Freddi Fish 5: The Case of the Creature of Coral Cove

aka: De Zaak Zeemonster, Marine Malice 5 - Le Mystère du Monstre du Lagon , Rybka Freddi - Delo o Chudovische iz Korallovoj Buhty
Moby ID: 5275
Macintosh Specs
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Description official description

It's time for Freddi Fish to solve another mystery in this fifth installment of the kids edutainment series. She (Freddi is a girl) and her best friend Luthor have to figure out what's going on with Coral Cove. The mayor wants to open it as a tourist attraction, but it seems to be inhabited by a sea monster.

The gameplay here is traditional adventure gaming fare, with the complexity tuned way down to make it accessible to the 4-7 year olds that are the intended consumers. Explore various locations, pick up items that you'll find useful later on, and interact with lots of colorful characters in order to get clues to solving the sea monster mystery. Freddi Fish 5 also contains a mini-game that is a variation of Battleship using fish instead of ships.

Spellings

  • Рыбка Фредди - Дело о Чудовище из Коралловой Бухты - Russian Spelling
  • Рыбка Фредди. Чудовище из коралловой бухты - Russian spelling (Akella release)

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Credits (Windows version)

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Average score: 90% (based on 9 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.2 out of 5 (based on 11 ratings with 1 reviews)

So easy to forget that it's under the sea...

The Good
While this game has quite a lot to criticize, it seems that Humongous Entertainment games never go below a certain level. They always remain colorful, funny, educational and thus charming in a way. Freddi Fish games are no exception. Some parts of graphics get boring, but generally the environment is very colorful - just the thing, it seems, even many older players like so much about HE games. Of course there are also those famous little animations found by clicking everywhere, though some of them are not very inventive.
I also just have to appreciate one thing: the game has a female protagonist. Not a woman, of course, but considering that characters in Freddi Fish games are marine animals with anthropomorphic traits, she could be called a girl. This isn't a banal fact. Just look - women form the half of society (more precisely - a little over one half), yet our lives aren't acknowledged in too many texts of culture. They are considered too uninteresting. Too many movies, games, books etc. present a biased perspective, a world almost without women - and this way they can make girls believe that their lives really aren't interesting... Have you heard of the "Alison Bechdel test"? A character in her comic strip says that she only goes to movies which have at least one scene with women talking about something other than a man. While one can argue whether it has any value for actually rating films or whether it should be treated seriously at all - there would be no such cultural meme without the underlying reason: in many texts of culture women's presence is reduced even more than in real life.
Back to less serious business - the game also has one of the best minigames in HE games: "Mess Hall Mania", a variation of the Battleships game. Fun gameplay, very nice and colorful graphics and, of course, a possibility to play it many times.
The game is relatively large - definitely longer than, for example, part 1 or 3 - and has some gameplay variants which require different ways of solving problems.

The Bad
Many parts of the game aren't very logical. To put it bluntly - they are quite silly and just not credible. Not the worst example: one of the fish, Marge, is a military officer and in one of gameplay variants she needs Freddi and Luther to find a compass for her. Why hasn't the headquarters provided her with all necessary mission details? And why does she only look at the map and the compass and then leave the map behind? The real answer is, of course - "So that Freddi and Luther can have it" - but as a plot element it is slightly annoying because the player realises that in real life military missions sure don't work like that.
Character appearance is another persisting illogical aspect. Freddi and Luther look simply like cartoon fish - compared to them, most other characters are much more anthropomorphic. They usually wear at least some clothes, they often swim in an upright position and sometimes, when one doesn't notice their fins, one can get an impression that they almost look like humans. By the way, some real fish are very colorful and impressive-looking... still, the game's graphic artists gave up any attempt to recreate this and chose boring anthropomorphism again.
Which goes on to another impression: the game's designers really make very little use of the fact that the game takes place underwater. Of course Freddi and Luther don't walk, they swim, but it has almost no meaning at all for the plot. Freddi Fish games are full of situations where nobody seems to have thought "How would this or that work in an underwater environment?", "How can I make it more interesting, given that the game takes place underwater?". This kind of environment would have to be different than ours - for example any fence would in fact be at most a decoration because one could enter by swimming over it. OK, Freddi Fish doesn't enter the Coral Cove Park without a permission because she is too polite for that (an example of the game's educational character, by the way), Beverly requests a permission because the town authorities aren't very cooperative, they rather just tolerate Freddi's investigation. But it all works just because they player understands the convention, not because a marine environment would really be like that. Repeatedly this environment turns out to be quite a wasted opportunity in Freddi Fish games. OK, enough of these caustic remarks - it can also be seen as a reminder of the meaning of imagination. We are a terrestrial species, we know many planets, but inhabit just one, we also know only one species which has created a civilization... so whenever someone creates a non-realistic text of culture, they should be aware of our limitations and try to think outside the box.

The Bottom Line
Nevertheless, I quite like this game. The story is fun ad interesting, but after some time all these illogical aspects become irritating. It's a bit like the "case" of a certain cartoon. Some 30 years ago I saw the Hungarian cartoon "Vuk the Fox" on TV and recorded it on a video tape, which I still have. I like its Polish dubbing, which is very funny, but also, as an adult fan of movies for children, I got too aware of its illogicalities. (Another feminist complaint: we are never told the main female character's name Actually there is only ONE named female character in this cartoon: an old owl, a very minor character.) Still, as I said, the film has funny dialog and a positive story of a fox who gets revenge on human hunters - but after some time one cannot help but notice all the loose threads in the story and illogical responses. "Freddi Fish and the Case of the Creature of Coral Cove" is similar: it is still a fun game, but has a lot of poorly designed plot elements.

Windows · by Nowhere Girl (8680) · 2016

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kurt Sample.

iPad, Android, iPhone added by KinopioKing. Macintosh added by Andrew Shepard. Linux added by LepricahnsGold.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Apogee IV, Sciere, Klaster_1.

Game added November 5, 2001. Last modified January 15, 2024.