Game Review: Sunseed Island

By Al

Players: 1
Platforms: Nintendo Switch

It's not often that I get the chance to review a cozy farming sim, so it makes sense that I jumped at the chance to play Sunseed Island. Sunseed Island is a game that’s as charming as it is cozy, and it comes to us by way of Red Deer Games. As far as I know it’s a Nintendo Switch exclusive, but that’s pretty much the unofficial home for these types of games anyway, so I don’t think anyone will be surprised by that fact. Seeing as I'm really excited to get into this one, let's just do away with any further intro, and dive right in!

I'd be lying if I said I noted too much about Sunseed Island's story while I was playing the game, but I looked it up afterwards to clarify a few things for the sake of this review. Sunseed Island takes place in a world that used to house several islands that were united by the Great Sunseed Tree. Each of these islands represent a different biome, but they all existed in harmony. One day the tree's power faded, and this caused the islands to break apart and drift away from each other. It's now some time later, and it's time to fix all of that. You play as Purrpy, a cat-like creature who has a sun-shaped sprout growing out of his head, and he's the island's unlikely her. Not only must he rebuild the village on the titular Sunseed Island, but he must also restore the power of the Great Sunseed Tree. And that's pretty much all you need to know about this game's plot. This story is fine enough for what it is, but it's very easy to forget all about it as soon as you start playing, since it pretty much only exists in the opening cutscene. There are some mentions of it in-game here and there, and it of course comes back around at the end, but you'll most likely go through the game not caring in the least about restoring anything beyond your current task. Still, there's a story here for those who appreciate such things, and there is a lot of charm and humor in the interactions you have with the game's NPCs. That's all you really need sometimes.

On the surface, Sunseed Island looks like it's a farming game, but that's not really the case at all. Those looking for farming will have to wait a while before planting a seed, and the entire opening stretch of the game one of the strangest experiences I've ever had gameplay-wise. After the opening cutscene, you're dropped onto Sunseed Island and pretty much left to your own devices with no real clues as to what you're supposed to do first. There are no NPCs to interact with, and you can't even farm. I actually almost gave up at this point simply due to not knowing what the game even was, but then I noticed that the menu button was blinking, and that the game was trying to guide me to the tutorials found within. Why these aren't shown to new players as soon as the game begins is beyond me, but reading them is necessary for understanding what it is you're supposed to do.

Your main goal in Sunseed Island is to gather the materials needed to rebuild the island's structures, so your actual first task will be gathering said resources so that the game truly begins. Each structure on the island requires a specific amount of wood, stone, and money to build, with each of these being gathered through different means. Stone and wood are harvested from rocks and tress respectively, with both growing back after a certain number of in-game days have passed. Money is gained by selling literally any item in your inventory, though you may want to hold onto some of the rarer stuff for later. Every single action you take, be it harvesting or picking up items, takes up some amount of your stamina bar. Running out of stamina isn't a good thing, so you'll want to rest once you're low. Resting starts a new day, and refills your stamina fully. Running out of stamina causes you to pass out, and you'll start the next day with half of your max stamina. There are ways to increase and refill this very important meter, but we'll get to those later. Anyway, that's pretty much the entire start of the game, but thankfully things get much more interesting from there.

You don't know it at first, but you're only able to repair buildings in a very specific order. There are several more islands besides Sunseed, and each of them has their own variety of stone and wood that you'll need for most of the buildings. Late stage buildings allow you to do things like buy seeds for farming, and buy animals for raising, but early on you'll only be able to repair the lumber and stone mills. These allow you to refine wood and stone you find on from other islands, and also eventually give you the ability to upgrade tools. You're also able to repair the bridge and lighthouse at this point too, but the mills are the most important. You'll eventually also get the opportunity to rebuild structures that act as museums do in the Animal Crossing series. This may count as a spoiler, but I urge all new players to keep those bugs and fossils you find, since getting them in the later game can be quite the chore!

Bringing buildings back to the island also means that you'll finally get NPCs to interact with, and these give you additional quests that will unlock other islands that you can strip mine for resources, or unlock additional gameplay mechanics. You may think the rewards for these tasks would be only items, but they're what really keeps the game moving. The most important quests will grant you the ability to upgrade tools, or allow you to visit other islands. You'll need upgraded tools to actually harvest the next level of stone and wood, so this two actions form the main gameplay loop. That's not all there is to the game though, as the quest system will also see you do things like farming, fishing, and animal management. These all pretty much just boil down to more resource gathering, but they are a nice break from the normal grind. You'll also occasionally get requests from the NPCs to bring them specific items that spawn randomly on islands, and may even be given cooking recipes. Cooking pretty much only exists to refill your stamina bar, and you'll have to gather the ingredients from island bushes, from fishing, or via your own crops and animals, if you want to make meals. These NPC-assigned tasks continue all the way to the end of the game, and I personally had a blast completing them.

