Some say people are still waiting for Matt's video about the expansion

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 :)

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.

Absolutely my favourite game of all time. So happy to see it being covered here. So. Much. Strategic. Depth.

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!

Tom that "medium" joke was bloody brill. I was eating cereal and nearly lost my mouthful.

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"

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.

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

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

"why do you...why do you hate Spirit Island Tom?" had me on the floor

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 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.

Laughed out loud with the booing of England hahaha

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'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

I would love for you guys to do a list of your favourite coop games, since you want different things from coop games!

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.

Audible "Wow" when I saw the thumbnail.

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.

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.

THEY REALLY BLENDED THE FIGURES

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.

I think its ravage, build, explore not explore, build, ravage....not sure if it makes much difference!

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!

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.

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.

". . . 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.

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.

Great video as always, really enjoy seeing more reviews with two of you in it! The varying opinions makes it especially engaging for me!

One of the first solo pandemic games that I played for myself locked up alone

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)

You did what with a food processor! Anxiety rising…..

Huge props for making me look frame by frame what was actually in the blender. Well played, guys, well played!

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.

This was a great review, the comedy and production was really good, props Matt and Tom!

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!

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!

I have watched dozens of objectively hilarious SUSD skits utterly stonefaced, only to break out in furious giggles at "no medium" (long explanatory card)

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!

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.

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.

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

British people pretending the American flag was the one raised to take over America is the best joke in the video. Also the medium joke, that's good too.

Finally! For Science (from the same designer) is also fantastic!

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 want to host a party for SUSD fans where everyone must come as a character from the reviews. Just need to find enough other nerds....

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.

Never thought you would get a round to this one

Spirit Island is the game that got me into board games. It's so good to see it getting some love on SU&SD!

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!

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!

Interesting timing: GTG just today announced Horizons Of Spirit Island, a Target-exclusive SI game with simplified setup and easier spirits to play as (but without overlapping with the existing stuff, so you can treat it as an expansion for the original if you like.)

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.

Well, Fire Matt in the outro will haunt my dreams forever. Thank you?

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 played two games and bought every expansion. If this game is your jam it will really be your jam

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.

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.

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

People will say this, but Spirit Island is not a complete experience without Branch and Claw.

can't believe quinns hated this game

How dare you to shred those poor minions! 😂 Your channel is awesome. Exactly my kind of my humor.

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

Got to play this one time at a con and it was a blast. I was the River spirit and I spent the whole game flushing bad guys out to sea where the Ocean spirit would drown them. We were Best Murder Buds the whole game :)

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 like playing the nightmare monster cause when you scare the colonists away I like to shake my arms and scream "Nightmare! Nightmare! Nightmare!" *tepid applause*

I love this game and in terms of the theme, I love how it feels very much like a rebuke to Settlers of Catan - the lands have the same colours but are jagged and irregular instead of neat little hexagons, the VP value of towns and cities become their hp value here.

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.

Donating to get Matt a second dining table chair.

This is why I love shut up and sit down. This is a game I would never have looked at, it would have been well and truly off my radar but I have to say I'm quite tempted! Thanks both, and does this mean I deserve to walk into a Bush too?

“Ahh! Those sound *really scary*” 🤣🤣🤣

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

Havent watched you guys for sooo long thanks to life happens... but your opening never disappoint!

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.

from my modest collection of approx 160 games. Spirit Island is my clear favourite, the theme and replay ability is awesome.

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 ;)

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.

My group loves this one, and I, like Tom, am lukewarm about it. It's fine, there's nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't WOW me. I always feel like we've played something wrong, or that the choices feel a bit pre determined, like we had to do certain things to address the threats, not that we really chose how to address the threats. Subtle but yeah, just ok. Good game, love the theme, but I think there are other co-op games I enjoy more. (Ghost Stories)

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.

Tom's Medium joke and the pose had me in tears

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.

"Like an oiled-up Ned Flanders" - that's one for the box

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

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.

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! :)

"like an oiled up Ned Flanders"... just wow

Can we just have the 'wow what a hot vid' loop at the end of every video? It's incredible

i love tom, best board game reviewer and board game comedian fr

The moment the blender starts turning I was like: Woah!

I almost got a aneurysm from the whisky, gin and rum bit.

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 am glad they rereviewed it. Tom, the expansions give some randomness and I have never looked back since I added events to the game. This is my Favorite game.

Another exemplary review. Love your work. I'll add myself to the large number of people commenting that this is their favourite game. The 1 player game works phenomenally well and reminds me a bit of Into The Breach.

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.

If i had to live the rest of my life with only two games, this would be one of them

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

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).

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.

I love the elements system and the restrictions it puts on your choices, and the way the elements and builds have a ludothematic connection to them. Yes it puts a tension between personal power and cooperation, but I think the best cooperative games have that tension. Part of the challenge is balancing that and communicating with your teammates well about how to manage it.