When I first saw Coral Island on Kickstarter, I was pumped. It looked similar yet wildly different from all the other farming games I have played and adored. Developer Stairway Games wanted to create a game that would be inclusive of everyone and everything. The team wanted to ensure that regardless of who played the game, everyone would be represented. After spending a LOT of time with the Early Access release, I can safely say that I wasn’t prepared for how incredible this ‘vibrant and laid-back reimagining of farm sim games’ would turn out to be.
I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, an ‘expert‘ gamer. What I do, however, is play an unhealthy and borderline ridiculous amount of farming games. I see them and buy them. If I do not have the time to play them, I buy them and toss them into the backlog. Some of them I enjoy so much I end up purchasing them on every platform and even buying for my friends too. Even with all my experiences with the genre, Coral Island somehow managed to surprise me. The tiny yet impactful features the team have implemented have done wonders for the farming sim and should serve as a template for all similar games going forward.
One of the very first things I noticed was that you can slow down the in-game time or speed it up in the settings. Want to do a speed run? You can do that. Want to take your time and ensure you can do as much as you want in a day? You can do that too. I personally have it on the lowest speed setting and because of that I never walk away from a session thinking “man, I really needed to do ‘such and such’ but I just didn’t have the time”. Nope. I have tons of it.
In that same manner, you can also toggle your character’s movement speed with ease, so it doesn’t take forever to do anything. There is also a ‘Dash’ button to further boost the way your character moves around. If that wasn’t enough, you can even dump a few Skill Points into your Speed attribute to move even faster. And if this somehow doesn’t satisfy all the speed-demons on there, you can always mount a horse to move around even faster. For a genre that can sometimes move at a snail’s pace for some, having this amount of control over how quickly your character moves about the island is such a refreshing mechanic. But wait, there’s more!
Looking to the top-left corner of the screen will indicate your Health and Stamina bars along with any Active Quests. Look to your right corner and you will see the Current Date and the Weather Forecast. All the information you need is readily available right there on the screen. Even if you decide to toggle the HUD off for a more immersive experience, you can always view things on the in-game TV if you would prefer to learn about your weather that way. It will even have some cute little shows that give you more tips or information on specific characters. And who knows…there might just be a local family that has their own shown on there.
While I would love to continue discussing the small things that I appreciate about Coral Island, there’s more to it than just the little touches. While the game is in Early Access and some things haven’t been fully implemented, it manages to stand beautifully as is. There’s story stuff that are just placeholders and that’s a bit of a bummer. I was slightly sad upon realizing I could not contribute to the potluck during the Cherry Blossom Festival, but it just ensures my next playthrough will have new things for me to discover. While the festival itself wasn’t fully realized, I could still shop at the festival’s booth – which had event exclusive items – and participate in the Sack Race. That being said, there is PLENTY to do. When I’m not diving, bug catching, fishing, farming, or mining, I spend my time running around, adoring the scenery and talking to people.
Speaking of chatting with the locals, another area that Coral Island shines is the sheer number of NPCs. There are over 70 unique characters for you to meet RIGHT NOW, 25 of which are currently romanceable (none of which are gender locked). We also know there will be two merfolk who will be dateable later on. If you are looking for perspective on how this compares to other popular farming/life sims there are 35 characters to meet in Stardew Valley, 12 of which are actually romanceable; that’s nearly DOUBLE the number of options. And don’t get me started on the diversity of choice! You have people of all colors, ethnicities, folks with prosthetics, of all ages, all sizes, and honestly, a girl just can’t even keep up! There are so many different playthroughs possible it is unreal. Not to mention they say something different every time you talk to them, so each chat feels new and fresh. If they don’t have anything new to say to you there won’t be a chat option. This prevents you from reading the same dialogue over and over again. But the romance department isn’t the only arena that Coral Island is beating out the competition.
Coral Island has a DEEP focus on the environment, more importantly on the impact we have on it and what we can do to preserve this beautiful blue marble we are all on. Simply put, there is nothing like this in any of the other farming games I’ve played. This is reflected in the festivals each season, constantly cleaning up trash, making sure the water remains crystal clear, and on ‘saving the island’. There’s a Recycling Center – even though we cannot do anything with it yet, but the sentiment is there. The game’s ‘big bad’ isn’t “office work” but instead an oil-drilling company. You see how this affects the island first-hand as you remove the waste from your community and gradually see the wildlife come back. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and also raises your Island Rating.
I don’t think there is a single aspect of Coral Island that does not show you what the team over at Stairway Games cares about the most. They do this because this incredibly talented group of developers want you to care about it too, and it shows. From letting you customize your pronouns, to making all romance options unlocked regardless of gender, diversifying the cast as much as they could, and the heavy focus they have on the environment, it is clear that this is a farming game for everyone. All that goodness aside, it does not mean the launch of Early Access has been without flaws.
The most glaring misstep early on was that the Game Pass version launched as the Alpha version instead of the Early Access one. Meaning if you were playing on Game Pass you had an experience filled with all the bugs that had already been fixed. Once the team picked up on this and corrected it, all of those players lost their progress. I only discovered this because I am a member of the game’s Discord – the only place it was addressed. I imagine a lot of people were upset when the update was released, and they discovered that all their hours of work had disappeared.
As for the game itself, there’s the occasional time you are talking with a villager and you catch an occasional typo, or maybe they will hilariously speak at you in all caps (STOP YELLING AT ME!), or sometimes you’ll just see a speech bubble that says “insert text here”. There will be times where you go to swing your pick and completely miss even though you are lined up correctly. This isn’t supposed to happen, but it does. It also still consumes stamina, which is a real pain. There are disclaimers about this prior to playing and on the Steam page though. So, you should know to expect errors like this.
One of the biggest complaints I have seen from people though has been about character speed/game speed and the character customization, which easily could have been resolved with a simple tutorial. The game speed issue is easily adjusted with a setting, the character speed is remedied with the press of a button. Character customization, while minimum now, will eventually include updates such as 26 new hairstyles in progress. This is great, but it seems that players want these updates communicated a bit more clearly. Unfortunately, the only way to know this is to be a part of the Discord or be friends with someone else who is.
Don’t get me wrong; I love this game and I adore what these developers are doing. The constant communication with those inside of the Discord is tremendous. Every day there is a post with a list of things that the team is currently working on. Stairway Games also makes a point to periodically answer the questions posted in the Discord questions all day long. If you want to know something it is in there. It is just communication outside of it that is lacking. Take the roadmap for example. It’s been released, but it hasn’t been communicated outside of the Discord. This is mind-boggling because there is a big, beautiful roadmap full of insane planned updates. All that being said, I HIGHLY recommend Coral Island. It’s great right now and it is just going to keep getting better. Updates have been coming at a steady pace since the Early Access release. I am 16 hours in and already I’m looking forward to hopping back in to upgrade my museum. So, what are you waiting for?
Coral Island is now available on Steam in Early Access and Xbox Game Pass.
