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 :)
Agreed. One of my favorite parts of the game is that there is so much going on, and you are so in the weeds, that no one can tell anyone else how to play the game or what to do on their turn. The best you can do is beg for or offer help.
Absolutely! Sometimes, especially when I'm more experienced at a game, I can feel like I'm kind of playing the whole game, and that's a really bad feeling. Like when I'm playing Ghost Stories with some friends, the least experienced player often doesn't have a lot of agency. I like the feeling like we're all doing things that help, even if not everyone is as good as each other.
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.
@@KindredBrujah really? The first time i played it already felt cooperative. We played it with 4 players 3 never played the game and it was the best cooperative (non campaign) game I ever playd. Maybe we were judt more experienced players?
@@tigriscallidus4477 My choice of words wasn't quite right... the teamwork only really comes _into its own_ when you're more experienced. When you play with the basic card drafting on the entry Spirits you lose out on a lot of the crazy combos you can set up with some of the Major Powers.
@@KindredBrujah hmm that may be! But the "i go there can you do this" etc. Worked for us from the beginning. And it was a "can you do x?" Instead of in other games a "you do x"
What is the barrier to quarterbacking? I've only played once and it basically involved all 4 of us standing around everybody's hands and deciding everyone's actions as a group, which seems very open to quarterbacking. Perhaps we were missing some rules?
@@tigerpjm I just thought of this...If i had a mouthful of cereal and I had an unexpected grin come up...I might of at least dribbled some cereal out..I wonder if such a thing gets re-accounted as a mouthful. :P
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.
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"
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!
The game is great with 2 or 3 players in. It's slowing down significantly with 4 or even 5 players. I love how the Jagged Earth expansion basically only adds over the top spirits with crazy complex abilities, because the designer knows his audience. And I wouldn't want an expansion that has some vanilla spirits in it. Also I can't wait how the Jagged Earth expansion will blow their mind, as the value of that one is completely through the roof.
In my experience, the game is as slow as its slowest player. When you have more players, the chances of having a slow player increases. But adding more players per se doesn't add length. Spirit Island plays just fine at 6 if at least two of the players are experienced.
I personally saw too much AP, with the cards being able to interact in too many ways. Yes, perhaps if the player goes a bit more on gut it can be mitigated. As is it didn’t work for me. A very good “next step” in pandemic-like land…
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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
This game can definitely take a while, but at the same time the times I’ve played solo, I’ve been able to get games in very quick… like 30 minutes quick
If you’ve played your spirit many times, often you know what your first 2-5 growths will be as well as you’ll be much quicker deciding which cards to gain. If you’ve played enough that your brain has automated the flow of each phase that takes a lot of time off. If you need to look something up every turn still this will definitely continue to take awhile. -from someone with 160 plays. Record is solo base game 17 minutes with River
Honestly I’ve had plenty of thirty minute games - but only as a result of not trying to optimize everything and having trust in my over arching strategy (typically trying to blow out innate powers). But yea - that said those thirty min games are not the norm. Especially when you start adding scenarios or adversaries.
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.
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'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
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!
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.
@@roxtrox7 It's kind of like Matt said, where if you really get invested in the higher difficulties, the game becomes incredible. There are a lot of friends I play Spirit Islands with, where we just play with events, all spirits + powers, and that's it, and we do it casual. And then there are a select 3 people I play this game with where we're a crack team of dirty minmaxers who challenge the higher threats. I totally agree with Matt when he said you really can't quarterback other players because of the spirit's complexities. I mean, you can, if you want the game to take 10 hours, but it means you really just have to trust each other to do *something* and at higher difficulties, you need to be able to quickly and concisely explain where your spirit is at, how much time you need for your build to be online, when you need to reclaim, and what types of threats you can deal with. Man, I love this game.
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
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)
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.
I love it, but I’m not great at Spirit Island and I almost exclusively win with fear so our endings are usually absolute relief that we managed to pick up that last fear card before we were obliterated in the next turn. I can’t wait til I’m good enough for one of those anti-climactic endings people talk about lol
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.
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.
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
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.
I get what you're saying about the theme, but maybe things would go differently if the coloniser's city was destroyed, not just by indigenous forces, but by genuine supernatural beings. However I'm not exactly an expert. Just sharing a thought.
