Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsA Solo and Co-op Masterpiece Par Excellence
Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2022
From Settlers of Catan to Puerto Rico, there are tons of prominent board games that feature an island being civilized by invading forces. Greater Than Games wanted to ask the question, “What if the island fought back?” To answer that question, let’s get to the review!
OVERVIEW: You play Spirit Island on a board made up of one map per player. Each map is seeded with enemy settlements and allied Dahan natives. Players take their turns simultaneously, beginning by choosing one of their spirit’s growth options which will place presence on the board to allow them to use powers. Doing this lets players often increase either their energy income or the number of cards they can play per turn. They will then select the power cards that they will play for the turn, paying their cost (if any). Some cards are fast and will activate immediately. The invaders then take their turn ravaging some land types, defeating any Dahan there, and blighting the land. They will then build new settlements and other land types, and then send out explorers to repeat the process. The players then resolve any slow powers they played for the turn and discard all cards used for the turn. If the players can defeat enough of the invaders before too much of the land is blighted, they win.
PRO, 5 out of 5: FOCUSED SIMULTANEOUS PLAY. Because each player begins on their own separate board with limited range on their powers, they can generally focus on the problems facing them on their map. This reduces analysis-paralysis and speeds up the game. But as the game progresses, players will be able to extend their presence to their neighbor’s maps, which slowly ratchets up the cooperation and creates more of a tactical puzzle as the game goes on.
PRO, 5 out of 5: FEAR EFFECTS. Players have a pool of fear tokens. As settlements are defeated and card effects are resolved, the tokens are moved down to the “generated fear” section. When all of the fear has been earned, the tokens are moved up and one fear card is moved down, waiting to be activated later in the turn. When 3 fear cards have been earned, the terror level for the game increases. Increasing the terror level makes both the victory conditions for the game easier and also levels up the powers of the fear cards you earned. The fear cards themselves are a lot of fun. Since you never know what effect they have, they give you random boosts to your strategy.
PRO, 5 out of 5: TACTICAL PUZZLE. The tactical richness of Spirit Island really is unparalleled. The invader actions are telegraphed multiple turns in advance, giving you time to defeat them. The tactical puzzle gets even more interesting with the use of fast and slow powers. Trying to coordinate how to best use your powers to address the telegraphed invader actions makes this one of the best tactical puzzles in co-op board gaming history.
PRO, 5 out of 5: VALUE AND VARIETY. Spirit Island comes with 4 scenarios that drastically change the rules of the game. It also comes with 3 different European adversaries for you to face. Each adversary has unique abilities and step-by-step upgrades to provide the exact challenge you want. As if that wasn’t enough, you can even flip the game boards over to get a more challenging but more geographically realistic alternate board setup. All of this gives Spirit Island immense replay value and allows players to adjust the difficulty to the exact level they need.
PRO, 5 out of 5: SPIRIT DIFFERENTIATION. Each spirit has unique setup rules, abilities, growth and power options, innate powers if they get combos from certain cards, and an entirely unique set of 4 power cards that only they can use. It’s a staggering amount of differentiation, and the game really feels almost completely different each time. And I haven’t even mentioned the ridiculous variety of minor and major powers that you can upgrade your spirit with throughout the game. This can culminate into ridiculous superpowers like lightning bearing down on the land or floods to wash enemy cities away. The variety in how your spirit will play game to game is truly spectacular.
OVERALL SCORE, a resounding 5 out of 5. Spirit Island is absolutely one of my top co-op games of all time. I just love this game. Both serious and casual players that I’ve introduced the game to have loved it as well. The combination of incredible variety, fast gameplay, and deep tactical puzzles is amazing. To keep my thoughts brief, Spirit Island is a co-op that every gamer should have in their collection. As a side note, the expansion “Branch & Claw” adds a ton of content to the game. I honestly don’t play the game anymore without it. It should also come as no surprise that Spirit Island is excellent when played solo. When I play with just one spirit, I can complete a game in about 30 minutes, which is an amazing amount of gameplay for such a short time invested. Adding in a second spirit makes the puzzle that much tougher and exciting. All of my previous recommendations hold for people who want to play Spirit Island solo. It is GREAT.
Happy gaming! This is Dr. D, and I’m out!
