Reviewed by Brandy Shaul
A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity of interviewing Lin Shen, the president of Papaya Studios, developer of the Coraline game on the Wii. After learning about the game’s supposed positives, I had a chance to go hands-on with a final version of the game, but I am very sad to say that this reference back to Shen’s praise of the title is about as positive of a reception as the title is going to earn from me.
Coraline The Game follows the title character, a young emotionally neglected girl, on her journey from her present reality into the “Other World”, where she encounters “other”, more loving versions of her mother, father, friends, etc. but eventually realizes that not everything in this arguably perfect world is what it seems.
The game begins in the “real” world, shortly after Coraline and her parents have moved into a new home. As such, the first 30 minutes or so of gameplay revolve around mundane tasks Coraline is forced to drudge through by her parents, who are too consumed with work to pay her any real attention.
Most of these tasks are accomplished via very short control sequences, where Coraline lifts and moves objects with the Nunchuck, and only requires the use of the Wii-Mote proper when engaging in one of several “mini-games” that Coraline will come across along the way.
The fact that Coraline is a multi-platform title may provide a bit of an excuse for the flat controls found throughout. The “pointing” capability to the Wii-Mote is almost entirely pushed to the side in exchange for using the directional pad, which presents a multitude of missed opportunities on the part of Papaya Studios to make the game more realistic. For instance, when Coraline is forced to water a plant, the option to manually tilt the Wii-Mote to water said plant seems like a no-brainer, but is instead nowhere to be seen.
As you make your way through the game, various interactive objects will become available, like toy trains that can be sent along their tracks, short puzzles where you must alphabetize or otherwise organize items on shelves, predict the outcome of “ball under a cup” games, and so on, with your success at the vast majority of tasks resulting in buttons, the game’s currency, that can be used to purchase new outfits for Coraline, unlock scenes from the film, and even cheat codes that can arguably make your progression through the title a bit easier.
While the game tries to follow the basic outline of the original text and film, the game lacks in the way of substantial cutscenes (aside from the aforementioned “Coraline fetch” sequences), and instead relies on storyboard and voiceover sequences to connect the various portions of the game. This segmented story causes such a drop in continuity that if you haven’t seen the film, prepare to be entirely confused.
To put the game’s jumbled progression into perspective, in the span of under five minutes, I went from avoiding flying bugs and worms in the kitchen (while supposedly helping Coraline’s “Other Mother” make pancakes) to traveling through a linear, pitch black path in the woods, collecting fireflies for light and avoiding red eyed, ankle biting rats. Not surprisingly, an altogether “what the hell is going on” feeling quickly followed.
The technical sides of the title are just as disappointing, and are comprised of mostly grainy graphics, a redundant soundtrack and voice acting (the quality of which is about the best thing Coraline has going, even if certain sound loops are, well, looped far too often), a fairly stationary (and uncontrollable) camera that frequently saw me sending Coraline nose first into walls and other large objects, and a look that screams of old point-and-click adventures on the PC, a look that is actually pretty appropriate, seeing that the pace is as slow as one.
I hate bashing games, I really do. But in this case, Coraline on the Wii deserves nothing less, and while I didn’t have the chance to play either the PS2 or DS versions of the title, I can only assume that they too suffer from the same basic set of maladies (even if the controls are altogether different), revolving around a completely lackluster presentation of the whimsical story. As the old clich?? goes, if you do take Coraline for a spin, “don’t say I didn’t warn you”.
Special thanks to Gryphon Ward and D3 Publisher for providing a copy of this title.
