Luther: "Will we get to wear ten-gallon hats?"
Freddi: "I think a five-gallon hat is more your size. Come on, let's go!"
Luther: "I'm at least seven gallons, Freddi! Six and a half, minimum..."
Freddi Fish 4: The Case of the Hogfish Rustlers of Briny Gulch is a PC Adventure Game by Humongous Entertainment released in 1999. It's the fourth main game in the Freddi Fish series.
Freddi Fish and her pal Luther are once again away from home, this time to visit Freddi's cousin Calico Catfish in Briny Gulch to learn about hogfish. But trouble always seems to follow, as Calico's hogfish have been stolen by a group of rustlers led by the mysterious Mr. Big, and the sheriff is no where to be found. Freddi and Luther agree to help and even find the rustlers' hideout almost immediately, but they are unable to investigate the area due to a guard not allowing entry to non-rustlers. An obvious goal set, the duo need to scrounge up a disguise to inflitrate the hideout, free the hogfish, and find out the identity of Mr. Big to put them behind bars.
Like Freddi Fish 3: The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell before it, The Case of the Hogfish Rustlers of Briny Gulch has a randomized culprit. The identity of Mr. Big changes each playthrough, and can be one of four suspects.
Tropes:
- All Deserts Have Cacti: Cacti appear in the western-themed Briny Gulch. While the game does not specify what part of the world Briny Gulch is set in, this is chuckle-worthy since said "desert" is underwater.
- Anti-Climax: A humorous example occurs once Freddi and Luther bring Nelson the things he needs to make them a belt buckle. He warns them to stand back while he works, and the two brace themselves for what he's about to do... and then he just sticks the letter onto the buckle with glue.
- Artistic License – Biology: Fluke the Whale has square teeth that would better match a human's than the pointed teeth a sperm whale would actually have.
- Breaking Old Trends: This game is the only one without a strangely-named gadget; excluding the Extendo-Arm from Freddi Fish 5.
- Broken Bridge: There are some roadworks that block off a large portion of Briny Gulch until you've been to the rustlers' hideout.
- Cartoon Whale: Fluke the Whale is a sperm whale with a square head (sperm whales have rectangular heads) and very humanlike teeth.
- Company Cross References: If you click the pipe in the wrecked ship, it chews bubblegum before blowing a bubble depicting the head of another Humongous Entertainment character; Pajama Sam, Putt-Putt, or SPY Fox.
- Cutting Off the Branches: Gill Barker, a suspect from The Case of the Stolen Conch Shell, returns in this game as a suspect yet again. This all but assures that he isn't the canonical culprit of the previous game, as he should be doing community service otherwise.
- Extreme Omnivore: The pink shark guarding one of the caves can be fed a bone, a sunken anchor, and a car tire, all with seemingly no consequence.
- Fire-Breathing Diner: If Luther eats too much cayenne from the spice dispenser in the submarine, he burns his mouth and spits out a burst of fire that Freddi has to dodge out of the way of.
- Frothy Mugs of Water: Instead of a saloon, Briny Gulch has a sodaloon that sells soda at the bar.
- Furry Confusion:
- U the Snail's pet seahorse Elmer acts like a real horse, speaks in horse-like whinnies, and helps deliver mail by pulling a mailcart. The opening scene also has an anthropomorphic seahorse that says "Howdy!" to Freddi as she passes by. Additionally, the previous game had Horst Fedders, a seahorse tourist dressed in a Hawaiian shirt who was just as anthropomorphic as the rest of the cast.
- The pink shark acts animalistic, doesn't speak, and attempts to eat the main duo, in contrast to other shark characters from previous games like Boss and Spongehead, who spoke normally and never tried to eat the other characters. Even weirder in that it's wearing a hat.
- Gentle Giant: Fluke is a sperm whale who towers over every other character in the game, but is generally nice, and has allowed the other residents of Briny Gulch to set up a cabaret in her mouth.
- Inflating Body Gag: Upon finding the air pump in the sunken ship, Luther will put the hose in his mouth before pushing the plunger down, with the resulting air puff inflating him like a balloon, causing him to float upward until Freddi removes the hose from his mouth, at which point he quickly flies around with the air rushing out.
- Insurance Fraud: If you decide to accuse Cousin Calico as being Mr. Big at the end of the game, Luther will hypothesize that she staged to have her own hogfish stolen to make bank on insurance. Calico will respond that she doesn't even have insurance to cover hogfish rustling.
- Lampshade Hanging: Freddi can take her use of Hammerspace to extreme lengths by grabbing a plank of wood several times her size and stuffing it into her nonexistent pockets. When Luther asks how she did that, Freddi only responds that it's a secret.
- Plot Coupon: In order to get into the rustlers' hideout, Freddi and Luther need to collect three pieces of a costume so Freddi can disguise herself as a rustler and get past Goby. The items are a colored ten-gallon hat, a belt buckle with a certain letter on it, and either a bow tie or bandanna,
- Point of No Return: Once Freddi and Luther get into the rustlers' hideout, they cannot leave to return to the rest of the map. All that's left is to locate and free the hogfish to clear the game.
- Police Are Useless: Sheriff Shrimp runs off the minute he gets rescued, not even paying a hint of attention to Freddi trying to point out their kidnapped hogfish problem. Additionally, at the end of the game, he's quick to arrest the two who run the hideout, but doesn't even consider the fact that they may not be the only suspects until Freddi points it out.
- The Punishment Is the Crime: As part of their community service, the three rustlers are sentenced to work at Calico's hogfish ranch at the end of the game. They did say they wanted to be hogfish ranchers, so Calico thought that this would be the fitting punishment for them.
- Seahorse Steed: A seahorse is used to pull a mail cart.
- Severely Specialized Store:
- Nelson's store, Just Buckles, only sells belt buckles.
- Gill Barker specializes in wheel nuts and bubble gum working for the Veloxy Gum and Wheel Nut Company.
- Threatening Shark: On certain paths, a pink shark guards the way to a cave where some starfish are. If Freddi and Luther try to pass by him, he attempts to take a bite out of them, forcing them to retreat until they can find something to distract them with.
- Visual Pun: Hammerhead has a head shaped like a claw hammer, while Sawfish has a snout shaped like a saw.
