I adore creepy, slightly twisted children’s stories. I frequented the library during the summers of my elementary school years, maxing out their borrowing limit, walking home with a huge stack of books in tow and then pouring over the musty pages for hours until my mother sent me to bed. Of course, she didn’t realize that I had books and a flashlight stowed away in a secret hiding place, more commonly known as a “pillow.” After being assaulted by billboards and previews in Los Angeles for ages, I finally decided to try my hand at Coraline for the PlayStation 2 — it seemed to have the same peculiar and fantastic sensibilities that appealed to my morbidly curious 9-year-old self.
I should admit that I have not seen the movie. It’s probably safe to assume that the majority of people who are drawn to this game have already been exposed to the basic premise, but for the few individuals who have not, Coraline is a young girl who just moved into a brand new home with her extraordinarily busy parents. Both write for gardening catalogues and neither has enough time for Coraline. Lucky for them, there appear to be no legal ramifications for blatantly neglecting your offspring in this surreal and highly stylized world.
One evening Coraline happens upon a hole in the wall that leads her to an alternate dimension. Here her Other Mother showers her with attention, affection and, most importantly, pancakes. Yum.
Gameplay starts simple. I wander around in 3D, explore the house, complete tasks, play minigames and solve easy puzzles for my parents. My efforts earn me buttons I can use to skip certain minigames later on (with no ramifications) and purchase outfits. The controls initially had a gently sloping learning curve — nothing was particularly complex. That is, it was simple until one of the kooky neighbors sent me to pick apples. I was suddenly confronted by a minigame so hard that a single mistake sealed my fate.
I lost. Over and over again, until the stream of obscenities flying out of my mouth compelled my quick-twitch boyfriend to grab the controller and try his hand at it. “Why don’t you just buy a pass with your buttons?” he suggested. “No,” I said gruffly. “I need to know if this task is really so hard that it’s virtually impossible. If so, it’s ridiculous this early in a game. Hopefully I’m just incompetent and this is easier than I thought.” Ten tries later he managed to get through the task.
This was only single portend of what was to come.
Gameplay returned to a manageable pace for a short while. I thoroughly enjoyed playing a game of Go Fish with my former actress neighbors and I was mesmerized by the artsy style of absolutely everything. It was a true pleasure to take in the visual feast the various characters provided and the high quality voice acting was a total treat.
Unfortunately the fun didn’t last very long. I had been lulled into a false sense of security by the leisurely pace and appealing characters. Yet again my senses were assaulted quite suddenly with minigames significantly harder than my reflexes could manage. I don’t mind taking a little time to get the hang of things, but for the pace to move from relaxed to frantic within seconds was, quite frankly, jarring and off-putting. Is this game for children, as the easy matching games would imply? Or is it aimed at hardcore gamers with lighting quick reflexes and the ability to navigate complicated button combinations? If the goal was to appeal to both, the experienced gamers will be turned off by the mundane tasks and the kids will find themselves stuck, thanks to the complicated music games and the bizarrely animated battles.
One of the things that kept me playing for so long was the storyline. I’m sure this version feels empty when compared to the movie itself, but it thoroughly drew me in. Well, until the gaping holes began to appear. I don’t know if it was intentional, but the story seemed to leave out several important details and did a poor job of introducing characters later in the game. The friendly black cat that came to Coraline’s rescue seemed to be thrown in at the last minute. Though her character trusted him, I myself felt no reason to believe that he was on my side. Near the end, my boyfriend who had been watching me play the entire time said with me in unison, “Ghost children? Eyes? Whoowhaathooow?!” Throwing characters in at the very last second gives me zero time to enjoy them. It irritated me that the story had these holes.
The game assumed I had seen the movie and either intentionally or accidentally left gaping plot holes. Because of this, I detached emotionally from Coraline. At this point I was determined to finish just because I wanted it to redeem itself. That and I had put so much effort into screaming at my TV that I wanted some sort of resolution. I don’t know why I subject myself to abuse like this, but I digress.
I finally made it to the end battle and …
it FROZE.
Thank goodness it autosaves, I thought to myself. Wait, what? It didn’t autosave?!
I lost the entire game …
(Insert another continuous, frantic, desperate stream of obscenities here)
After about a week of ranting to my boyfriend, I picked up the controller again, resolute in my desire to finish. Have I mentioned that the game only took me six hours to get through the first time? Round two required just two hours of my time. It froze again during the final battle, but luckily for my sanity, it had successfully autosaved. The third time was the charm. I finished the game and wiped my hands of the whole experience.
Though it had enormous potential, I do not recommend the game. Period. The freezing was unacceptable, the fluctuating difficulty levels were infuriating and the plot holes aggravated me to no end. I wanted to see it succeed, and it very well could have. Had it been battle-based at an intermediate to hard level of difficulty, I would have enjoyed it. Had it been a gentle, playful children’s game filled with tons of simple minigames to discover, I could have loved it. In its current form — uneven, choppy and very, very short — I very nearly found it unplayable. Coraline for PS2 unfortunately did not live up to its potential.
Cat's passion for writing began at the tender age of 10 when she convinced her 5th grade teacher to let her use “sustained silent reading time” for scribbling frantically in a notebook. It took her awhile to work up the testicular fortitude to share her work with anyone, but now she freelances as both a writer and graphic designer. She cites her diverse background as her biggest influence: her artist mom is half-Chinese, half-Greek, and from Hawai'i; her film-loving, world-music DJ dad is from Montana; and she lived in both San Francisco, California and Great Falls, Montana while growing up. She loves at least a little bit about virtually everything and aims to be a Jane of all trades.
