Isles of Sea and Sky

Before playing this game and checking out the end-game content after collecting all the stars, I've seen the gameplay 2-3 years ago from a YouTuber, that also promised to make more videos of the new updates after the stars. Those videos never came out and I genuinely understand now. This review will be in two parts: the first part - from the start to the late game exciting and amazing puzzles, whiles the second part - the frustrating and confusing end-game content. It'll have minor spoilers but major on the second part and conclusion. [b] [1/2] [/b] The game is a rather simple sokoban puzzle-adventure that becomes more and more interesting the more you explore the world, unlock new tools and "companions". Of course, these type of implementations of tools & "companions" make the sokoban puzzles from simple and boring to really intriguing and unique. Moreover, the art design, music and the world are fantastic, that they amplify the puzzles and exploration between the islands. These islands have their own aesthetic and unique puzzle mechanics that are reintroduced to previous islands, making them never forgotten or abandoned. This and the exciting discoveries you can find throughout the game are it's strongest aspect with it's wonderful puzzle design. However, some puzzles aren't that immaculate and usually are really confusing or boring, but positives from before usually outweigh the negatives and still make it an amazing experience of a game. 9/10. [b] [2/2] [/b] From this point onward, I have nothing positive to say about this game. The end-game content - [spoiler] pyramidions [/spoiler] - I was not a big fan of. Going from understandable and difficult puzzle design to confusing glyphs and cipher puzzles was uncalled for. Personally, I've never delved into ciphers or complex puzzles like these, so I might sound really stupid but this shift from puzzle design really upset me that I had to look up most of the 30 [spoiler] pyramidions [/spoiler] to get the 100% completion. But that's not all, because this game likely will be updated with new achievements and puzzles of [spoiler] meteorites [/spoiler]. These I didn't do because there was no purpose only to have one additional cutscene in the ending but looking over them they were like the [spoiler] pyramidions [/spoiler] but raised to a power of 5. Thank god I didn't delve into them because they seemed literally impossible. 5/10. [b] [Conclusion] [/b] Honestly, this sucked. The game went from a nearly flawless sokoban experience to a frustrating and annoying experience of ciphers for the 100% completion. I REALLY hope that the [spoiler] meteorite [/spoiler] puzzles will change, because continuing forward, if there will be more achievements containing post-[spoiler] pyramidion [/spoiler] puzzles, then I'll likely not do them and quit. Sadly, this game is a 7/10.