In early prototypes, there were negative Fear cards for just that reason! That just didn't end up working out mechanically, though. However, the dynamics you mention are the reason for having Event cards which key off of Terror Level - the vast majority of those make the Invaders more aggressive in various ways at the higher Terror Level(s).
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!
". . . 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.
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.
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
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.
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
I love this game. And it is family favourite game too. Easily in top 5. a criticism, or just an observation: though most certainly cooperative... it can play very insulated as each player is trying to figure out their next move/card choice/growth phase, and each move is often defending on their own section of island. Kind of like playing solitaire together. You can’t afford to help the other spirits while youre overrun.. or your presence isn’t in range. With that said this “solitaire” is usually because the game is so challenging, and it shuts-down Alpha gaming hard... a huge plus in my home. As you pointed out, Event cards add much needed randomness. Variable, thematic, adjustable difficulty, different game modes, solo play... this game has it all. The Base Game is full of content. Watch some tutorials on RUclips first. Branch and Claw is a mini expansion and sort-of okay, while Jagged Earth is a massive expansion well worth the money if you like Base game.
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.
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 so glad you're finally doing Spirit Island! This is also my favourite game. I've played this for so many hours with friends. We joke when we get together "what game are we playing and why is it spirit island." I really like the review I think it really sums up a lot of whats great and some of the short commings however the 2 expansions fix all the issues they really mentioned with the game. There is still a bit of an issue with the anti climax which was touched as being a problem with most coop games but the replay value skyrockets with the expansions. Which if you look up the development history for the game you'll see why the game isn't quite complete without the 2 expansions. Events keep the game from being solved as mentioned in the video. In a addition the problem with isolation really comes down to the spirits you pick and the expansions triple the number of spirits. Which allows players to really pick what they want to go for. Want to be isolationist? pick vengence or wild fire. want to go heavy into co-operation? play finder of paths or slumbering serpent. A lot of the fun for me also comes from synergies. Even the isolationist spirits synergize with someone which is amazing! As a side note... you should really check out their most recent game aswell. "For Science!" it is the funnest excuse to build block towers I've found so far ;)
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 love this game. I always play with branch+claw tokens and events. I like that early on you can't cooperate much because limited presence and range, but you talk about where the problems are and do your best individually. By the time you start invoking your innate powers, you can tell people how they can help you make the most of em, and distributed presence allows people more flexibility to engage. The complexity in people's hands is simply too high for quarterbacking -- this is a good thing. The acceleration of the game (invaders become numerous, but spirits become strong!) really brings it to a crescendo, which makes for a very satisfying end. It's also when the options of your deck can lead to bewilderment or AP (refresh your cards, now you have 10 to choose from!) The value proposition of the original game was BIG, but the branch and claw expansion makes it "whole", in my opinion, and it does answer the "predictability" complaint. Plus, who doesn't like a whooooole lot more spirits to choose from? So many combinations!
"We've got whiskey" *points at irish cream*, "gin" *points at coffee liquor*, "and this tiny bottle of rum" *brings out a disaronno bottle*. what is going on lol
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!
This is probably my favourite non-campaign co-op. The only way to make it better for me would be to up the narrative side with a pseudo-legacy component which you can kind of do yourself with the scenarios, enemy difficulty levels, rigging the event deck etc. With Branch & Claw and Jagged Earth there is metric f*ck ton of replayability and they way you can combine spirits, scenarios and enemies to tailor the difficulty of the game is unparalleled. The puzzle of how to best use your fast and slow powers to hinder the invaders would be challenging and rewarding by itself, but stacking that on top of how to combine your powers with those of the other spirits ("If someone can push those Dahan and those invaders together then I think we can clear that whole area...") , it's just great. I really recommend it for anyone who's looking for a crunchy 2-player co-op. Haven't been able to play much with more people so no idea how it scales.
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
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.
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.
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.
