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Life/farming sim + spirit (monster) catching/fighting game.
A nameless protagonist ventures forth on their broom to complete their alchemy training, but ends up crashing on Moonstone Island, which is conveniently a great place to set up camp. With nothing but a few seeds from their parents and their starting spirit they obtained on their home island, they hone their skills to become a great alchemist … hopefully.
Information
• No character customization. As far as I can tell, the protagonist has no name or gender. However, from how the “end of the day image” looks, they seem rather feminine. So, take that as you will.
• Gameplay involves: flying between islands to explore them, foraging, mining, farming, fishing, dungeon clearing, spirit catching/battling, crafting, cooking, socializing/gifting, and collecting.
• Spirit battles: 3 of the character’s spirits work together to battle 1 to 3 other spirits. Their action cards are all together in a deck and randomly drawn. There are 3 actions per turn, but any of the 3 spirits can use them up. Using items also counts as an action.
• Flying: balloon (very slow), broom (not so slow), and glider (faster). Balloons can travel indefinitely (stamina permitted), while brooms eventually lose their charge and the character can fall … but they magically teleport back to where they started. The glider is definitely best, as it is fastest and can go on indefinitely (stamina permitted), but it takes a while to get the blueprint for it.
• There is a moonstone on every island. Moonstones are the most valuable resource in the game. They also have a chance to respawn every season. (So, why isn’t the game called Moonstone Islands?)
• Islands have mines and sometimes dungeons to clear. One mine per island (with a few exceptions). (However, there is a spirit that allows for two mines per island if they’re following the character.)
• Mines are randomly discovered by breaking big rocks on the surface and a big hole appears.
• Despite the story saying an alchemist’s training is done in a year, the player does not actually have to finish the game within a game year. They can take however long they want. There’s no need to rush. In fact, an achievement requires more than one game year.
• Difficulty settings for: Spirit spawn rate. Spirit battles. Day length. Fishing minigame. (These settings can be changed at any time.)
• Running out of stamina/health results in the player’s character passing out and waking up the next day (usually in their home) later than they usually wake up. This also happens if the character stays active past 2 AM.
• The player’s character can fast travel back to the main island via Warp Whistle, which is given freely by a mysterious statue on the main island. Also, interacting with the statue daily yields random loot of varying quality.
• 11 romanceable characters: 3 enbies, 4 men, & 4 women (this was determined by pronouns). You can date more than one person at a time without penalty, but you can only marry one person.
• The home is a tent in the beginning, but the player can begin expanding and decorating immediately and it all carries over to when an actual house is built. There are several different types of homes (more with DLC).
• There is only one missable achievement. It’s for clearing 3 dungeons in one day. You can’t get that if you clear all the dungeons in the game, because there’s no way to reset them. You’d have to start another playthrough.
• My PS5 (DualSense) controller worked almost perfectly for the game. (See complaints.)
Praises
• I’m always skeptical of Pokémon-like games, because that’s a hard act to follow, but this game is actually fun. The spirit designs could be better, but it isn’t like they’re terrible. I like how the spirits work as a team rather than individually in battle. There are items to get new cards, improve cards, or remove cards to improve the spirits’ decks too, which is definitely needed.
• Portable spirit storage. Eventually, you’ll get a blueprint for a spirit storage, which allows you to switch out spirits on the go. It can’t be placed within the town though, which is silly, but I get it.
• Sidequests for pairing spirits with NPCs. Some request specific spirits, while others will let you choose for them. Once the spirit is given to the NPC, that spirit will follow them around henceforth.
• It was a little anxiety-inducing at first, but it became fun to seek out new islands. You just pick a direction and fly. Sometimes you find really interesting, cool stuff. Filling out the map is satisfying.
• Throughout the game, you can find treasure maps on islands and it’s fun to match them up with islands you’ve already encountered or ones that you’ve yet to discover.
• You can take chests once they’re emptied in mines and dungeons. So, you never have to make one yourself.
• Fish are a great source of stamina replenishment. Usually fish are only good for cooking ingredients or selling for money in other games.
• NPCs actually give decent rewards for sidequests. It’s usually either a valuable blueprint for crafting, a useful item that makes a game mechanic easier, or a decent chunk of money.
• Lots of rooms to be obtained with home upgrades and plenty of décor to choose from (more décor with DLC). The favorite rooms I made were my witchy attic and potions room.
• Great diversity with NPCs, both gender and racial.
Complaints
• Random crashes that seem to have no trigger. Sometimes, I would not be doing anything but looking at a menu or inventory for a moment. Another time, I left the game idling for literally less than a minute, went back, and it had crashed. Another time, I had just won a spirit battle. (Thankfully, you can save anytime, and I did often.)
• A few weird controller issues. Sometimes the game won’t acknowledge that there is a controller even though Steam does. Restarting the game fixes it. Another weird issue is sometimes the game will randomly stop acknowledging button presses and I’ll have to use the mouse to get it to start working again.
• Putting down wallpaper or flooring is a bit of a hassle, because you have to move furniture to place it. That means chests too, and you can’t move a chest if it has stuff in it.
• An achievement for marrying a specific character. I never understand why devs do this. That ruins the fun of the romance element in a sim game of this type. The dev is forcing the player to choose. So, to avoid a second playthrough, one has to give them the moonstone bracelet to fully romance them, then the moonstone ring to marry this character, then reload their save to marry their actual chosen character. It’s just so unnecessary.
• Achievements for playing the game poorly. I always hate this. I guess they’re supposed to be funny, but if I’m actually doing well in a game, I don’t want to purposely do poorly to get achievements.
• NPCs lack character development. The social elements of the game are definitely a weak point in terms of writing and execution. Waldo aka “Magic Man” is the most interesting and that’s because he has to do with the “main objective” of the game. But you don’t even get to know him that well either and I romanced him for the achievement (mentioned previously).
• I am disappointed that you cannot get a cat even though one is featured in the “End of the Day” image.
I definitely recommend the game for those who are fan of both genres.