Have you played...? Coralina
I actually don’t remember how I came across this one. Sometimes I like checking out random obscure indie games that might seem interesting and that almost no one has played - bonus points if they’re Brazilian, like this one. For some reason, this piqued my interest while I was scrolling through Steam.
Coralina is a surreal narrative RPG made in RPG Maker. It has weird, acid-trip like environments and dialogue, which reminded me a little bit of some of the horror classics like Yume Nikki. I don’t think it’s nearly as good as YN, though. I feel the game tries to be too profound, abstract, and philosophical for its own good. It ends up feeling obtuse and just weird for the sake of being weird.
The story starts with Coralina, a young budding filmmaker, hanging out with her friends at a library. They’re going to start a new RPG campaign and, to get into character, Coralina goes to the basement to get her cardboard sword. However, when she returns, her friends are dead and everything starts getting really surreal. She’s befriended by a talking crow who’s also a shinigami, or death spirit, and apparently the person (?) in charge of investigating the murders.
It’s a little cliché, but I think it’s a solid beginning. From there, you start exploring a labyrinthian space with weird, off-putting characters and nothing makes much sense anymore. You’re in some sort of limbo where people are kind of lost. You talk to different characters, things happen, you’re taken from one random place to another, and eventually the game ends. There are no battles, no puzzles, and not even choices. It’s just exploring and watching the events and dialogue unfold.
I feel there’s an underlying narrative that’s trying to be told here, but everything is so abstract and confusing that I found it hard to piece anything coherent together. I guess it’s a bit like what people say about David Lynch movies: they’re convoluted, surreal, and maybe too pretentious.
Despite not enjoying the story that much, I liked the art. I think it’s the game’s strongest aspect. The sprites and environments are done in a pretty basic pixel art style. They’re rather rough and unpolished, maybe even kinda ugly, but serviceable. The cutscenes are more interesting. Their art style is all over the place, with no regard for consistency at all: some illustrations are more manga-like, some are more realistic, and others more pixel art.
I actually didn’t mind the art mishmash, as it fits the game’s weird, confusing atmosphere - it was probably done on purpose. I can see that many different artists contributed to the game. Music is weird and kind of creepy sometimes, which also reminded me of Yume Nikki and Omori, but overall it wasn’t very memorable.
The creator of the game, Gabriel Maki, states at the beginning that he wants to become a film director when he’s older. We can certainly feel that throughout the game, especially in the intro sequence, which plays out like a movie’s opening credits. This aspiration reminded me of another famous, kind of pretentious, game director ⤴.
Coralina is a very short game. It took me less than two hours to finish everything. Overall, I’d give this a 4/10 - it’s rough, pretentious, and doesn’t make much sense. It’s not as good as other similarly surreal and creepy games like Yume Nikki, Ib, or Ann, but it was still an interesting experience.
As a hobbyist game developer, I can appreciate the effort and dedication Maki put into this project, and I genuinely enjoy experiencing amateur indie games. However, I’d only recommend this to people who like very authorial, weird and obscure games.
Wait, there’s more
There is a sequel called Coralina: A Memory Tale ⤴, which seems to continue the story directly, but I’m not sure when (or if) I’ll play it. And I just found out that there’s apparently another sequel called CORALINA: illacrimo ⤴, but that one’s still in development.
Details
- Name: Coralina
- Genre: Naarrative adventure RPG
- Developers: Gabriel Maki ⤴
- Website: https://zntprod.com.br/pt/games_ptbr/coralina_ptbr/
- Year: 2023
- Available on Steam ⤴, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S
Extra screenshots
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Post revised with ChatGPT