Finally. My FAVORITE coop game got covered by my FAVORITE boardgame channel. One interesting thing - I really surprised about Tom's point of solitere part, because to me SI is just non-stop coop, its compressed essence of it - every game we spend 80% of time just planning and talking non-stop. So yeah. IDK about that. And yeah, I even forget that beasts, events and others are not in a core game, to me B&C and JE is just *cheff kiss* on already solid... uh. Meal? They add so much thematic, so much cool spirits and powers and, most of all, to me event deck is a must have for one thing. Yeah, it could screw the game in super-massive style sometimes, but one main thing to me is that it change all game perception. Without it you, well, you NEED to calculate everything because why wouldn't you? You could GAME the system to 95%. But with them you are never sure that your plan gonna work out. So... Well, you can just go with "uhhh, IDK, this looks okay". So it change game from almost perfectly calculated puzzle to... Well, slightly less calculated puzzle. And I think its fun and this more lighthearted aproach really help SI. So yeah. Again - amazing video, amazing Tom and amazing Matt, you definetly need to sit some more in a buah for taking so long to cover SI there, but I can't wait for part 2!
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 like co-op games where everyone tries to tell each other what to do on their turn" is basically what Tom said. Spirit Island's design of simultaneous turns balancing players building their individual engine with working together is absolutely genius (avoiding quarterbacking in the most clever and fun way possible). (I love your videos im just being snarky lol.)
I think he is blessed to have a good collaberative group. It comes down to the players. We played pandemic season 1 this way, but we were all strong board game players who just debated everything in real time. For us the enjoyment was having the debate for each character each turn. But i think there are very few groups where this works.
@@EricMeerstra well or he is a person who likes to get commanded around? For games like pandemic even with a good group it just feels like i could just play it alone.
Before watching this review video, if you'd asked me "On a scale from 1 to 10 how confident are you in Matt's ability to do an impression of Andre the Giant's impersonation of the Dread Pirate Roberts from the end of the Princess Bride?" I'd have told you "What are you doing in my house? Go away, but if you must know, my answer is four." But now having seen 2:50 into the video, I'm at a solid 9. That's impressive!
Nice. Your original text review of Spirit Island was the first time I demurred from a SUSD review and went ahead and got the game anyway. I was not disappointed. Glad to see it getting a fair crack of the whip here!
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!
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.
I own it, really enjoy it, I think the vagueness/focusing on your own abilities and not what others can do is a positive, it stops one player telling everyone what the correct play is and let's everyone feel important. But you still need to work together to win because often your power requires others to do setup work or vice versa. I think this is a great solo game, I really enjoy it with two people, 3 is alright but pushing it a bit much for new players and 4 players I'd only want to do with everyone knowing how the game plays (no new players).
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.
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.
Totally agree. There's just so much manual computation it's ridiculous. It works so much better as computer game, because computers are good at computation. So many of boardgamegeek's top rated games clearly work better digital, but I'd rather have board games that work best on an actual board.
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.
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.
I really want to get this game, once I get some money. And some friends. I really don't mind the fuzzyness of the co--op. I think it's better than "hey friend, if you don't use this specific power on my signal, I will hate you forever and we will lose". Also, I like how there's scaleable difficulty, so in case I do want to get more coordinated with people, I can just force it by upping the difficulty a notch or 2. I'm excited about the review about the expansions!
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.
@10:00 I've always felt like the whole point of Spirit Island's difficulty of communication other than vague gestures is A) each Spirit is so complicated that for everyone to keep track of every Spirit would just be overwhelming, and B) it segments up a rather complicated whole of the map, so that each player just focuses on what they personally can do, which double at getting rid of any possibility of quarterbacking. "Don't worry about this section, I got it covered. Can anyone take care of this mess over here? I can do it if no one touches the Dahan over here." It's definitely counter to the "everyone masters what is going on" that Tom likes, but it presents a very interesting view, like where each of the players is a lower ranking general or captain in a war, trying best to manage their own overlapping fronts and only getting glimpses at the bigger war. I do wish there were more tokens, though.
