Koral - Review

I like a lot of different types of games which can be tough sometimes because there are new games being released all the time and playing them all just isn't possible.  One of the games on my list to play this year Carlos Coronado's Koral.  Coronado's previous works include Mind: Path to Thalamus and Infernium (both available on Steam).  What intrigued me was the interesting concept and beautiful visuals, last night I decided I had to play it.


Fruit Loops are pretty tasty and they look amazing, so colorful.  That is the good part, the part is later when your stomach doesn't feel great, maybe you ate too many, maybe that milk should have been thrown out three days ago, who knows.  Playing Koral I wondered was it a pretty game filled with stunning visuals that would later leave me feeling bad?

Story

The game is described as a 'love letter to the ocean', and being honest this isn't an inaccurate statement.  The story has you play as a current, who is traversing the ocean trying to heal the coral reefs that have been damaged and destroyed by fishing and rubbish.  Playing you can find facts about the ocean which really pulled at me, for example by the year 2050 the weight of plastic waste in the ocean will be heavier than that of the fish. I think a game like Koral is really important, the reality is the eco-systems in the ocean are being destroyed at an alarming rate, it will get to point where the number of dead zones will increase to a point where almost all sea life will be extinct.


Overall the story or more the message that Koral tells is a bittersweet one that left me thinking how long do we have until everything has been destroyed?

Visuals


The visuals can only be described as stunning.  The sea life you get to experience is almost magical and made me feel excited.  While there are few darker levels later where waste is floating past you and certain area are almost completely dead most of it is very uplifting.  Moving through the posidium meadows was really cool, and getting to move around fishes, turtles, jellyfish, and more aquatic life was a thrill.


Overall stunning visuals that help distract you from the lingering thought that one day it could be all gone.


Music

The music used is similar to that found in a David Attenborough documentary, which is perfect because in many ways Koral is one.  The music always floats in the background for the most part and only comes up for air from time to time.  There was no specific composer or artist credited for the music as music packs were used instead.

Overall the music works well with the game and helped enhance the experience.

Gameplay

The game has you play as current, by completing small puzzles you clean up and repair parts of the coral reefs and ecosystems.  They generally don't offer to much of challenge, apart from a few near the end.  The gameplay and the game itself is more about realising the beauty of the ocean and how important it is for us as well as life living in it.


There isn't really much in the way of bad points other than due to the silhouettes used to create a more immersive world it can make it difficult to see where you are going. In honesty, though this only happened to me a handful of times.


Overall the gameplay was fun and magical and I enjoyed it all even when things were a little darker.

Final Thoughts


So, after fours hours how did I feel?  I don't quite know. I mean enjoyed the game and all that it had to offer but I was left feeling a little melancholy.  Concerned as to how much of our ocean has been destroyed in my life so far and how much worse it will get before I leave this world.  I have included the Making of Coral above as it was a lot of fun and it is great to see some of what goes into making a game.  This one gets a 4 out of 5