Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I have three games of this under my belt now, and a fair amount of exploring and thinking. This game has been a hit with everyone I have shared it with, but it's not for everyone. That said, I am a pretty discerning boardgame player - I tend to be ambivalent to the great majority of them - and Spirit Island is far and away my favorite. You will probably deeply enjoy Spirit Island if: * You like boardgames of high-moderate complexity (somewhere in the ballpark of Terra Mystica or War of the Ring) - there is a lot going on in Spirit Island, and part of what makes it good is this depth. * You dislike high levels of randomness in your game. Spirit Island keeps the randomness to pretty much the minimum for still allowing surprise - the base game only has randomness in which terrain the invaders act in next, which powers you get to choose from when you gain a new power (Draw 4, pick 1) and the effects of Fear cards. The expansion actually adds some additional randomness in the form of event cards to make it harder for expert players to plan too far ahead. * You like cooperative games, but don't like it when one player tells everyone else what to do. Spirit Island avoids this problem by making decision making sufficiently complex that it's difficult for any one player to track the entire suite of options for the other players, and by making players act simultaneously, so that everyone is always engaged with their own options instead of all staring at the one player whose turn it is. Cooperation tends to be more along the lines of "I can handle these guys over here, can anyone do anything about the city over there?" and "Can anyone move these guys out of here?" than "Okay Dave, you need to move here, and do this thing." * You don't like waiting for other people to take their turns. Since play is more or less simultaneous, waiting is kept to a minimum - even if you have one player who wants to ponder their options much longer than everyone else, this will usually influence your own choices and lead to collaborative discussion. * You like a lot of variety and replayability. Out of the box, the game contains eight different spirits, all of which play radically different from each other - not a simple "You get +1 X when doing Y, and +2 Q on terrain R" sort of differentiation. It also contains three Adversaries that modify how the invaders behave in different ways, and several other ways to customize the game experience once you are familiar with it, both in terms of difficulty and just in terms of changing up how things work. There's even an alternative map on the back of the main map boards. You will probably not like this game if: * You prefer lighter games. If Settlers of Catan is your sweet spot for complexity, Spirit Island may make you feel overwhelmed. * You don't like trying to suss out complicated situations or plan ahead; There's a lot going on on the board, with lots of pieces and a three step invader turn modifying that state heavily even outside of any player actions. * You want 100% group consensus on all actions in a cooperative game - trying to play Spirit Island this way will take a very long time and probably feel like "work" * You don't like co-op games at all, ever. Other notes: * This game is beautiful, all the art is really nice and evocative. It also has a pretty strong theme, especially for a "Euro-style" game. * The components are all really nice and solid. The cards are sturdy, the boards are satisfyingly heavy, and the pieces are nicely made. The "explorer" pieces, in spite of being thin, do not feel fragile. * The box inserts are super well done and actually hold all the things. (Though they won't hold the expansion, should you choose to get it.) Disclaimer: I received this by backing the Kickstarter, hence the lack of "Verifier Purchaser"