SU&SD Review: Spirit Island! 

Some say people are still waiting for Matt's video about the expansion

Interesting the framing of the "fuzziness" of the game is framed as a negative whereas for me it is a HUGE positive. There's not a lot of "Hey, Tom use that power here so I can use this power here and then Matt does this over there and we're good" but there is a lot of "Uhhhhh can someone help me out here?" which is very much so my preferred type of collaboration :)

Absolutely my favourite game of all time. So happy to see it being covered here. So. Much. Strategic. Depth.

The barrier to quaterbacking is one of my favorite things about the game. The players have to work as a team rather than as a single person with 4 heads.

Tom that "medium" joke was bloody brill. I was eating cereal and nearly lost my mouthful.

This is my favorite game and my most played non party game so I went into this a bit defensive. But what a fantastic review. Covered its shortcomings and praised it's best parts. I will say make sure you include the two promo packs in your follow up Matt or you'll be missing my favorite spirit "downpour drenches the world"

I think something you overlooked was how good this game is to play solo, the scalable difficulty and massive variety of spirits really gave a ton of replay value and the puzzle has so much depth it was constantly being pulled off the shelf during the lockdowns. Honestly the more you play the more you fall in love with it

Best 2 player coop game there is. It is literally the only game ever where I went through the manual for the "hard modes" and actually fealt like it wasn't just a cheap way to stretch the game but in fact, the hard mode actually is the MAIN game. It was sooo fun to figure out a combination of spirits that could actually beat some of those modes.

I would love for you guys to do a list of your favourite coop games, since you want different things from coop games!

This game hits the perfect spot for my game group, especially with expansions: - It is a co-operative game but it is complex enough that its not just the most experienced player telling everyone their exact optimal moves (like pandemic) -- you can at most guide their strategy. - The randomness of the events and the way slow powers work counteracts analysis paralysis (you play them with an idea in mind, but the board state could be different, so you should be flexible about them - and normally they are designed to be multi-purpose) - The difficulty: playing against "easier" enemies lets new players learn the game with simpler spirits while experienced players can choose to play something more complex they haven't tried yet and experiment with (so it is not a dull game if you lower difficulty necessarily). On the other hand, if you are after a challenge there is so much room to up the difficulty in an interesting way which makes you really have to co-operate and min-max as a team to get through it. - The theme hits home, fighting as nature with awesome magic the gathering like elemental spells to hold off the colonists from your island. - The variety in spirits and their various mechanics gets everyone excited to try again with a different spirit or just be more in control of their last spirit! However: I can totally see how people would not like it -> games tend to be long; every turn has a "everyone is thinking really hard for themselves" phase so it is not exactly a party game; you get the satisfaction from the mechanics, not the board per se (its not really adventurous or surprising with epic assets) and in the end the game can be a bit dry and predictable (even with events). But hey, we play this if we feel like tackling a hard thinking challenge together, switch this up with junk art to just play with blocks and end with for instance mansions of madness for that more lore driven adventurous kind of co-op! It is a good game, and always keeps us talking about the session for at least half an hour about what was so cool about it and the possibilities your spirit had that surprised you!

I love this game. Sad that so many just stop with the basic game - this is a game where the expansions add so much without subtracting any fun from the game. Jagged Earth and Branch and Claw add so much to the game. The addition of event cards and so many more spirits really brings the game alive. It becomes less predictable, and there are so many spirits that act in so many different ways.

Jagged Earth is such a great expansion. I haven't gotten to play Spirit Island at higher player counts but man this is easily a top 3 all time for me at 2 players.

Laughed out loud with the booing of England hahaha

I swear, whenever Tom is in a review, there is a 1 in 3 chance I'll be exclaming "Noooooo" at the sight of game pieces getting destroyed before the half way point. And it's great

i've legit searched for "su&sd spirit island" at least twice in the past. this is my favorite board game and every spirit i've played is differently overpowered and fun. it's true that you often end up just focusing on your segment of the island, which would make it really difficult for someone to quarterback. it's just too hard to keep track of what everyone has going on and what powers they can use

"why do you...why do you hate Spirit Island Tom?" had me on the floor

One of those games that I don't understand how anyone plays this game "quickly" (90 mins). I love playing with a friend but the two of us will try to optimize every turn so much that we'll finally finish in about 3 hrs

Haven't seen the whole video yet, but I already know that I think the game is phenomenal. The very end can be a little anti-clamctic, but that usually means you need to up the difficulty. Fantastic game.