Our latest discovery and favorite co-op is SW: Clone Wars, it is surprising like that game holds all players engaged in every single decision and planning, from start to finish. This is refreshing how Pandemic engine was used here, it is not just another Pandemic game, it picks and chooses bits, and discards/reorganises/stream lines other. Also Production is great
Great review! Bout time a major channel gives up huge props to one of the greatest games! It doesn’t have to be everyone’s favorite, but most would like it if they gave it a chance. My one and only gripe(which really is not bad and sometimes is good)is that some games just sort of end. Like might be some epic battles and major powers goin on and then all of the sudden an event takes out the last city and we accidentally win. Now, this is still cool just not like the epic moment like rolling for critical against cthulhu(Death May Day) while having only one character left with only one sanity. But all seriousness, easily my favorite game for the last 3 years. Can’t wait for even more, feather and flames is in the mail, horizons later this year and nature incarnate in one short year. I CANT GET ENOUGH! Wish I had more people to play it with, usually just two
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!
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.
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).
Yeeesss, have been waiting for this review. It is definitely my favourite game. It's so interesting to see how different people like and dislike the same things about a game. Some people dislike the fact that in the base game you can calculate what and how most things are going to pan out. However some of my friends tend to dislike the events, because they've put so much effort into calculating and figuring out the puzzle at hand, all to have it thrown out of the window by an event. Same goes for the solitaire parts of play. I happen to enjoy that you really have to talk in order to explain what it is that you can and cannot do. I just love that even the most competent player is not really capable of quarterbacking at all. And about the teamwork, I thought this as well, until we started playing higher difficulties. It quickly became a necessity to have presence on each other's board. Any way, great video glad to see you recommending it! :)
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.
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.
To be fair, if Ocean is in the game, everyone should always be asking, "what can I drown this round and how?" Tom's feelings on the base game are, I think, perfectly legit, and while I loved base game when it came out, now I can't imagine playing without the Branch and Claw event deck. Also, I know it's hard to do this justice in a review, but the scalability of Spirit Island via adversary levels and scenarios is crazy, and I think almost any group can settle on a difficulty range that keeps them engaged and replaces the final round "well I guess we win" feeling with "wow, I can't believe we won that"
Some say people are still waiting for Matt's video about the expansion
Oh no
Still waiting lmao
At least they can now include Horizons and Nature Incarnate as well!
Still waiting haha
Explains why I couldn't find it anywhere :')
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 :)
"Uhhhhh can someone help me out here?" is a complete storyline for Spirit Island
@@RichardTran Along with "Can anyone deal with X?"
@@RichardTran "Anyone Got Defend? A Spirit Island Novel"
Agreed. One of my favorite parts of the game is that there is so much going on, and you are so in the weeds, that no one can tell anyone else how to play the game or what to do on their turn. The best you can do is beg for or offer help.
Absolutely! Sometimes, especially when I'm more experienced at a game, I can feel like I'm kind of playing the whole game, and that's a really bad feeling. Like when I'm playing Ghost Stories with some friends, the least experienced player often doesn't have a lot of agency. I like the feeling like we're all doing things that help, even if not everyone is as good as each other.
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.
I do think the teamwork only really comes into play with more experience and, probably, more complicated Spirits, however.
@@KindredBrujah really? The first time i played it already felt cooperative. We played it with 4 players 3 never played the game and it was the best cooperative (non campaign) game I ever playd.
Maybe we were judt more experienced players?
@@tigriscallidus4477 My choice of words wasn't quite right... the teamwork only really comes _into its own_ when you're more experienced. When you play with the basic card drafting on the entry Spirits you lose out on a lot of the crazy combos you can set up with some of the Major Powers.
@@KindredBrujah hmm that may be! But the "i go there can you do this" etc. Worked for us from the beginning. And it was a "can you do x?" Instead of in other games a "you do x"
What is the barrier to quarterbacking? I've only played once and it basically involved all 4 of us standing around everybody's hands and deciding everyone's actions as a group, which seems very open to quarterbacking. Perhaps we were missing some rules?
Absolutely my favourite game of all time. So happy to see it being covered here. So. Much. Strategic. Depth.
I actualy got the game because of the video you made on it. Absolutely love it. Thanks a bunch :)
Ay! another reason to love you and you're channel XD
Wait, you like a game about controlling the elements? No way! ;)
Hello i,ve seen YOUR Channel but never saw YOUR video on this specificeret game. Maybe i should che it out after wachting this one!.
Tom that "medium" joke was bloody brill. I was eating cereal and nearly lost my mouthful.
