In order to promote discussion on Lemmy, I’m doing micro-reviews for my favorite boardgames by genre. Please join in, provide your reviews, flame me for my terrible taste or to suggest a category for tomorrow!
Today's game is Spirit Island
TL;DR
Score: 9/10
Positives:
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Gorgeous artwork
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Theme fits great in the game
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Very thinky
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Tons of difficulty adjustments and scenarios
Negatives:
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The upkeep of this game is very high
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Prone to Analysis Paralysis
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Quarterbacking/Alpha gaming is nearly impossible but it's still really important to discuss how to approach each turn; Not everyone enjoys that
The Review
In Spirit Island you play as a magical spirit of the island. Your task is to protect the land and its native tribes from the colonizing invaders. The objective of the game is to wipe the colonizers or inflict so much fear they give up. If the colonizers spread too much or you run out of time, you lose the game.
Image credit to Richard on bgg, source here
This game is really special. The artwork is absolutely amazing and fits the theme really really well. The Spirits feel REALLY different from eachother, they totally change the way you play the game. Some Spirits are more focused on defending the land from colonist attacks, others are really good at killing enemy units and others play more of a supporting role.
At the start of game you are very weak. You have very limited range, and your starting cards are probably not very powerful. It quickly starts to feel like it's an impossible task and you're going to lose. Part of the island is going to be permanently corrupted and it's going to feel bad.
It's nearly impossible to be an alpha gamer in this game because your decisions are already too complex, you would be totally overwhelmed if you tried to control everyone else's. That said, while all actions can be performed simultaneously, it's very important to communicate your intentions with your team mates. Say you can wipe 1 of 2 possible areas. It's important to communicate that ability with your team mates because maybe someone else is more restricted than you and can only deal with 1 of those areas. Not everyone enjoys this interaction but I truly believe it's key to success.
As the game goes on you will be spreading your influence across the island and acquiring new and more powerful cards. You will start to feel like a god and the game starts to feel easy. It's quite an interesting arc, really. The game comes with a ton of difficulty adjustments but the arc always seems to be the same: you start miserable and thinking the game is impossible but you clutch it out and win when game is nearly over.
I really love the hard decisions in this game. You want to save the entire island, you want to kill every colonizer, you want it all to be perfect. That's not going to happen, the game is designed for that not to happen. You're going to have to make sacrifices and try your best to deal with the threats while gaining some much needed power. I love that aspect of the game. The Spirits are really unique with clever little names. My favorite spirit is "Ocean's Hungry Grasp" and it's so fun because your gameplay neatly simulates the ocean waves. It's amazing.
The one thing that knocks a point out of this game is the "invader phase" upkeek. Spreading colonizers and disease is a REALLY boring step and very prone to errors. It doesn't seem too much in the first couple of turns but it really starts to become a dreadful task that you perform every single round. For this reason, I really don't recommend the first expansion. You need to add even more stuff to add to the board and has yet another upkeep step. There's a Steam adaptation of the game which probably solves this problem but I tend not to enjoy digital adaptations of boardgames.
Context Information
Number of Plays: 15
Suggested player count: 2-3 players, 4 is fine if everyone knows how to play and no one suffers from AP
Average playtime: 2.5 hours
Win-rate: 93.3%
Honorable Mentions
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Aeon's End: The New Age - Really fun deckbuilding game with the unique novelty that you DO NOT shuffle your deck. Once you play all your deck you simply flip it, no shuffle. Great game. There are a ton of Aeon's End games, I played The new Age and The Outcasts. I recommend The new Age, felt like a better game.
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The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine - Trick tacking games are played a lot in Portugal. Every family owns a deck of cards and everyone can play "Sueca". This game feels like cooperative "Sueca" and we had a blast playing it. I also played a bit of the second one but I find the simple design of the first one a lot better.
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The Shipwreck Arcana - Forgot to mention this one! This is a very clever cooperative deduction game. Small box, small prize, amazing game. It's a solid 9/10 for me as well.
Haven't tried Spirit Island yet! To be honest, the big price tag kind of scares me from casually trying it(esp since I hear the consensus is you want the branch & claw xpacs too to really make it great).
It might be cheating since it is only sorta a board game, but my favorite is the Arkham Horror LCG. So much content, each campaign has its own quirks and twists, and the deckbuilsing is incredibly deep, especially with the experience leveling up system. One of my favorite board games overall
I played Spirit Island for the first time on Tabletop Simulator and it felt kinda cluttered and too hard to anticipate what happens next. But playing it at a real table with all the little pieces was completely different. We played many times with 4 players since and added the expansions only after a while. The base game is completely fine in my opinion and doesn't feel incomplete.
I didn't really get into AH LCG. I only played it in TTS and felt like I had little control over the game. There were so many random elements that could affect all subsequent games that we abandoned it in frustration. And isn't the price much higher with all the campaigns than SI?
Haha, I did have that exact thought when I was posting 😅 Although imo the barrier to entry is lower for the base game, and once I know I like a game I don't mind spending, so that's my idea behind it.
I did bounce off AHLCG the first time, and even sold it off. The "starter decks" they give you are god-awful and it really does feel like you're at the mercy of random bullshit, but once you learn enough to deckbuild half decently (or look up the "better starting decks" published on Arkhamdb) the game feels much more rewarding, and the amount of nonsense you can get up to is amazing. There's still the occasional bad luck (it is Arkham after all), but the game and strategy feels much more in your hands.
Didn't even think of trying Spirit Island on TTS, maybe I'll give that a go to see how I like it!
Eh, I have the original AH LCG, are there even enough cards to do that much of a different starter deck?
Definitely. I'm not gonna pretend just the core gives you much in the way of options, but the starter decks are truly god-awful and can be vastly improved just by taking out some wtf cards and replacing them with stuff good for your role (eg Daisy should not have knives)
I'll need to take a look at the cards again. AH does take some time so I think we'll start anew and see how to configure the decks. Thanks for the insight!
I totally get what you mean by lower entry barrier. In the end, that's also by design for LCGs. But the completionist in me looks at the price tag for the whole collection in horror (no pun intended). Maybe after what you wrote I still give it another try, so thanks for sharing your experience.
When you play SI for the first time on TTS, I highly recommend playing with someone who knows the game already. Scripts in TTS are nice and all, but it's even harder to understand how everything works when they are doing stuff so fast that you cannot follow.
It's crazy to see how much boardgames have increased in cost. I bought my copy for 60 euros, the same shop now sells it for 95 euros.
Even if you feel like Branch & Claw is something you'd enjoy, you should probably play a couple of games without it. I wouldn't discard the game because of expansions, the base game feels complete and is as challanging as you want it to be!