Tom, I think the game's event cards and scenarios would really change what you think is stale about the game. Like Matt said, events give you that, 'and now someone has thrown sticks in my spokes' feel, and the scenarios change the win condition a lot of the time. There's one scenario where you have to prevent invaders from getting to the heart of the island, another where you need to recover relics to get power ups but the bad guys get power ups if they get them instead, and my favorite, one where you have to perform a Super Ritual 3 times that involves a big explosion of sh*t which is fun to just gather up and toss off the table. I really recommend them! Just know that they can be *more* difficult than the base game, so it does help to really have a grasp on what's going on.

Great and fair review. A couple of points based on my experience: 1/ Re: the communication tokens, as you said, they are just reminders that you promised to do something. For the rest you can talk to the other players. That's how you communicate the complexity of your actions. I don't think the tokens are meant to be sufficient as communication mediums. 2/ Re: playing your own game, only certain spirits allow you to do that (namely, damage spirits like Ocean or Lightning). Most Spirits interact with the board by pushing, gathering, and defending the Dahan, and that requires you to coordinate with other players, as pushing pieces away or towards them can have disastrous consequences. I also love this game, it's great to see it covered by SUSD. Keep up the good work!

Im glad they brought up the "Character Variety" as a potential negative, even for experienced playing groups. When playing this game solo, 2 handed, I noticed a crazy amount of pathways and combos. "Well if push them here now using a quick action, the other god then have them pulled a space for a slow action, then that makes over 4 settlers, meaning I can use a power that will...". This ended up being pretty fun experience solo. All that was lost when playing co-op. The variety of actions per monster just ended up being too expansive for the team to utilize an impressive combo. You really have to read the other player(s) mind to know what CAN be done next. It turns into a solitary co-op experience, but without any of the cool combos you would experience if you did play solo.

I’d like to advocate for playing it with 4 players! Yes, you loose the ability to plan with precision due to the chaotically clustered board, but if you simply draft and play power cards that help you activate the extra spirit powers you end up generally being able to do enough “stuff” every round that you don’t need to know exactly when or where your going to do it. Then, after everyone has paid and played their cards, you get to have a great open discussion with 4 people, about when, where, and what everyone might be able to do and what would be best for the island. Very few games provide that type of cooperative conversation where no one alone can know what’s best.

Audible "Wow" when I saw the thumbnail.

The fact that I discovered a game before SUSD reviewed it... *Pats own back*

Spirit Island definitely has that strategic planning overload in the first few games. After playing the kudzu spirit guy two or three times, it all started to gel and was fantastic fun, but I also had a few friends who didn't want to fight their way over that mental investment hump, and I can't blame them. For such a colorful, fun looking game, Spirit Island really asks you to juggle a lot of information at once to play it well.

I'm glad you guys reviewed this game as it is my favorite game of all time. I like how difficult it gets when you start playing with the different nations and scenarios, but it's never so difficult that it becomes unfair. When I play this with my brother we are usually communicating from round 1, each controlling two spirits, trying to cover each others weaknesses while not neglecting the problems closest by. It's the balance of short and long term thinking combined with a fair amount of unpredictability and an excellent theme that make it so I never get tired of this game.

I love this game, it's a great combination of needing meaty forward planning but not completely screwing you if you make one strategically bad choice early in the game because you weren't an omniscient mega being with perfect knowledge of the future.

". . . like an oiled up Ned Flanders." A phrase I NEVER expected to hear in my life and now that I have heard it, I'm wondering where it's been all my life.

Fantastic review! SI is my most played game by far. I just want to note how essential the Branch and Claw Expansion is. (At least in my opinion. ) The new tokens and the Event cards put an already great game to another level. And if you still are craving for more Jagged Earth adds more complex Spirits and changes up the existing easy ones, to gibe them more spice!