Oh! I get it now.
Grinworthy at best
1:27
@@tigerpjm I just thought of this...If i had a mouthful of cereal and I had an unexpected grin come up...I might of at least dribbled some cereal out..I wonder if such a thing gets re-accounted as a mouthful. :P
Yeah, it's brilliant.
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.
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"
Alternately, grab Feather and Flame as it's just a retail release of both Promo Packs.
ALSO KNOWN AS WET-ASS-PRETTYBIRD
its my favoriite spirit as well, playing 1 card is so much fun haha
I love downpour so much! So well captures unending, miserable rain.
In my last group game I played Downpour and played a total of 1 card for the first 4 turns (growth 2!). It was very silly but I loved it.
Laughed out loud with the booing of England hahaha
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!
The game is great with 2 or 3 players in. It's slowing down significantly with 4 or even 5 players.
I love how the Jagged Earth expansion basically only adds over the top spirits with crazy complex abilities, because the designer knows his audience.
And I wouldn't want an expansion that has some vanilla spirits in it.
Also I can't wait how the Jagged Earth expansion will blow their mind, as the value of that one is completely through the roof.
@Arfoba Agreed! I love that this game doesn't let you quarterback the rest of the table!
In my experience, the game is as slow as its slowest player. When you have more players, the chances of having a slow player increases. But adding more players per se doesn't add length. Spirit Island plays just fine at 6 if at least two of the players are experienced.
I personally saw too much AP, with the cards being able to interact in too many ways. Yes, perhaps if the player goes a bit more on gut it can be mitigated. As is it didn’t work for me. A very good “next step” in pandemic-like land…
Nice summary. Agreed. :)
"why do you...why do you hate Spirit Island Tom?" had me on the floor
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.
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!
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
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.
I would love for you guys to do a list of your favourite coop games, since you want different things from coop games!
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.
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
I feel your pain. 💁🏻
This game can definitely take a while, but at the same time the times I’ve played solo, I’ve been able to get games in very quick… like 30 minutes quick
If you’ve played your spirit many times, often you know what your first 2-5 growths will be as well as you’ll be much quicker deciding which cards to gain. If you’ve played enough that your brain has automated the flow of each phase that takes a lot of time off. If you need to look something up every turn still this will definitely continue to take awhile. -from someone with 160 plays. Record is solo base game 17 minutes with River
Honestly I’ve had plenty of thirty minute games - but only as a result of not trying to optimize everything and having trust in my over arching strategy (typically trying to blow out innate powers). But yea - that said those thirty min games are not the norm. Especially when you start adding scenarios or adversaries.
It comes with experience
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.
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'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
Unless, of course, you are playing with Finders of Paths Unseen... then you suddenly care VERY MUCH about other people's boards.
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!
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.
Totally agree! My group pick a scenario and an invading force at random and some combos are IMPOSSIBLE. Very fun!
@@roxtrox7 It's kind of like Matt said, where if you really get invested in the higher difficulties, the game becomes incredible. There are a lot of friends I play Spirit Islands with, where we just play with events, all spirits + powers, and that's it, and we do it casual. And then there are a select 3 people I play this game with where we're a crack team of dirty minmaxers who challenge the higher threats.
I totally agree with Matt when he said you really can't quarterback other players because of the spirit's complexities. I mean, you can, if you want the game to take 10 hours, but it means you really just have to trust each other to do *something* and at higher difficulties, you need to be able to quickly and concisely explain where your spirit is at, how much time you need for your build to be online, when you need to reclaim, and what types of threats you can deal with. Man, I love this game.
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
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)
"Mom, can we have Wounded Waters Bleeding?"
"We have Wounded Waters Bleeding at home"
Jokes aside, that's a cool idea
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.
I love it, but I’m not great at Spirit Island and I almost exclusively win with fear so our endings are usually absolute relief that we managed to pick up that last fear card before we were obliterated in the next turn. I can’t wait til I’m good enough for one of those anti-climactic endings people talk about lol
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.
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.
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
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.
I get what you're saying about the theme, but maybe things would go differently if the coloniser's city was destroyed, not just by indigenous forces, but by genuine supernatural beings.
However I'm not exactly an expert. Just sharing a thought.
