Farming sims aren’t exactly a new concept. In the mid-1990s, Nintendo’s farming sim Harvest Moon shot up to astronomical fame. Although the games typically sound boring and monotonous, the relaxing effect of repetition seems to have taken the ‘cozy gamers’ by storm.
When solo indie game developer ConcernedApe released cult-favorite sim Stardew Valley in 2016, the scene was revolutionized. ConcernedApe saw a hole in farming sims that other games weren’t addressing: personality. Stardew Valley introduced dynamic and eccentric NPCs that are (mostly) capable of being romanced, complete with fully fleshed-out backstories.
ConcernedApe truly focused on immersion and did so with major success and critical acclaim. Ever since, game developers have been trying to ride ConcernedApe’s coattails in desperate attempts to revolutionize what he already has. Some have come close, but nobody has achieved it. That is, of course, until a ragtag team of developers created a Kickstarter campaign for a little game called Coral Island.
Coral Island (CI), on paper, looks like Stardew Valley (SV) with an expanded universe that no singular indie game dev could complete. We welcome back the dynamic NPCs, but CI presents us with way more romanceable options that directly cater to multiple different types. The world is way more expanded, significantly larger than Stardew’s, which has been consistently upgraded and growing.
The Good
Where Stardew has Ginger Island, a tropical island that takes months of in-game time to achieve, CI has the entire ocean. You read that correctly: there is a complete ocean to explore, complete with eerie ancient shrines and turtles that give you gifts if you talk to them.
The most impressive part of the ocean is easily just how huge it is. Clearing the entire ocean took me days of real-world time, but the reward was worth it. Deep within the ocean resides an entire mermaid kingdom, with a whole crew of fun mermaids to socialize with and, brand new to the game, even romance!
The ocean itself functions similarly to the farming sim mining system. In Coral Island, the ocean has been extremely polluted due to an oil fracking company in-game (think CI’s equivalent of JojaMart). Players are expected to destroy the trash using a scythe and restore the ocean to its former glory.
The graphics of the game are also in a different ballpark. SV brings forth a nostalgic, 8-bit art style that has been proven to be incredibly charming. CI introduces a 3D animated art style with much more detail and color. Everywhere in the world, including that mermaid kingdom and a secret magical area with giants, has beautiful graphics that can truly be immersive.
As far as farming sims go, they’re always a grind. There are so many plants, minerals, fish, and artisan goods to collect for profit. No matter what game you’re playing, this can get boring fairly quickly.
CI counters this by introducing trackers for your progression complete with good rewards. I mean it: GOOD rewards. In SV, you are rewarded for your progression, but some of these rewards are purely decorative and do not impact gameplay. CI rewards you with materials that you need, materials that are hard to source, or materials that are expensive. That’s a good deal.
The Bad
Although the game feels like a reinvented SV, some areas still feel a little monotonous. CI attempted to flesh out the mining system, but it still feels like copy and paste. CI’s mining works exactly like SV; descend into a mine floor by floor, breaking rocks to find supplies and access to the floor below while fighting monsters that are significantly cuter than they are scary.
In CI, there are 4 mine shafts that you can go down, with one being unlocked after you complete the other. Each shaft is themed after the four major natural elements: Earth, Wind, and Fire. I guess Water counts too, but that doesn’t make a cool band name.
At the end of each shaft, there is a giant that corresponds to the element that is freed. The addition of a compelling story involving freeing nature-themed giants in CI is a good one, but it feels more like an addition to the overall plot than it does to the mining.
Yes, the shafts are decorated accordingly and monsters are recolored to fit the theme, but it doesn’t feel like enough of a reincarnation. You spend hours grinding the mines in both SV and CI. Maybe we could spruce it up a bit, huh?
New players report that CI just throws you right into the action. I have to agree; if you’ve never played a farming sim, you’d be lost in CI. There is a distinct lack of real tutorials, which I suppose could be attributed to the immersion of the game.
In both SV and CI, you’re city folk from far away, coming to reclaim a farm that your dying grandfather left you in his will. You’re supposed to feel like a fish out of water. I love some good storytelling, but not at the expense of the player.
This storytelling idea could better be represented through the NPCs; some rival farmer (which does exist in CI, but not in SV) could come to mock you for not knowing what you’re doing. The point is: I, specifically me, get it, but others don’t.
The Ugly
CI had been on an early-release beta since early this year, which is when I originally started playing the game. There were a couple of minor bugs, but there was a setting in-game that made it easy to report these bugs to the developers.
Now that the game has been fully released, I personally haven’t encountered any. However, the keyboard warriors that live on Steam beg to differ. Some report major bugs that should have been fixed in beta. These bugs are your run-of-the-mill bugs: lag spikes, clipping into furniture, you name it.
Many users report that the bugs are worsened on console. I cannot attest to these, seeing as how I’m a PC supremacist. Developers state that they are continuously working on patches to resolve these bugs.
Long story short, I’m picking up what CI is putting down. SV is a cult classic because it revolutionized the entire farming sim industry, potentially even the indie game industry. ConcernedApe still works alone, meaning every single part of the game is all him.
His upcoming game, Haunted Chocolatier, has been in the works for years with no release date in sight. We love the guy, but we’re impatient. CI decided to take a page out of his book but chose to utilize a crowdfunding platform and a ragtag group of friends to make a bigger world that one man simply couldn’t achieve.
CI achieves its goal of building more upon a very solid pre-existing foundation. Even better: the romanceable NPCs are HOT. I said what I meant and I meant what I said. In my very professional opinion, there is no reason to miss out on a game as fun, in-depth, and stylistically gorgeous as Coral Island.