At last! Great to see SI getting the SUSD treatment. This is one of the few games that truly blossoms with the expansion (Branch & Claw). The added events give enough randomness to mess with the conveyor belt and the extra tokens provide more interesting strategic levers to pull. Jagged Earth hits that “more stuff” sweet spot and pumps the total number of spirits up to 24 (!). There’s a reason SI has been our most played game for years running between my spouse and I.

I love this game and in terms of the theme, I love how it feels very much like a rebuke to Settlers of Catan - the lands have the same colours but are jagged and irregular instead of neat little hexagons, the VP value of towns and cities become their hp value here.

Interesting timing: GTG just today announced Horizons Of Spirit Island, a Target-exclusive SI game with simplified setup and easier spirits to play as (but without overlapping with the existing stuff, so you can treat it as an expansion for the original if you like.)

Yay! Spirit Island is one of my absolute faves. The way each Spirit's characterization is embodied through mechanics is absolutely brilliant and should be an example to all heavy asymmetric games. In terms of the history it alludes to, I do sometimes have mixed feelings about the fear mechanic, because, in real world colonial history, if the indigenous powers fought back and destroyed a colonizer city, the colonizers would often escalate and get nastier. So the fact that fear just always makes the game easier and closer to ending rings a little un-thematic to me...although I definitely see why it's necessary in the interests of making *Spirit Island* a winnable three-hour game instead of an unwinnable or never-endign one. It just feels like a possibly over-optimistic take on resisting colonization sometimes. But it's in the context of a topnotch game. Glad to see it get an official SU&SD review.

You did what with a food processor! Anxiety rising…..

THEY REALLY BLENDED THE FIGURES

I'm a big fan of renaming your spirit at the end of the game based on how your spirit grew and changed. Finding a creative way to summarize your arc is pretty neat. My favorite renames from my games include: Time Bends to the Peoples Will (Fractured Days discarded events to make the uprising event come sooner vs France) A Reservoir of Power Freely Shared (Shifting Memory of ages got Wrap in Wings of Sunlight, Trees and Stones Speak of War, and Promises of power and protection empowering the Dahan so so much) Dark Clouds Weep Bitter Tears (Downpour managed to spam Spill Bitterness into the Earth)

One of the first solo pandemic games that I played for myself locked up alone

It's telling that so many of these comments are from people who are so positive on this game already. I remember searching "susd spirit island" multiple times when I was first building my collection several years ago. Glad you boys have come around! P.S. Don't forget the next expansion crowdfunding starting Oct 18, Nature Incarnate!

Finally! For Science (from the same designer) is also fantastic!

Spirit Island is the game that got me into board games. It's so good to see it getting some love on SU&SD!

This is my favorite cooperative game. And, something not really covered by the review is how much the difficulty of the game can be scaled.

Spirit island for me have the biggest competency curve of any game I've ever played. When I started, I could barely win at level zero. The more you play, the better you understand the timing of the game, and the value of getting your Elementary symbols to match to get the free ability. Perfect design and scaling.

After 200+ live games of this game (averaging 3 players, and over 120+ with the same friend of mine), I can confirm that this game does in fact have legs. With the events and the adversaries, of course.

The Tom Matt tag team reviews, the way they bounce ideas off each other, the escalating video effects and layered opinions! Fantastic so many great moments, especially the Jelly Beans into hell scene! Played spirit island years ago, need to play it again now!

I think this review covered what I love about SI, hit what I don't love about SI (the samey arc of every game) and has given me hope that just as Tom may grow to love it with event cards, I too could learn to accept the tingling warmth of a fire bird in my heart one day.

I absolutely love the way they do co-op in this game, I love that the way the section of islands work is that you basically focus on your section of the island but it streamlines the communications in the game because you get to say okay these are the areas I need help with and this is the sort of help I can provide to other players. A lot of times when you have a lot of players in a coop game the turns can drag on forever because you want to make a perfect turn, and don't get me wrong I love a good strategy discussion in a coop game, but this little bit of streamlining in Spirit Island means you have a lot of that interaction but also puts a cap on it that makes a 4 player game pace a lot like a 2 player game which is a VERY big advantage to me.