In early prototypes, there were negative Fear cards for just that reason! That just didn't end up working out mechanically, though.
However, the dynamics you mention are the reason for having Event cards which key off of Terror Level - the vast majority of those make the Invaders more aggressive in various ways at the higher Terror Level(s).
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!
". . . 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.
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.
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
Audible "Wow" when I saw the thumbnail.
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!
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.
“Ahh! Those sound *really scary*” 🤣🤣🤣
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
Great video as always, really enjoy seeing more reviews with two of you in it! The varying opinions makes it especially engaging for me!
I love this game. And it is family favourite game too. Easily in top 5. a criticism, or just an observation: though most certainly cooperative... it can play very insulated as each player is trying to figure out their next move/card choice/growth phase, and each move is often defending on their own section of island. Kind of like playing solitaire together. You can’t afford to help the other spirits while youre overrun.. or your presence isn’t in range. With that said this “solitaire” is usually because the game is so challenging, and it shuts-down Alpha gaming hard... a huge plus in my home. As you pointed out, Event cards add much needed randomness. Variable, thematic, adjustable difficulty, different game modes, solo play... this game has it all. The Base Game is full of content. Watch some tutorials on RUclips first. Branch and Claw is a mini expansion and sort-of okay, while Jagged Earth is a massive expansion well worth the money if you like Base game.
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.
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 so glad you're finally doing Spirit Island!
This is also my favourite game. I've played this for so many hours with friends. We joke when we get together "what game are we playing and why is it spirit island." I really like the review I think it really sums up a lot of whats great and some of the short commings however the 2 expansions fix all the issues they really mentioned with the game. There is still a bit of an issue with the anti climax which was touched as being a problem with most coop games but the replay value skyrockets with the expansions. Which if you look up the development history for the game you'll see why the game isn't quite complete without the 2 expansions.
Events keep the game from being solved as mentioned in the video. In a addition the problem with isolation really comes down to the spirits you pick and the expansions triple the number of spirits. Which allows players to really pick what they want to go for. Want to be isolationist? pick vengence or wild fire. want to go heavy into co-operation? play finder of paths or slumbering serpent. A lot of the fun for me also comes from synergies. Even the isolationist spirits synergize with someone which is amazing!
As a side note... you should really check out their most recent game aswell. "For Science!" it is the funnest excuse to build block towers I've found so far ;)
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 love this game. I always play with branch+claw tokens and events.
I like that early on you can't cooperate much because limited presence and range, but you talk about where the problems are and do your best individually. By the time you start invoking your innate powers, you can tell people how they can help you make the most of em, and distributed presence allows people more flexibility to engage.
The complexity in people's hands is simply too high for quarterbacking -- this is a good thing.
The acceleration of the game (invaders become numerous, but spirits become strong!) really brings it to a crescendo, which makes for a very satisfying end. It's also when the options of your deck can lead to bewilderment or AP (refresh your cards, now you have 10 to choose from!)
The value proposition of the original game was BIG, but the branch and claw expansion makes it "whole", in my opinion, and it does answer the "predictability" complaint. Plus, who doesn't like a whooooole lot more spirits to choose from? So many combinations!
"We've got whiskey" *points at irish cream*, "gin" *points at coffee liquor*, "and this tiny bottle of rum" *brings out a disaronno bottle*.
what is going on lol
How dare you to shred those poor minions!
😂
Your channel is awesome. Exactly my kind of my humor.
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!
This is probably my favourite non-campaign co-op. The only way to make it better for me would be to up the narrative side with a pseudo-legacy component which you can kind of do yourself with the scenarios, enemy difficulty levels, rigging the event deck etc. With Branch & Claw and Jagged Earth there is metric f*ck ton of replayability and they way you can combine spirits, scenarios and enemies to tailor the difficulty of the game is unparalleled. The puzzle of how to best use your fast and slow powers to hinder the invaders would be challenging and rewarding by itself, but stacking that on top of how to combine your powers with those of the other spirits ("If someone can push those Dahan and those invaders together then I think we can clear that whole area...") , it's just great.
I really recommend it for anyone who's looking for a crunchy 2-player co-op. Haven't been able to play much with more people so no idea how it scales.
