These Invaders Messed with the Wrong Island – Spirit Island Review

Reviewed by: Fwooshe

Weapons clashed and war drums pounded while screams of rage and death pierced the battlefield. The Dahan defended their island with everything they had. In a flurry of blades and fists, one native warrior met her attacker’s eyes. Underneath the bloodthirst she noted a telltale flicker of fear- the kind known only by those who had been visited by the Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares. 

Suddenly, and with a deafening roar, the great River Spirit surged through the land, flooding an entire settlement as it went. Buildings crumbled and invaders scattered in terror. Not many of them made it to high ground. The Dahan breathed a momentary sigh of relief.

And then-

The crackle of lightning charged the air. High above the battlefield, Lightning’s Swift Strike swooped down towards the sea to meet a fresh fleet of enemy ships approaching the coast!

I received Spirit Island for Christmas 2019 and it instantly became my favourite co-operative board game. In fact, it may be my favourite game in my entire collection.

Let’s Play Spirit Island

Spirit Island is an exciting, highly thematic, strategic co-operative game for one to four players. Every player takes on the role of a spirit, each with a unique playstyle and set of powers. Co-ordinate your abilities with your fellow guardian spirits and ally with the native islanders, the Dahan, to defend your home from the invaders. Destroy their cities and towns, disrupt their efforts to colonize, and send them fleeing in terror… before they take over the island and annihilate you!

Spirit Island Gameplay

The spirit you play will guide your approach to the game. Each of the eight spirits has a complexity rating and a unique combination of strengths and weaknesses among five stats: offense, defense, control, fear, and utility. Some have a narrow specialization while others are more well-rounded.

Spirit Island is played in rounds, each of which consists of a series of phases.

Spirit Phase

All players take their turns simultaneously

• Choose a “Growth” option from your spirit board and perform the corresponding actions. Growth typically involves some combination of gaining energy, increasing your presence on the island, learning new powers, and refreshing spent powers.
• Gain energy and elements to fuel your powers during the next phase.
• Choose which power cards you will play during the rest of the round, noting their energy costs, the number of cards you are permitted to play, and the elements that those powers grant you.

Powers allow you to: damage and destroy invader units, defend the land and the Dahan from harm, cure the island of blight, move units around, and strike fear into the hearts of the enemy. Fear is a major mechanic in Spirit Island. Accumulating fear grants you fear cards which offer beneficial effects. Fear builds over time and modifies the winning conditions as the game progresses.

Fast Power Phase

This is where things get exciting! Everyone activates their fast powers chosen in the previous phase. Fast powers are marked with a red bird icon; slow powers have a blue turtle icon and are played after the Invader Phase.

Co-ordinate with your fellow spirits to optimize the chaos you’ll unleash upon the enemy. For example, one spirit may gather invaders into a single area so that another can smite it with a burst of damage. Enjoy the power trip while it lasts, because the next phase is absolutely brutal!

Invader Phase

The invaders start coming and they don’t stop coming!

During this phase invaders ravage, build, and explore in specific areas of the board, as indicated by the invader cards and their corresponding slots. For example, if there is a jungle card in the “ravage” slot, then invaders will inflict damage to the land and the Dahan in every jungle area on the island board that they occupy. Cities cause three points damage each, towns cause two damage, and explorers one. If the invaders cause two or more damage to a single area in one turn, that area becomes blighted. Blight destroys spirit presence and is generally bad news. After the invaders ravage, any surviving Dahan fight back, causing two points of damage each to the enemy.

Once the ravaging has subsided, the invaders build new towns and/or cities, and bring fresh explorers to the island. They are incredibly obnoxious.

Slow Power Phase

This phase works exactly like the Fast Power Phase, but with slow powers.

Time Passes

• Discard used power cards.
• Partially damaged units recover.
• Advance the invader deck by sliding the cards over one space so that the invaders will ravage, build, and explore in different terrains next round.