After playing the digital and TTS versions, I could never go back to the physical version unfortunately. The automated handling of the elements and increased ease of management pushes their value above the tactility of the physical version. Wonderful game and would play it with anyone, just not in person.

7:30 gives us an absolutely immaculate cut: where Matt is gesticulating wildly as he talks and Tom's facial expressions are hilarious, on-point, and absurd. Beautiful

We love spirit island. We're mostly playing with 2 player, but have once played with 4 and a couple games with 3 players. I think a part worth to mention is the training mode, for teaching a single new player how to play by taking some (not all) of their choices, while the more experienced players can do their thing. It's also good if some players are overwhelmed by the complexity of the game. There is a lot replayability, as with each combination of spirits or different nations, there are differrent things you have to cope with. River and Thunder are great using the dahan, while the volcano (from the expansion) doesn't mind burning some here and there. And sometimes, you find a card that doesn't match your playstile, but it's so good for you partner/scenario that you'll keep it anyway and choose other cards to support it to buy. I also like the simple tokens. I lay down my played cards and place the token onto the card and also onto the board to show where i'll use it's effect. We mostly only plan about the areas where Invaders are attacking and maybe building, everything else is nice to have but doesn't have to be planned through as a group. There's always enough to do with those slow abilities e

My wife doesn’t like board games that make her strategize too much. She prefers a more simple relaxing experience. But she saw how much fun I had with Spirit Island that she figured she could play a game or two with me to spend some time together. We now play so often it’s almost daily. We love it! We love working together and taking on harder and harder adversaries! We can’t wait for Nature Incarnate in a few weeks!

that's my favorite part about this one, very difficult for someone to become the alpha over the whole game. everyone gets a chance to play their own spirits and it's very tense.

SI is my most played game by a huge margin. I was playing it weekly with a group of friends on Tabletop Simulator over lockdown. The added complexity of the expansions with the events, new tokens and more complex spirits definitely does reduce the predictability. Also, the level to which you can customise the difficulty with the invader levels and scenarios does keep things fresh. If you don't have any particularly "mobile" spirits though, you definitely do get into the problem of everyone focusing on just their starting board

Have to agree with Matt more on this one (though Tom raised great counterpoints). One of my all time favorites. Where I can see some would not enjoy being semi-restricted in their powers due to certain spirits needing more of a certain element/game action, I actually find it works fantastically when you think of it as a spirit "loadout" (I picked a defensive spirit, I'm gonna gravitate towards cards that boost my defensiveness) and having others pick "loadouts" that compliment the other picks. Correct me if I'm wrong too, but I've noticed that certain elements tend to show up on cards of a similar "action" type (as an example, maybe you've noticed a lot of offense cards having an Animal element) so it's all designed that certain elements would be useful to that particular "type" of spirit. Always exceptions though and I may have just made that up without realizing it :) Great review as always

As someone who's always been perfectly fine with the multiplayer solitaire type of board game, Spirit Island is my favorite co-op specifically because it hits the right balance. I also am a big fan of its arc, I hate the spiky randomness of some co-ops (and, indeed, I dislike the events brought in in the expansion for exactly that reason).

I am some people and I say that I am still waiting for Matt’s follow up video on the Spirit Island Expansions. Love you guys!

This was a great review, the comedy and production was really good, props Matt and Tom!

I recently dreamed that I watched the follow up video on the expansions, was disappointed to find that it hasn't actually been made/published yet lol. Hope that's coming soon!

I have watched dozens of objectively hilarious SUSD skits utterly stonefaced, only to break out in furious giggles at "no medium" (long explanatory card)

My group love this and play it often with 4 players. It gets pretty messy indeed, at times, but when it all comes together and you manage to wipe those invaders off the board, it's so damn satisfying. Great game, highly recommended.

How dare you to shred those poor minions! 😂 Your channel is awesome. Exactly my kind of my humor.

My group play this at least once a month. It can be easy to get confused by all the text but as long as you only focus on your own stuff it’s very manageable. And there are so many fun spirits! The expansions are all worth it. Many Minds Move as One is my favorite but I also love playing Starlight Seeks it’s Form. We regularly play 4-6 players.