THEY REALLY BLENDED THE FIGURES
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
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.
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.
I think its ravage, build, explore not explore, build, ravage....not sure if it makes much difference!
This was a great review, the comedy and production was really good, props Matt and Tom!
Finally! For Science (from the same designer) is also fantastic!
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.
You sold me at "Welcome to Spirit Island". Now, where's my drink?
from my modest collection of approx 160 games. Spirit Island is my clear favourite, the theme and replay ability is awesome.
The fact that I discovered a game before SUSD reviewed it... *Pats own back*
I discovered Go before Quinn's reviewed it. I played it before it was cool!
I researched Spirit Island just today - and BAM, they give us a review of it.
They actually reviewed it on their website years ago , just not as a video
Finally. My FAVORITE coop game got covered by my FAVORITE boardgame channel. One interesting thing - I really surprised about Tom's point of solitere part, because to me SI is just non-stop coop, its compressed essence of it - every game we spend 80% of time just planning and talking non-stop. So yeah. IDK about that. And yeah, I even forget that beasts, events and others are not in a core game, to me B&C and JE is just *cheff kiss* on already solid... uh. Meal? They add so much thematic, so much cool spirits and powers and, most of all, to me event deck is a must have for one thing. Yeah, it could screw the game in super-massive style sometimes, but one main thing to me is that it change all game perception. Without it you, well, you NEED to calculate everything because why wouldn't you? You could GAME the system to 95%. But with them you are never sure that your plan gonna work out. So... Well, you can just go with "uhhh, IDK, this looks okay". So it change game from almost perfectly calculated puzzle to... Well, slightly less calculated puzzle. And I think its fun and this more lighthearted aproach really help SI.
So yeah. Again - amazing video, amazing Tom and amazing Matt, you definetly need to sit some more in a buah for taking so long to cover SI there, but I can't wait for part 2!
Spirit Island is the game that got me into board games. It's so good to see it getting some love on SU&SD!
Huge props for making me look frame by frame what was actually in the blender. Well played, guys, well played!
did they replace it with paper or something?
@@SuperJacques96 It's actually
...
...
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replaced by rice~
@@SanyaJuutilainen Ohh thank god for that
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
A brilliant video, informative, thoughtful, and balanced - and funny! Many thanks!
"I like co-op games where everyone tries to tell each other what to do on their turn" is basically what Tom said. Spirit Island's design of simultaneous turns balancing players building their individual engine with working together is absolutely genius (avoiding quarterbacking in the most clever and fun way possible).
(I love your videos im just being snarky lol.)
Yeah I also understood it like that and this feels so strange for me.
I think he is blessed to have a good collaberative group. It comes down to the players. We played pandemic season 1 this way, but we were all strong board game players who just debated everything in real time. For us the enjoyment was having the debate for each character each turn. But i think there are very few groups where this works.
@@EricMeerstra well or he is a person who likes to get commanded around? For games like pandemic even with a good group it just feels like i could just play it alone.
Before watching this review video, if you'd asked me "On a scale from 1 to 10 how confident are you in Matt's ability to do an impression of Andre the Giant's impersonation of the Dread Pirate Roberts from the end of the Princess Bride?" I'd have told you "What are you doing in my house? Go away, but if you must know, my answer is four." But now having seen 2:50 into the video, I'm at a solid 9. That's impressive!
Nice. Your original text review of Spirit Island was the first time I demurred from a SUSD review and went ahead and got the game anyway. I was not disappointed. Glad to see it getting a fair crack of the whip here!
I almost got a aneurysm from the whisky, gin and rum bit.
One of the first solo pandemic games that I played for myself locked up alone
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!
Absolutely. I loved base SI, but B&C really feels like it "completes" the design to me. And Jagged Earth is so good as well.
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.
I own it, really enjoy it, I think the vagueness/focusing on your own abilities and not what others can do is a positive, it stops one player telling everyone what the correct play is and let's everyone feel important. But you still need to work together to win because often your power requires others to do setup work or vice versa.
I think this is a great solo game, I really enjoy it with two people, 3 is alright but pushing it a bit much for new players and 4 players I'd only want to do with everyone knowing how the game plays (no new players).
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.
