Recent reviews by Chasca

TL;DR - the game is beautiful, but hollow. It feels like an overwhelming grind without any purpose. I kept hoping it'd get better, and that as I grinded through more fetch quests I'd get to know more about the world and characters... but after 14 hours I was basically at the same place as I started. In short, at the moment this game is straight up boring.

This game has promise, but as it stands it's incredibly frustrating to play, maybe because other games have done what this game is trying to do SO much better. I think one of my big problems with Starsand Island is a lack of overarching story, and generally poor writing. I've read somewhere that there isn't a goal from the devs to add an overarching story, as they wanted to just let players do whatever they want...well, the problem with that is without a story or intriguing characters, the world feels so lonely and without meaning. The general game loop is incredibly grindy, and there aren't many meaningful quests - particularly quests that let you get to know the town you're living in and the villagers that inhabit it.

Overall, doing all of the random tasks and fetch quests felt pointless. The only quests are taking on 'jobs' like crafting or farming, but there was no real reward for doing them other than unlocking the next quest stage. The characters and romance options don't really have any ...character (for lack of a better word). And for a lot of them, there's no real reason to interact with them at all. For example, at the very start you are introduced to the island by your childhood best friend, who tells you that you can take on these jobs...and then that's it - there's no reason to talk to her any further, even though she's staged as this really important person to you as the player? It says in the trailer that 'every villager has a story to tell,' but after 14 hours of playing and multiple different job quests completed, gifts given to villagers and bond points ranked up, I didn't get a single clue into what those stories are xD

Additionally, the general crafting and job loop is such a headache - the game says you can 'focus on one job' but you really need every single one to be able to get the right items or ingredients without immediately going broke. Plus the amount of stuff you need to craft to process the items to get other items...just ugh. Not fun.

One other thing...the music and general sound design for this game just feels grating - maybe other cozy games have just set the bar super high, but I found myself having to mute this game and putting on music from stardew or animal crossing to try and improve my experience.

I understand that the game is still early access, but it does feel like a lot of the focus was put in all the wrong places. Sure you can craft and customize your home and pets etc etc out the wazoo, but there's no real reason to. To me, there was nothing particularly charming or interesting about Starsand island. I really hope that the devs reconsider and add more stories and character development to the game.