YAAAAAAAY! I'm so happy to see this video! I didn't expect it to get the Badge, but very excited it did! Thanks, boys! I appreciate it a lot =) . This game is tied with Twilight Imperium for my favorite game ever.

Huge props for making me look frame by frame what was actually in the blender. Well played, guys, well played!

excellent review, so glad to hear there's going to be a follow up on the expansions. while not neccesary imo I think they really do flesh out the game without bloating it.

My wife and I dislike co-op games, we picked this up to give it a go dispite this and it's a great game, well designed and balanced, with every game we played feeling like we just barely managed to win. However we sold it after a few games because like Tom, I feel like we got everything we would get out of it. Its a great game, but if you dont like co-op games to begin with, its definitely not going to convert you.

My group loves this one, and I, like Tom, am lukewarm about it. It's fine, there's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't WOW me. I always feel like we've played something wrong, or that the choices feel a bit pre determined, like we had to do certain things to address the threats, not that we really chose how to address the threats. Subtle but yeah, just ok. Good game, love the theme, but I think there are other co-op games I enjoy more. (Ghost Stories)

I played a LOT of solo game of spirit island (playing multiple spirits at once) and this is clearly one of the better soloable game I know. The fact that the game throw at you, each turn, a new complex puzzle to solve is perfect. I know that SUSD doesn't really talk a lot about the solo experience (not a critic, most people like game for the social component). But being myself a very solo player of boardgame, I can add that this is one of the best for this kind of experience.

Excellent video, the oooone thing that I wish was highlighted more (not just here but in general Spirit Island chatter) is the excellent onboarding the game provides imo! The basic spirits have Even More Basic setups with pre-made decks that helped me learn the game, and then you can play with the full powers decks, and then you can add variable blight effects, and then you can add scenarios and invader identities...and then in Jagged Earth you can amp up the basic spirits into multiple different Less Basic forms. So many layers of granular difficulty ramp in both directions just feels so fn good if the basic gameplay loop jives with you

People will say this, but Spirit Island is not a complete experience without Branch and Claw.

Great video as always, really enjoy seeing more reviews with two of you in it! The varying opinions makes it especially engaging for me!

Spirit Island is THE game that got my partner and I through the pandemic when we couldn't see our regular group. It's rare to find a co-op game that scales so well and continues to present an equal challenge (thanks to modular scenarios and invader difficulties) as you improve. The expansions add a ton of replayability too, with new adversaries, tokens, random events, and even more spirits. We've played well over 300 games of SI and we continue to average 3-4 per week. Our latest endeavor: 'gauntlets' where we try to overcome every lv 6 adversary with specific spirits. Some pairs are incredibly challenging but it always feels like a satisfying puzzle to solve.

I am also incensed that this review is so long in coming. I own every expansion of spirit island, kickstarted the newest expansion, Nature incarnate, and even have the little optional bits, like the premium token pack. I've introduced all my friends to this game, to wild success, and played every spirit at least once. In the past six months, this has been the game I pull out on at least 90% of game nights. The replayability is endless, and as you get more experience working with a group, getting those really fun cooperative turns gets easier, and even necessary when playing on the mounting difficulties of adversaries and scenarios. Thanks for bringing attention to this great game, it's a great value for the money, seats 6 with jagged earth, and been something I continuously talk about long after we've left the table.

Cannot believe SUSD finally reviews SI!

Gotta say i had a heart palpitation when you actually blended those pieces

from my modest collection of approx 160 games. Spirit Island is my clear favourite, the theme and replay ability is awesome.

“Ahh! Those sound *really scary*” 🤣🤣🤣

Can we just have the 'wow what a hot vid' loop at the end of every video? It's incredible

When they moved to the mini-expansion and Tom went off camera at 16:30, I half-expected Quinns to Cool-Aid-Man into frame.

I almost got a aneurysm from the whisky, gin and rum bit.

I am glad they rereviewed it. Tom, the expansions give some randomness and I have never looked back since I added events to the game. This is my Favorite game.

