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Spirit Island was released in 2017, a whopping seven years ago. It has been a slow burn of a game. Initially, it didn’t seem to get masses of buzz, but now is highly regarded and ranked at number 11 in the Board Game Geek rankings. This chart does skew heavily towards heavier games. Even so, in terms of the Dice Tower People’s Top 100, it ranks at number 10. And in Zatu’s very own top 50 games of all time, it ranks at number 20.
It's a well-liked game, however you look at it, especially for such a heavy game.
Please be aware that in the photos you will see that I have upgraded some components and bought an insert. These are not included in the base game.
How Does It Play
Spirit Island is an asymmetric cooperative game where it is incredibly hard to have an alpha gamer—someone who dictates what everyone has to do—spoil it for you. The game is so heavy that you’ve got enough to do, working out what you’re going to do, never mind sorting everyone else out too.
You play as spirits protecting an island from the invaders trying to colonise it. It’s a nice twist on a theme. You play cards to destroy or move invaders around to stop the island from being overrun. Throughout the game, you’ll get better cards, increase the number of cards you can play, and gain more access to your innate powers that only you can use. Each spirit plays very differently and varies in complexity.
What’s Wrong With The Game
If you’re new to Spirit Island, your first play may be distinctly underwhelming. My first play certainly was. I rated it as a 6/10.
Let’s look at some of the negatives about Spirit Island and get them out of the way.
In the hands of the inexperienced, the basic spirits can fall into a pattern of constantly reclaiming your cards and spamming the same card. This is exactly what I did on my first play and we won the game.
The other problem is that this is very rarely a game with a tense ending. It is more of a tipping point game. You will be completely overrun by invaders, thinking we’re definitely going to lose. Then one turn later, you’ve cleared a fair few invaders and powered up enough that things start to swing your way. And then it peters out to your victory. The tension comes in the middle of the game rather than the end.
So What’s Good About It
Despite these problems, something in the game made me want to play it again. And again…
As you up the difficulty with the introduction of adversaries and scenarios, the game reveals itself. You can still use the basic spirits but spamming just one card won’t cut it any more. Also, the tension is shifted closer to the end of the game as it is so much harder. Admittedly, you very rarely get an ending where it depends on the turn of a card, like Pandemic for instance, but it is more exciting.
The best part of Spirit Island for me is that feeling that you’ve lost and there’s no way you’re ever going to win. You look at the board and it’s filled with explorers and tonnes of towns and cities that do the real damage. There’s no way you’ll ever get on top of them. Yet, through some crafty puzzling and use of cards, you clear enough of the invaders so they don’t do too much damage when they attack. You’ve survived another turn. And now you’re a bit more powerful because you’re getting more energy and your powers are better. Maybe you do have a chance…
The game can be ridiculously hard and punishing at the highest difficulty levels, but with the right combination of spirits—and a fair bit of luck—the game is beatable even at difficulty level 10. There are enough ways to modify the difficulty that you will be able to find your sweet spot. But bear in mind, if you think games like Azul, Ticket to Ride, and King of Tokyo are tricky to learn and play, then this is not for you.
What About Expansions
If you find that you like Spirit Island there is a tone of replayability just in the base box. After over 80 plays, we still haven’t seen everything the base box has to offer. Even so, you are well catered for with expansions that add some new mechanisms and plenty of new spirits. I would recommend Branch and Claw as the first expansion to buy as it brings in some new tokens that are placed on the board that grant you positive effects, but to balance this, there is an event deck that adds some randomness and fun to the proceedings. It all gets added to the base game pretty seamlessly.
Conclusion
Spirit Island is in my top 5 games of all time. I love cooperative games. I love cooperative games that can be made really hard—we only ever play Ghost Stories in Hell mode after all. And I love puzzly games. It’s no wonder that I love Spirit Island. There’s something deeply satisfying about getting over the tipping point and then having an amazing turn where you wipe out masses of invaders by bringing a tsunami down on their little invading heads.
If you like heavy cooperative games then give this a go, but be prepared to play it a few times before you make a final judgement.
