Fish are a type of aquatic animal that can be caught with a Fishing Rod using bait (or a Lure Rod using lures) while fishing in the Dark Cloud series. In Dark Cloud, Fish have no practical use, but the FP (Fishing Points) gained by catching fish can be exchanged for rare items. In Dark Chronicle, Fish can be cooked on a Cooking Stove, submitted for weigh-ins at a Fishing Contest, or entered in the Finny Frenzy races. An aquarium is needed to raise and feed fish.
The Cooking Stove can be bought for 300 Gilda from Morton's Sundries, and is available right away, although it is functionally useless without caught fish. Fish must be in the inventory, and not the aquarium, to be cooked. Each cooked fish heals 24 hit points, which can be a cheap source of health regeneration early on when you have a surplus of fish with no purpose. Later on it becomes less useful when the health needed to be restored becomes much larger, and other more convenient items are available. When bought it can also not be removed from the inventory.
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The time of day is entirely irrelevant for all fish except the Mardan Garayan. The Mardan Garayan's spawn rate fluctuates; 2% in the afternoon, 3% at night, 4% in the morning, and 5% at dusk. If a Mardan Garayan spawns then it has 20% odds to be a Baron Garayan. Garayans are comparatively worth much more than the other fish however. Fish with a lower spawn rate are also worth more points than the more common species. The spawn rate for fish at the waterfall and oasis areas, other than the Garayans, is under the assumption there is no successful Garayan spawn. Since Bomb Nuts are the only bait in the Oasis that both types of Garayan dislike then you can use them to easily tell if one spawned by the interest in the bait.