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.
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.
I’m just an analog man baby! But also - I wasted a lot of cash on all the physical stuff. Eeeeek.
Totally agree. There's just so much manual computation it's ridiculous. It works so much better as computer game, because computers are good at computation. So many of boardgamegeek's top rated games clearly work better digital, but I'd rather have board games that work best on an actual board.
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.
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.
I really want to get this game, once I get some money. And some friends.
I really don't mind the fuzzyness of the co--op. I think it's better than "hey friend, if you don't use this specific power on my signal, I will hate you forever and we will lose". Also, I like how there's scaleable difficulty, so in case I do want to get more coordinated with people, I can just force it by upping the difficulty a notch or 2.
I'm excited about the review about the expansions!
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.
You did what with a food processor! Anxiety rising…..
@10:00 I've always felt like the whole point of Spirit Island's difficulty of communication other than vague gestures is A) each Spirit is so complicated that for everyone to keep track of every Spirit would just be overwhelming, and B) it segments up a rather complicated whole of the map, so that each player just focuses on what they personally can do, which double at getting rid of any possibility of quarterbacking. "Don't worry about this section, I got it covered. Can anyone take care of this mess over here? I can do it if no one touches the Dahan over here." It's definitely counter to the "everyone masters what is going on" that Tom likes, but it presents a very interesting view, like where each of the players is a lower ranking general or captain in a war, trying best to manage their own overlapping fronts and only getting glimpses at the bigger war.
I do wish there were more tokens, though.
Our latest discovery and favorite co-op is SW: Clone Wars, it is surprising like that game holds all players engaged in every single decision and planning, from start to finish. This is refreshing how Pandemic engine was used here, it is not just another Pandemic game, it picks and chooses bits, and discards/reorganises/stream lines other. Also Production is great
Can we just have the 'wow what a hot vid' loop at the end of every video? It's incredible
Great review! Bout time a major channel gives up huge props to one of the greatest games! It doesn’t have to be everyone’s favorite, but most would like it if they gave it a chance. My one and only gripe(which really is not bad and sometimes is good)is that some games just sort of end. Like might be some epic battles and major powers goin on and then all of the sudden an event takes out the last city and we accidentally win. Now, this is still cool just not like the epic moment like rolling for critical against cthulhu(Death May Day) while having only one character left with only one sanity. But all seriousness, easily my favorite game for the last 3 years. Can’t wait for even more, feather and flames is in the mail, horizons later this year and nature incarnate in one short year. I CANT GET ENOUGH! Wish I had more people to play it with, usually just two
I had to stop watching the review because I was mesmerized by Tom's face at 1:38
Havent watched you guys for sooo long thanks to life happens... but your opening never disappoint!
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.
Ive just bought this!.. its literally in the post at this moment in time..cant wait to start playing.
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!
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.
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).
Yeeesss, have been waiting for this review. It is definitely my favourite game. It's so interesting to see how different people like and dislike the same things about a game. Some people dislike the fact that in the base game you can calculate what and how most things are going to pan out. However some of my friends tend to dislike the events, because they've put so much effort into calculating and figuring out the puzzle at hand, all to have it thrown out of the window by an event. Same goes for the solitaire parts of play. I happen to enjoy that you really have to talk in order to explain what it is that you can and cannot do. I just love that even the most competent player is not really capable of quarterbacking at all.
And about the teamwork, I thought this as well, until we started playing higher difficulties. It quickly became a necessity to have presence on each other's board.
Any way, great video glad to see you recommending it! :)
What a brilliant and balanced review. New fave channel!!
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.
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.
That Soup for My Family shirt is so awesome! Oh. And the review is great also.
To be fair, if Ocean is in the game, everyone should always be asking, "what can I drown this round and how?"
Tom's feelings on the base game are, I think, perfectly legit, and while I loved base game when it came out, now I can't imagine playing without the Branch and Claw event deck.
Also, I know it's hard to do this justice in a review, but the scalability of Spirit Island via adversary levels and scenarios is crazy, and I think almost any group can settle on a difficulty range that keeps them engaged and replaces the final round "well I guess we win" feeling with "wow, I can't believe we won that"
Damn, you are the best board game reviewers there are.