When I first heard about this game, it didn't appeal to me at all. For some reason, I did start looking at a couple playthroughs (again) a few months back and ended up buying the game. No regrets, it's my absolute favourite game at the moment. I actually think it plays really well solo (and quite quickly too!).
Two player is really really good! Everything is tight, fast, beautifully working off each other. And it only lasts 1.5 hours on average. It's just a really great 2p experience.
Great review! Your playthrough of Spirit Island is what convinced me to buy the game, and to become a Patron. I've now played 15 times with only one loss: Solo 1 Spirit against Sweden - Level 6. Despite the high win-rate, it always feels tense, and is probably one of my favourite all-time games.
My group does D&D on Sundays and Spirit Island on Thursdays. We (all five of us, playing with 5 people kinda works as long as someone plays ocean) all love this game.
One thing my friends and I have said if you have never lost at a level its not hard enough for you. keep working up the ladder until you lose then try that level again and again until you beat it.
Negative #1 is kind of neutralized by playing on difficulty 8 or higher, in which case you will always almost always feel like losing, even up to the very point where you might finally realize that you can actually win. The fact that you feel like winning but still need another 20-30 minutes to finally get there is usually a sign of you playing at a difficulty that is too low. Also, there is the scoring system. This might be a good reason to keep playing even a game that is like 100% won until the end, to see if you are getting better and better and thus reaching higher scores.
I imagine you are correct here. I haven't had a chance to play this one in a long time now, but when I do I will for sure try a higher difficulty level and see how it goes.
I love boardgames but recently I have a greater purpose for them. Getting married has pushed me to think about how to better learn my wife and also to develop our ability to work together...making this game a no brainer. Hope she enjoys it enough to go deeper into the more challenging elements.
Always enjoy your reviews, well done. Whether I agree or disagree with the conclusion, the way you break it down provides a lot of useful information to make decisions from.
Collaboration between players not always makes games more interesting but eventually lead to more "happy end" for everyone :) also there is not so many cooperative game which is also good, the card designed good as for the graphic and the placement of explanation and symbols. As always very good job done on making this review , you took and explain all aspect of the game, i only with you mention the bad sides of the coin as well ...
Great review Jon. Everything you said mirrors my thoughts. Its my fave coop. I've got 5 plays under my belt, all at 0 difficulty, all victories. Your neutral point #1 is spot on. It would have been nice for some direction of ramping up difficulties. Your single negative point is totally valid until we try upper difficulties. With respect to player count...3 is best, but solo is also a lot of fun, but only when you play as two spirits. Great review of a fabulous game.
No losses? Man I've played 7 times solo and barely squeaked by two victories while getting thrashed the other times. Spawning near every adjacent town or city means explorers swarm fast and I always feel starved for power or cards to handle it all.
It's impressive that you treat a game like this so objective .... I would not.... I would never even play it at all.... so you impress me in more than one way!
I definitely think it's best at 2, great solo, okay to good at 3 and cumbersome and too fiddly at 4 even with an experienced group. "Likely good" at 2 is a crazy objectively wrong opinion. Probably the best 2player coop on the market
I absolutely appreciate your through take on the game. But come on, man. How are you going to do a full review without having played the harder difficulty levels? Why would you not ramp up the difficulty if you kept winning?
The biggest reason was I was playing with new people each time, so it seemed to make sense to keep it on the easy side so they could figure out what was going on. In retrospect I wish I had ramped a couple of those up, and I plan to in the future when it gets played again. It's not a short game though, so it doesn't hit the table as often as I'd like unfortunately.