I'm a person who tends to want to try out a new game every time I sit down to play and rarely prefer to play a game Ive already played 2+ times. Spirit Island is a rare exception. With the variety of adversaries, spirits, scenarios, and difficulties, I'm constantly looking forward to playing more Spirit Island more than anything else.

A couple weeks ago I played a huge 6-player game with both expansions and we had a great time. I agree with Tom that the base game can be somewhat predictable, but the expansions really do add so much. Our group really likes this style of teamwork. Everyone has their role and gets to contribute in their own way, and while asking others for help is common you can't really tell anyone else what to do bc you can't see their cards and their board is on the other side of the table. So you have just enough of an idea of what your teammates can do that you know what types of stuff you can generally rely on them to do, but not so much that you can quarterback them.

I like playing the nightmare monster cause when you scare the colonists away I like to shake my arms and scream "Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare!" *tepid applause*

Rules Issue: The Invader phase doesn't start with Explore. The order is Ravage, then Build, _then_ Explore. Exploring is the last step of the phase, not the first.

Just got into this game in a big way. Really looking forward to the expansion reviews.

Can't decide if the medium joke or the oiled Ned Flanders one cracked me up more 🤣 One of the best reviews of su&sd and that in itself is a marvelous feat. And the game deserves it!

Never thought you would get a round to this one

The thing I love about the Events in Spirit Island are that they typically involve both good and bad things that happen. So it doesn't so much randomly screw you over as it demands you adapt your strategy--it may remove your Presence that you needed to target that thing over there, while at the same time giving you more Beasts/Dahan to play with. They also demand choices sometimes, and some of the events reshuffle themselves back into the top few cards if you can't deal with them correctly. But more importantly, I think the expansions just add a lot more intractability with the board. Deciding where you need to put Wilds/Badlands tokens or where to move Beasts to is really fun, and can have dramatic impacts three or four turns later. Plus the new spirits are amazing and definitely force more cooperation--Finder of Paths Unseen and Serpent Slumbering Beneath the Island are both spirits that do amazing work all over the board, but can't necessarily "handle" their own slab of land without a lot of help. I'll also add that if you find players aren't interacting with each other's bits enough, you might need to scale up the difficulty for your group! My group liked Spirit Island okay at Difficulty 0, but it's our favorite game at Difficulty 5, which is just barely hard enough that we usually win, but have to help each other and diversify ourselves a lot more.

"Like an oiled-up Ned Flanders" - that's one for the box

You sold me at "Welcome to Spirit Island". Now, where's my drink?

Seeing Matt's sketch about drowning people as the water spirit, while talking to himself as a fire spirit and a tree spirit at a party with wine, really reminded me of a lot of Tiktok content creators out there. He would be bloody brilliant on that platform!

Another exemplary review. Love your work. I'll add myself to the large number of people commenting that this is their favourite game. The 1 player game works phenomenally well and reminds me a bit of Into The Breach.

I want to host a party for SUSD fans where everyone must come as a character from the reviews. Just need to find enough other nerds....

Got to play this one time at a con and it was a blast. I was the River spirit and I spent the whole game flushing bad guys out to sea where the Ocean spirit would drown them. We were Best Murder Buds the whole game :)

Spot on! I'm firmly in the Tom camp. Played a few times, not sure how many more times I want to play because of the clunkiness/analysis paralysis of the co op bits.

Tom's Medium joke and the pose had me in tears

This is why I love shut up and sit down. This is a game I would never have looked at, it would have been well and truly off my radar but I have to say I'm quite tempted! Thanks both, and does this mean I deserve to walk into a Bush too?

Donating to get Matt a second dining table chair.

I adore this game and think that the addition of the event cards and the additional tokens introduced in the mini expansion really enhance game play. My partner and I love to play 2 player with 2 spirits each and I won't lie, we need a notebook to keep track of our plans as you can spend 30 minutes planning a turn before you even play your slow powers. I'm so glad you reviewed this game as I would love more people to know and enjoy it.... Though its REALLY confusing on your first play through xD

I think its ravage, build, explore not explore, build, ravage....not sure if it makes much difference!