Coral Island: A Game That Could be More

I love farming sim. Especially those who have marriage candidates. I mean, dating an attractive guy/girl with a little backstory while making money and plowing farm? Easy-peasy, who can’t do that.

From Harvest Moon to Story of Seasons, Rune Factory to Stardew Valley, all of the games have similar premise: while you inherited some land from your grandparents/ parents, you need to become a farmer to utilize it. The genre improved overtime tho. While the first generation only allow you to make money from farming and ranching, the game changed when you can explore dungeon and selling monster loots. Then, it become better when you can optimize them by automation and crafting.

Coral Island gives you all, but it feels like a half-baked game.

Increase Awareness to Environmental Issue With a New Game Play

After several hours of playing this game, one thing that made me come back was to revitalize the sea and its marine life. Starlet Town stopped thriving because of the oil company: trash was scattered, and oil spilt everywhere. And of course, it’s our job to clean everything.

Coral Island makes cleaning the ocean fun and rewarding, and unlocking the merfolks. For me, it is one of the best features of this game.

Beautiful Design and Pretty Characters

I can’t lie, what attracted me to this game are their Disney-like character design and its diversity which I love everyone of them. There are more than 20 [TWENTY] marriage candidates and they give more than stereotypes: from cutie-pie to a hunk, animal party to animal lover… they are there, alright. My personal favorite are Rafael and Mark; they’re cute (hehe).

Like the usual farming/dating sim games, you can unlock new dialogue and heart events after you improve your relationship with the characters. What I like about Coral Island is that they also give other characters events besides the marriage candidate. BUT, sometimes, it feels too much. Maybe it overwhelmed me since I can’t surmise which events are whom; was it the marriage candidate or ordinary townsfolk? The developer might want to show the dynamics between each characters, yet the ambiance (might be the music or dialogues) confuse me as a player to index which events belong to.

I also love how elaborately they decorated each room and landscape. Each building is unique, the interior full of furniture, and you can tell the identity of the owners based on the items alone. The level design feels effective and doesn’t bore me at all. As detailed as the game could be, sometimes I feel like they only sell visuals not experience. With all the furniture lying around, I can interact with only several of them. Look at the picture below! So much pretty objects, yet we can’t feel pretty by sitting on it. It’s… such a waste.

Feels Like Identity Crisis

Looking at the map located at the community center (see the picture above?), I believe it’s Bali Island, which is located in Indonesia, a tropical island in a tropical country. Yet, CORAL ISLAND HAVE 4 SEASONS, WITH WINTER IN IT. Idk, man… . I don’t know if the seasons were story-related (because of their goddess or whatever), but logically, it’s impossible. They provide a lot of tropical fruits and vegetables commonly found in Indonesia, yet forcing subtropical vegetation on tropical islands seems irrational. Is Coral Island so blessed they can grow any endemic there?

As an Indonesian, it is nice to see how they introduce our cuisine in the game. They also put several Indonesian names in flowers and other items; however, that specific action made the game feel half-baked. Why not write all the items in Indonesian instead? That way, you can indirectly educate people easily and make them unique (if it’s one of their missions).

Serving diversity and inclusivity might become a two-side sword for them. It gives a nuance where they lose identity as whatever they want the game wants to be.

Beautiful Music, But Not That Immersive

appreciate their effort by making a lot of music within the game. Each place has their own soundtrack, they are mesmerizing. Yet, the smaller details irked me. Let me write those I found on my game play so far:

• The sound when you breaking the rock (mining) is louder than when you beat those monsters.
• I can’t hear the monster voices!
• There are no explosion sound when you drop the bomb. It’s only gradual sound of rock breaking which is not satisfying.
• You can’t hear the chicken crows/ gobble when you pet them. I think it’s the same with the cows and the sheep.
• Audio queue for using upgraded tools is tacky.
• The sound when you walk on water and land are the same.

Bugs and Tacky Controller

When I play in front of the PC, I only want to sit lazily, not caring about my sitting posture. That’s why playing with a controller is one of the keys. Yet, Coral Island can’t make me comfortable by using a game pad. In short, you can’t control the controller (it’s actually not that bad, but I prefer playing it with my keyboard and mouse).

And the bugs. I am still in my first-year play through, so I don’t know how bad it is, but reading the negative reviews on Steam, they said it’s getting worse as we continue and near the end of the game. I believe it’s still tolerable if it’s an early access game, but to call it fully released? Better work fast for optimization and bug-fixing.

I’m not a game developer, and I know developing a game is hard. However, Coral Island feels like a rushed and ambitious game that need a lot of tweaks here and there. If you don’t mind about the details and the experience; or you’re just simply want to romance the characters and admire the visuals, play it. It is still fun.

Get Coral Island on Steam and Xbox. It’s available on Game Pass too!

this article also published on my wordpress