Review written by Eric Pankoke

Buy Coral Capers from Clickgamer

The premise of the game is simple: guide your little clownfish through several uninspired levels collecting all the eggs that have been lost in the level. This allows you to move on to the next level, where you do more of the same.

Graphics:

The graphics are the highlight of the game. Everything is crisp and colorful, and maintains a very cartoony look, which in this case seems to suit the game well. The backgrounds are full of details, from waving seaweed to little schools of fish that dart back and forth. The only drawback to this is that the screen can sometimes become cluttered, which is especially daunting with the little real estate that is available on a Pocket PC. This isn't a problem too often, however, and doesn't detract from the overall presentation of the game. Each of the characters are well rendered, and the animations suit the critter (for instance, the puffer fish actually puffs himself up to “attack”).

Sound:

Coral Capers does have music, which is a step above many puzzle games I've played on the PPC. From what I have discerned there are 3-4 different tunes, which are either cycled through as you play the game, are randomly selected at the beginning of the game. I can't really tell which, because they all sound pretty much alike to me. There are also some sound effects, but they seem grossly under-used to me. I picked out 3 major sound effects: your player picking up a pearl, your player dying, and bubbles rising in the water. With all of the wildlife swimming around, you would think that something besides you could be making noise.

Gameplay:

This is where the game should shine, right? After all, it's how it plays that makes the game. Unfortunately, that's not a good thing for Coral Capers. At it's heart you have a basic “collect the object” game. The problem is, in the five levels I played, it doesn't seem to stray from that formula at all. The only thing to do besides collecting eggs and pearls it to dodge enemies. This is either a mundane or impossible task, depending on how much is on the screen at once. Given the layout of the levels, it seems like Coral Capers should be a puzzle game. However, there are no puzzles to be found. The Clickgamer site lists it as an “arcade” game, but the pacing is too slow to feel very much like an arcade game.

No matter what genre you place this game in, though, there's little impetus to keep playing it once you've been through the first several levels again and again. This brings up one of my biggest pet peeves, especially when it comes to mobile gaming. There are no save points in this game. If the levels were interesting enough to repeat multiple times, this wouldn't be quite so bad, but on a system which will routinely be played for a few minutes, and then put away for several hours until spare time is available again, the lack of a save mechanism is unacceptable.

There also seem to be some issues where enemies get stuck, often right on top of a collectible. When this happens, you basically have to sit there until the object sporadically bounces free from the enemy, at which point you can collect it and move on your way. I don't know if this is meant to be AI or not, but in more than one instance I found it frustrating.

The controls are adequate, assuming you use the control pad to move your fish around. I found the stylus to be rather unresponsive, which is a shame considering it is the main source of control on a PPC, and my control pad has never worked very well.

Pros:

• Excellent graphics

• Presence of music (albeit repetitive)

• Short levels offer quick feeling of accomplishment

 
Cons:

• Sometimes cluttered screen

• Sparse sound effects

• Repetitive, uninteresting game play

Conclusion:


The first step to improving this game would be to define the genre a little bit better. If it’s meant to be an arcade game, quicken the pace. Adding some puzzles could actually make it a decent puzzle game. The current balance doesn’t lend itself towards either, and in the end makes for yet another small fish in a big ocean of entertainment.

Overall Score: 5/10

Many thanks to Clickgamer for providing us with our review copy.

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