Atoll early access review: a pretty Stardew that makes farming a little easier

Atoll describes itself as “re-imagining farming games”, but if we are real it’s not re-imagining Stardew Valley completely different model. The iconic island and your overgrown farmland on it, has a layout almost like Stardew Valley and the quests you do – grow crops, raise animals, befriend the locals, explore mine five levels at once and appease local spirits by giving them bundles of different crops – which will also be very familiar to any DewHeads (that’s what we call ourselves).

That’s not to say that Atoll isn’t good. It’s all in beautiful vivid 3D, and I found the island setting (which affects flora, fauna, and architecture in general) to make things look less like they’re working. Combine that with the environmentalism that creeps into the game and the fact that Coral Island is a little bit easier than Stardew Valley, and you feel like you’re making more progress in less time. If you love the vibe of ConcernedApe’s cult hit, but find the need to handwrite your own almanac a bit intimidating, this is the game for you.

You jump up, ready and eager to go, to make an unused farmland. Every day, you can wander around making your to-do list, starting with the basics (meet 20 people! Sow five seeds!) But the end can vary depending on the level. you see fit. Maybe you need to catch more errors. Maybe you want to go fishing. Perhaps you want to combat the blobs under the beak. Your schedule might include things like getting seasonal seeds from the local store, ores from the blacksmith, and food from the rancher. You are limited to being an unstoppable radish growing machine by the Terminator, firstly, most of what you do consumes a portion of your finite energy bar and secondly you will suddenly fainting if you stay up past midnight.

I’m not sure I’ve ever found a farm I’m proud of in Stardew Valley; I never got my regular income high enough; I never had enough energy to run in useful dungeons; I never had the resources to do the things I needed; and such. On Coral Island, I felt empowered. I have invested a lot in growing hot peppers. I regularly earn more than I spend. Every day, I feel like I’ve achieved something, instead of just keeping the farm going. That’s not to say you can’t delve into the intricacies of the seed growing cycle, optimize where and when you go fishing, and set up seaweed picking production lines. But you don’t have to do any of that to make progress. Coral Island has changes in your favor.

They are not a big weight on the scale, but they do make a difference. You level up fairly quickly in the activities you do, Skyrim style and can unlock percentage chance abilities like your crops grow faster, the soil will be watered overnight or you will get double resources from harvesting. Coral Island has a magical fast travel system that expands as you get more done, creating a feedback loop so you can get better every day. And when you’re exploring in mine dungeons, fighting spiders and blobs with sword swings doesn’t consume energy, so you can go deeper and mine more ores.

However, it is possible that the last one is a bug. While it feels content-heavy, Coral Island is rolling out early access and has a number of announcements ranging from “poor” to “that’s annoying”. Sometimes your character won’t be able to turn unless you stop and rearrange. The special chest I’ve found so far is empty and some of the items that drop have placeholder images. My four hens have never laid eggs, so they’re basically just pets that add to the ranch vibe. The keys to switch between rows of your inventory in the HUD sometimes don’t work, so you have to go into the menus and move them around manually. I also can’t move the anchor point when diving, which means I always have to walk through a large area of ​​the seabed.

I buried the ledge for a bit, because something completely new was clearing the seabed. A toxic oil spill has left it in condition, and you are encouraged to go down there and sort it out. In fact, it’s like an aquatic motif of tunneling in mines: you reach different areas by destroying garbage units until you find a special golden machine key. to destroy the bulk of the oil, giving you access to the next area. But the way it stacks up in the game’s larger ecosystem is really clever, because Coral Island makes you crave trash. The trash can is one of the most useful resources in the game.

For example, recycling the trash is one of the fastest ways to get fertilizer. It’s also a quick way to get scraps, which are used to make a lot of useful things. You’ll find yourself flipping through the crates in town to get more. The obvious eco corner on Coral Island, where the more local produce you supply and the more you clean the seabed, the higher the town’s rating, which should be motivating enough for some. But Atoll integrates it into the way you play, so you’ll end up caring about the environment by proxy if not by altruism. Your farmer could also be a locksmith voiced by JK Simmons, who spends hours at the recycling plant and donates every interesting thing he finds to the museum, but then mumbles that he only did it because it was the most practical thing to do [he stomps back to his farm as the hopeful music swells; the local vet cries as he watches him go].

I appreciate Atoll for making that work, as well as how the details change between seasons, how I get to know the different characters, and how gorgeous everything looks when it rains. You’ll run into missing pieces here and there, and there are enough bugs to break, but it feels pretty mature on the vine for an early access game. I have other annoyances about how hard it is to get the glass, but if you’ve been burned down in Stardew Valley, or have never even really ignited that fire, Coral Island could be exactly heaven. garbage covered road that you need.

To view this content, please enable targeting cookies.
Manage cookie settings