Spirit Island (2017)

The reviewer highly praises Spirit Island for its exceptional strategic depth and immense replayability, noting that each unique spirit offers a distinct playstyle and every decision significantly impacts the game's outcome, providing a continuously engaging experience for dedicated players.

The reviewer highly praises Spirit Island as a tremendously thematic, integrated, and engaging cooperative board game that quickly became one of their top favorite cooperative titles, highlighting its fresh decolonization theme and high replay value.

It has been a long time since I enjoyed a game as much as I enjoy Spirit Island. I think it's going to end up as one of my all-time favorite games.

From the beautiful art, to the names of the spirits, to the intricate interplay between the spirits, this is a game that oozes character. It is a little fiddly, and lacking a little guidance here and there, but it is very, very close to being a perfect game in my eyes.

The reviewer highly praises "Spirit Island" as a complex, thematic cooperative board game that offers a satisfying puzzle, particularly excelling as a solo experience. He considers it an outstanding game for those who enjoy heavier cooperative challenges.

Spirit Island is one of those landmark board games that comes along every decade to completely change the board gaming landscape. With its fascinating theme and rich gameplay, this is a board game everyone should try once.

If I were ever on 5 Days for Doomsday, the board gaming podcast in which board game personalities are asked to choose five board games they’d bring with them in the apocalypse, Spirit Island would be there without hesitation. If I can get away with lawyering in all the expansions, it would be number one with a bullet.

The reviewer considers Spirit Island one of his all-time favorite games, praising it as an excellent cooperative and solo experience that deeply immersed him in solo gaming, noting its complex puzzle and effective management of the alpha player problem.

I’m properly in love with Spirit Island. It’s so tight, everything works together perfectly.

The reviewer highly praises 'Spirit Island' as a uniquely cooperative game that hits an "absolute perfect sweet spot" due to its diverse spirits, high replayability, and engaging strategic depth, despite some initial challenges with the rulebook and a preference for lower player counts.

But it’s the game’s thematic aspects that push it above many of its contemporaries and seals its reputation as one of the best – if not the best – co-op board games ever made.

Spirit Island is a high strategy game with a ton of variety, player choice, and replay value. It’s the mechanical Adonis of board games and has quite easily taken my number one spot.