I think the older graphics just adds to the overall appeal and aesthetic of the game. The fish and the main room (I'll explain later) look great too.
Music and Sound
The music helps continue the serene atmosphere that the game has going on. The music is really calm piano focused stuff, really relaxing. The sounds of the water really add to this too. If you want to really get an atmosphere going open up your window and let the sun and breeze in, you'll get really immersed and its awesome.
Other Gameplay
Not sure how much of this can be considered gameplay, but there's cool stuff to do with the fish. The game logs your biggest catches which is really cool. You also get a tackle box while you're out fishing and you can load up the container and name the fish. You then have a set of fish tanks, this is where the main room comes in. You can keep some of your fish in the tank and care for them, and it turns your TV into a fish tank, which is cool if you're into virtual fish tanks, just don't fry your system (this wont cook the fish). Also, just a funny observation, based on size relations, your "player" is actually like absurdly huge. You can catch a foot long fish, then in the tank it looks tiny. You can see the size of the tanks in the room in relation to other items. Therefore, unless some crazy shrink ray is involved, the fish tank, and your character, are like massively huge.
There's a scoreboard too, I think it has something to do with other player's save files on the card or something. But I can't confirm this.
Menu
Might be weird to make a section about this, but the menu confused me so I will. The menu is a book. Its full of the places you can go, unlock, and serial killer-style photos of random dead fish laid out on rocks. What I found confusing is I couldn't find out how to save, its in this book.
Overall
Overall, this is a fun and really relaxing fishing game. Its definitely the most relaxing out of my collection. If you're looking for relaxing simple laid back games, this is definitely one to check out.