The game continues until either the Spirits attain victory or suffer defeat.

You win if:

• Sufficient invaders have been destroyed, as determined by the current Terror Level.
• Invaders have become completely incapacitated by fear (i.e. you have drawn through the entire Fear deck).

You lose if:

• Any one spirit has lost all of their presence on the board.
• The island has become overrun with blight.
• The enemy has completely invaded the island (i.e. you’ve drawn through the entire invader deck).

Our Thoughts on Spirit Island

I think that Spirit Island is a masterpiece. It was the theme and vibrant art that initially drew me to the game. Add to that its enormous variability and immersive gameplay, and I have been captivated by Spirit Island since the first time I played it over three years ago.

One element (pun intended) of this game that makes it so engaging is the spectacular interplay of its mechanics and themes. To start, the way in which the spirits play just makes sense. For example, “Lightning’s Swift Strike”, the lightning bird, plays fast and furiously, causing large bursts of damage in its targeted areas.  And “Ocean’s Hungry Grasp”, the complex ocean themed spirit, is largely confined to the coastal lands. It takes time to build up its resources before unleashing its wrath upon invaders along the coast. Its power ebbs and flows like the tides.

Spirit Island offers incredible variety and replay value

• The spirits all play very differently from one another and vary widely in their complexity. Everybody can select a spirit that speaks to their playstyle or branch out and try something new! Different combinations of spirits will lend themselves to unique co-operative strategies.
• There are optional scenarios and adversary panels which give invaders more dimension, alter victory and loss conditions, increase the level of difficulty, and tweak a multitude of other game mechanics.
• There are two sides to the island boards. The main side is colourful with the different terrain areas balanced and evenly spaced. The alternative side has a more realistic layout with like terrains more clustered together.  

Considering the sheer number of moving parts in this game, I am impressed with how smoothly everything flows. There is a lot going on and yet none of it feels clunky or awkward. Even the optional scenarios and adversaries are incorporated seamlessly.

Speaking of moving parts, as the game progresses the decision-making process during the Spirit Phase becomes increasingly involved. Full disclosure: the analysis paralysis in this game can get overwhelming. You’ll have to visualize and compare several multi-step options and try to puzzle out the best course of action. Plus, you’ll want to co-ordinate with your teammates. Otherwise you may spend a full five minutes working out a tedious combination of cards and innate powers to obliterate a specific area of the board, only to discover during the next phase that Mr. River Spirit across the table planned to scatter those invaders out of your range. It is incredibly satisfying to work out an intricate power play, but the process to get there can be a cumbersome one.

There is a silver lining to this analysis paralysis; it mitigates a common nuisance among co-operative games. Since everyone is so engrossed in their own options, nobody has the mental bandwidth to tell other people how to play their turn! Truth be told, oftentimes my brain runs out of working memory before I’ve selected all my allotted power cards for the turn. So I’ll throw down my last card or two without a plan and just use them when the opportunity arises. Is this optimal? I’ll never know! Everybody is too bogged down by their own decisions to evaluate mine. It’s glorious!

Spirit Island is a spectacular co-operative game that takes a classic board game premise and flips it around. Instead of playing explorers and cultivators in a new land, you get to be the powerful guardians defending your home from such invaders. In Spirit Island, you’re not chasing glory- you’re desperately trying to preserve what is sacred to you. I think that we can all relate to the sentiment in some capacity. Imagine ruthless forces are threatening to rip away from you what you value most. But you have the power, literal enormous spiritual and elemental power, to protect it.

That is Spirit Island.

Spirit Island is a great option for:

• Experienced board gamers
• Fans of high fantasy themes
• People who enjoy co-op games and dislike having their turn commandeered
• When you want an involved, strategic, and mentally stimulating board game experience 

Potential Caveats:

• Analysis paralysis can slow down the game
• Mentally demanding
• Long gameplay, often over two hours
• Pricey