Isles of Sea and Sky Review (Wolf)
Great game, beautiful game, wonderful experience, but.
That sums up the experience for me. I love puzzlegames, I like metroidvanias, I like exploration, I like finding secrets I need to use a map (drawn or not). This game has all of that in spades.
A lot of the puzzles are really good. I was fully hooked right on the first island, I liked the art style, the "cutscenes", how the game shows its myth. Even the dreaded sliding puzzles, aka the most hated puzzle type in block pushers were well done.
But.
This game is also a metroidvania. It has abilities/changes you can unlock, which come in several forms. Most of these are really good! They are fun to use, and they enrich puzzles. The problem is that in many situations, they are not obvious - it's entirely possible that a puzzle that seems almost possible actually isn't, because you lack an ability.
This, in itself, would even be fine, but the game *also* has things that hint at being puzzles, but aren't. This comes in the form of rooms on the map that are inaccessible (one of which apparently made a puzzle on the volcano REALLY troublesome for many people, but that's fixed now!), this comes in the form of hard to reach elements in late game puzzles that LOOK like they should do something (Tree trunks & the second type of pentagrams & T-altars on snake island, I am looking at you with hatred and two hours of experimentation gone to waste!) , but don't, and it comes in the form of what looks exactly like certain meta puzzles which don't actually do anythting (yet?).
While I loved the experience for the most part, the endgame felt almost frustrating when I realized some things just weren't possible, just lead to nothing. This is a problem for people who want to play games blind (like me) because there just isn't any way to know if a puzzle is outright impossible, is just temporarily imposssible because you lack some secret endgame ability, or IS possible but you haven't figured it out yet.
This left me somewhat frustrated with the experience. Still, the game is really really good - I do recommend it fully. Just...
...understand that if a puzzle seems impossible, it might very well be, and if a room on the map is inaccessible, it very well might just not be in the game yet. Even if there is a very clear exit to that room visible in another room!. You might even spot an island or two you just can't enter. Just manage your expectations there.
I apologize to the dev for the somewhat conflicted review. It's a lovely game, but hiding my frustration with some design aspects just would be dishonest.