Recent reviews by catbark

From the very first second, Fellowship gives itself away. The intro track is a blatant mash-up of Two Steps from Hell’s Blackheart and the World of Warcraft login theme, and that sets the tone for the entire experience: imitation over creation.

Every animation, every interface element, every encounter feels lifted from somewhere else. It’s a mythic+ sim without any of the reward structure, pacing, or purpose that makes actual mythic+ compelling. You grind for the sake of grinding, and that's it. It seems like one of the only things they didn't copy was the party structure, because a 4-man mythic+ is a more desirable choice for some reason?

Despite the swarm of apologists that attempt to reverse-bomb the Steam rating after its disastrous day-one server meltdown, the game still runs like an early-access catastrophe. Optimization is abysmal, frame times fluctuate wildly, and the servers remain unstable around the clock. The frame-rate cap “fixes” half its issues only because the engine can’t handle its own update loop.

And then there’s the cast, a forced, diversity-by-committee lineup that feels more like a checkbox exercise than a world with believable characters.

Edited here: Instead of promising a cadence of new classes or dungeons, the devs flat-out said they don’t want to “get locked by release dates.” That’s not humility, that’s dodging responsibility. It’s your job to develop, not occasionally remember to. Half-baked release, half-baked development path, inspiring 0 confidence in the players. Players don’t need an exact calendar, just assurance that the world will keep growing. Fellowship’s refusal to outline even a vague roadmap makes it feel like we’re beta-testing potential, not playing a game with direction.

If this game had 5-player parties, better client optimization, any sort of server stability, and a lot more characters that aren't just a rainbow of checkboxes, it could genuinely be a great dungeon-sim for crew play.

Coral Island is, on the surface, a solid entry in the cozy farming/life-sim genre. It features smooth mechanics, vibrant aesthetics, and a tropical twist on the tried and true Stardew Valley formula. If you’re looking for crop cycles, mining, fishing, and town events, the systems are all here, and generally well executed.

But beneath the colorful surface lies a glaring issue: this isn’t just a cozy game. It’s a vehicle for progressive ideology so overt it breaks immersion. Nearly every character is part of a curated diversity checklist. Interracial and LGBT relationships aren’t just present, they dominate the social landscape, to the point where you start to question whether any representation was allowed without moral vetting first. Traditional couples are virtually nonexistent. White characters, when they appear, are often faceless corporate villains or marginalized to token side roles, especially if they’re male.

The worst offender is the antagonist: Pufferfish Corp. It’s not just a greedy company; it’s staffed almost entirely by generic, soulless white men. The metaphor couldn’t be more obvious, and less nuanced. Subtlety is gone. Ideological signaling is front and center.

What could’ve been a modern, tropical take on Stardew Valley instead feels like a digital sociology project. The charm is there, the gameplay is there, but the world lacks balance, natural social variety, or even the option to exist in it without being preached to. It’s not representation, it’s indoctrination-by-aesthetics.

If you’re just here to farm and fish, Coral Island can scratch the itch. But if you value grounded worldbuilding, character variety based on personality rather than identity, or even a shred of ideological neutrality in your escapism, be warned: this isn’t a town, it’s a curated utopia built by Twitter.

Imagine not putting your failing DLC on sale so that it might be worth the scraps of content released with it.

I've quit til they understand that calling a quest, dungeon, and horse an expansion does not make it so, nor does it make it worth anywhere near 30$.

More like WorldBox - God Complex if they think it's worth 20$ AND exempt from holiday sales.

This is a pretty solid standard for the nitty gritty medieval survival style game. If you've frequented other survival rpgs, you've played this before. It'll definitely keep your attention, and it's enjoyable for what it is. Multiplayer was a great addition.

The issues I have with it are:

Poor optimization; even with a decent GPU/CPU, you could achieve much higher FPS at much higher graphics settings, with lower temperatures, than you can on this. I'm running 80~85c gpu at all times on med graphics with 40 FPS, when other games on UE4 run solid 60(capped), max graphics settings, 60~70c.

No workshop support

No real challenge, or means to upgrade yourself. It largely feels like a farming/hunting simulator with no real combat besides bandits that are no more challenging than a boar.

No town raids, or reasons to fortify (If there are any, we haven't encountered any challenge of the sort)

Grueling pace for Production tech for town. It's great that progress is shared, but grinding to 5k by making thousands of clothing, bronze tools, and food just to unlock iron is a monolithic feat.

Some potions seem either inaccessible, or just too bothersome to go and farm mushrooms and herbs for. (I don't know if this can be fixed by growing said items, I'm not the assigned farmer.

Caves, tree types, and fishing spots should have icons on the map once discovered, as animals and etc have.

Temperature doesn't matter at all, until you hit winter during a blizzard, then you better buy the most expensive woolen garb, or hide in your house all day.

It's a cross between PoE's style, BnS questing, DFO's fighting (Sort of), and various games mechanics and features from BDO to Tera. It takes some getting used to, but look for a guide on your classes skill priorities, and remove the excess skills to make it a bit more manageable in the beginning. You can use REWASD to emulate WASD controls.

Everything about the controls, inventory, journal, map, etc were immediately glaring negatives.

it gud

It says 341 hours, but I definitely have at least 10k+ from the past. It has always been a great game. A little less great now, but it's still good in its own right. Favorite thing to do on this is DarkRP and PrisonRP.

They absolutely ruined quite possibly the best open world survivalcraft game, a staple of the genre, by making it some convoluted linear progression system.