Spirit Island Review

Intro

Spirit Island flips the colonial narrative on its head. Instead of conquering new lands, you're the mystical forces defending them. Released in 2017, this cooperative strategy game puts 1-4 players in the roles of powerful spirits trying to repel European colonizers from their sacred island home.

With an average playtime of two hours and a stellar 8.34/10 rating from the board gaming community, Spirit Island has earned its reputation as one of the best co-op experiences available. Fair warning though: this isn't a gateway game. The complexity runs deep, with intricate interactions between spirits, powers, and invader movements that'll have you scratching your head for the first few plays.

How It Plays

Each player embodies a unique spirit of the land with distinct elemental powers and abilities. Think Lightning's Swift Strike, who specializes in fast, aggressive attacks, or Vital Strength of the Earth, who grows slowly but becomes an unstoppable defensive force.

Every round follows the same rhythm. First, spirits simultaneously choose which power cards to play, spending energy to activate them. Some powers trigger immediately (fast powers), while others resolve later (slow powers) after the invaders have acted. The timing matters enormously.

Then the invaders advance in their predictable yet relentless pattern: explore, build, ravage. They scout new areas one turn, construct settlements the next, then devastate the land with blight while attacking the native islanders. Your job? Stop them through clever use of elemental magic, strategic positioning, and careful resource management.

Between rounds, spirits grow stronger by reclaiming spent cards, gaining new powers, or spreading their presence to new areas. Meanwhile, the colonial threat escalates. It's a race against time that perfectly captures the mounting tension of resistance movements.

Highlights

The asymmetric spirits are Spirit Island's crown jewel. Each one plays completely differently, with unique power progressions, growth patterns, and tactical approaches. Ocean's Hungry Grasp drowns coastal invaders, while Shadows Flicker Like Flame specializes in misdirection and fear. Learning each spirit feels like mastering a mini-game within the larger experience.

The thematic integration runs incredibly deep. Every mechanism reinforces the narrative of supernatural forces defending their homeland. Blight spreads like an infection. Fear accumulates until invaders flee in terror. Even the card art and flavor text immerse you in this world of elemental magic and colonial resistance.

The variable difficulty system through different adversaries keeps things fresh long-term. Fighting the Brandenburg-Prussia industrial machine feels vastly different from repelling French plantation colonists. Each adversary reshapes the game's flow and demands new strategies.

For puzzle lovers, Spirit Island delivers endless tactical depth. Combining elemental powers for bonus effects, timing fast versus slow powers, managing energy curves—every decision ripples through future turns. The game rewards planning ahead while forcing you to adapt when things go sideways.

The solo mode deserves special mention. Playing multiple spirits yourself works surprisingly well, turning the experience into a pure strategic puzzle without losing the cooperative tension.

Criticisms

Let's be honest: Spirit Island is seriously complex. New players often feel overwhelmed by the interconnected systems, elemental combinations, and timing considerations. The learning curve resembles a cliff face. Even after several plays, you'll probably miss rules interactions or optimal plays. Some groups will bounce off this complexity entirely.

The downtime between turns can stretch uncomfortably long, especially with analysis-prone players. Since everyone acts simultaneously, you're often waiting for the slowest decision-maker to finish their complex calculations. At higher player counts, this can bog down the experience significantly.

Setup and teardown take forever. Between sorting power cards, organizing tokens, and arranging the modular board, you're looking at 10-15 minutes just getting started. The component management during play isn't much better, with multiple decks, tokens, and boards requiring constant attention.

Conclusion

Spirit Island rewards dedicated players with one of the deepest, most thematically cohesive cooperative experiences in modern board gaming. If you enjoy complex strategy games, love asymmetric gameplay, and don't mind investing serious time in learning intricate systems, this game will likely become an obsession.

It's perfect for experienced gamers seeking their next meaty challenge, solo players who want a rich puzzle to explore, and groups that enjoy collaborative problem-solving. The variable spirits and adversaries provide essentially unlimited replayability.

However, casual players and those preferring lighter experiences should probably look elsewhere. Spirit Island demands patience, focus, and multiple plays to truly appreciate its brilliance. But for those willing to make that investment, few games offer such a rewarding and thematically powerful experience.