I'll be the first to admit that Sunseed Island has something of a budget feel to it, almost like a mobile game ported to consoles, but I grew to love it after getting through that rough opening section. There's so many little things always going on that you'll rarely have time to be bored, and you're given a lot of freedom regarding how you fulfill the game's objectives. I don't want to make it sound like it's a bad thing, but the game really doesn't have any sense of urgency to it. I min/maxed my tasks because that's the kind of person I am, but this is a game that takes the "cozy" label seriously. You can take as long as you want to complete tasks, and I don't even think it's possible to fail in any task. That may sound like it would get old after a while, but Sunseed Island manages to piece out its gameplay in a way that allows you to experience a bit of everything in a steady stream of content. You may find yourself getting tired of constantly gathering wood and stone, but then you'll be given a mission to grow specific crops, or catch specific fish, and the change of pace will do you well. You'll get to see everything the game has to offer naturally over the course of the game's missions, and it almost feels like the main gameplay section is one giant tutorial that's leading to the more open-ended post-game.

Even though I have lots of praise for Sunseed Island, I do have to admit that it's far from perfect. First off is the fact that the game's cartoony look feels just a bit too simplistic for my tastes, and once again makes the game look like a mobile release. There is an undeniable charm to the graphics and design, but they're also lacking in detail and are rather limited overall. Similarly the music isn't all that great either, even if it gets the job done. Presentation issues aside, my biggest gripe would have to be how the game handles NPC interactions in general, and the entire material refining process. There really isn't a way to simply talk to NPCs, as all of their in-game dialogue is geared towards giving you quests and giving out rewards for completing them. You actually lose the ability to even talk to most NPCs after you complete their questline, though doing this does grant you some special unique items. As for the refining process, the fact that it takes literal minutes of real time to refine wood and stone is just ridiculous. I literally spent at least an hour of game time simply leaving the refining screen on and walking away since it would take 10-15 minutes to refine the materials I needed. Why the developers didn't make this process automatic is something I'll never understand, but it was the one thing in the game that I couldn't ever get over. At the very least, the game does wrap itself up in a nice package by the end, and it knows enough to not overstay its welcome.

One of the best things about Sunseed Island is that you get a lot of cozy gaming content, as well as a fully open post-game, for a very affordable price. The game has a $10.99 price tag, but the publisher seems more than willing to sell it at steep a steep discount even though it's a new release. Normally that would send alarm bells ringing in my head, but this game is so good that it just makes me want to recommend it more. There's quite a lot of things to do and see here, and I don't see any reason to complain that you can apparently pick it up for under five dollars. This isn't a game that's going to end up in your forever rotation of cozy farming games, but most players will see about ten hours of good gameplay here before calling it a day. That's more than enough for me I say, and I'd even say that it justifies even the standard price.

Sunseed Island is far from perfect, but I still recommend it to all the cozy gaming fans out there. It's not quite as farming-centric as I would've liked it to be, but it drew me in quickly, and kept me interested enough to actually finish the main game. Whether or not you have the same experience may depend on what you're looking for in your farming sims, but I'm willing to bet that those who keep their expectations reasonable will have a great time here. And that's pretty much all I have to say here, see you in the next one!

Check Out Sunseed Island on Nintendo Switch:
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/sunseed-island-switch/

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Story: B-
Gameplay: B
Graphics: B
Music/Sound: B-
Value: B-

Overall: B-

Pros:
+ A fun game that takes the "cozy" label to heart.
+ Though none of the game's systems feel fully realized, there's a little of everything here. Crafting, farming, fishing, and more.
+ The game's world is surprisingly big, and the graphics have a cute charm to them too.
+ While I wouldn't listen to the music outside of the game, I do think that it fits the overall vibe being presented.
+ This is a surprisingly deep game, and you can take it all at your own pace.

+/- There are several screens that seem to reference DLC that simply doesn't exist on the Switch eShop. Weird...

Cons:
- The first few sections of the game are quite random, and you're pretty much given no direction at first.
- There's lots of issues when it comes to overall balance. Crops take too long to grow, refining materials takes several IRL minutes, and resource gathering is all over the place.
- Pacing feels a bit off in general, as you'll go long stretches with no real goals, only to be shouldered with several tasks all at once right after.
- There are times where this feels like a mobile game ported to the Switch, and I'm not sure I mean that in a good way.

A copy of this game was provided to us free-of-charge by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This did not affect our review in any way.

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One day I'll come back to this game to just farm away!

#SunseedIsland