After playing 62 hours of the game, and finally beating it. I think it's about time I reviewed it.
Firstly let's get to the point, should YOU play it. Short Answer yes, it's a good game. Long answer keep reading.
Snacko Island is brilliant in the fact that it gives the player a multitude of options in how they want to play. If you're ever board of one aspect of the game you can quickly swap to doing another, the game has a surplus amount of content that's well thought through and well tested. Its comparative to Stardew Valley, Minecraft, and Terraria in plain good game design.
Throughout my playthrough I have run into a total of 0 bugs, the game is surprisingly well optimised compared to others in its genre. I do have a few nitpicks that I do think hurt the game a bit, but I'll get into that later.
The Questing system is really well made, the quest tree is very well designed and as someone who enjoys building systems ontop of other systems. I can safely say they have done a good job albeit a few minor issues here and there.
Customization is also a strong point for the game, the fact you can place any building almost anywhere in any direction you wish is great, and character customization isn't bad either, but is lacking in the fact you can only play as a cat.
The main Quest of the game is also great and straightforward, although I must admit the ending did leave me dissopointed because I felt I put in more effort then the ending I deserved. I won't spoil too much, but all I will say is that I really wish there was more to the ending then just the Goddess peacing in and out again. Another problem, why do you have to wait three days for the Goddess to show herself, why doesn't it just happen the next morning, this is confusing because the player is left baffeled and feels robbed of their achivement for beating the game. But I digress.
Moving onto the artstyle, this is a subjective topic, so I do not wish to get into it all that much. Personally I found the art syle appealing enough to keep me playing, after a while you start to get bored of the same character sprites and 2D in a 3D environment. It can also get quite confusing which direction your character is facing because having a 3rd person camera hovering over a 2D Sprite interacting in a 3D environment can get annoying.
Moving onto the Villagers and the writing. Again Subjective, but the writing was servicable and so were the characters, the only problem is the Villagers do nothing to help the player advance. They are just flavour to spice up the game, they don't construct their own buildings, pay rent, or even assist the player on their quest in any meaningful way. On a systematic level the only characters that matter are the first four shop-keepers, and the Cultural Centre Curator. Since you can purchace items essential for yourself. The rest are useless and are no more than 2D Sprites you can choose to interact with. And they really do feel flat because they don't act any more than generic NPCs, they don't form their own relashionships and friendships. They don't invite any friends or family of theirs to the island, they only serve to waste the players time with useless quests. There is also no marrage system, and you can date as many NPCs as you'd like with no penelty. In Stardew valley Characters will get Jelous if you gift someone else something if you are in a relationship, that game is a decade old, made by a single person and the characters feel more real.
Moving onto the environments and diffrent biomes. They are good enough, at first they each seem like they are going to have a lot to do, but that is only true for the forest and that's because of the mine, every other area leaves much to be wished for.
Moving onto the crafting, this is where the game shines, it's great systems built on well designed systems, that open up as you go forward. Great game design here, and by far the most enjoyment I had with the game was its crafting system.
Moving onto the combat...Awful the worst aspect to the game by far, you can remove this system completly and it would do nothing to change the game, this game was clearly not made for combat in mind so why did the developers add it? Because Minecraft has combat, Stardew has Combat, Terraria has combat. But those games build upon the combat, this game does not and makes the mines a chore to get through. There is a diffrence between depth and complexity, anyone can make something complex, few can make a deep sytem. And depth is discovered when the things that you have, interact with each other. Combat is isolated in this game.
Cooking is also a good system, get materials to cook foods, becomes utterly useless except for quests later in the game once you can just buy food from the resturant. But until that point its quite good.
I have more to say, but this review is getting lengthy so I'll sum up my nitpicks and leave it at that. Firstly why are ther so many loading screens, and why do they take so long, I have an RTX 3060, Skyrim loads many areas faster than this game, I wanted to upgrade my house but after finding out that each room is a loadind screen, I didn't even bother, why does each area need a loading screen, you have nothing to render. Secondly why do NPCs randomly just teleport around the map, you could have just increased their movement speed, and only if they got stuck on geometry for more than 3 seconds then teleport them, because its jaring to try and get immersed and a NPC just TPs out of existance. Sticking with NPCs for a minute, why can't you talk to them while they're working? You're the only one in the shop, and they turn you down and go back to doing nothing, oh but its fine if you gift them, they don't mind.
Why are Alchemists so useless, they sell dye, speed grow, and fertilizr, two of which should be sold by the Grocer not the Alchemist. Upgrading the Kart is also underwhelming, the only useful upgrade is the Drill and you can forget about eveything else.
When you fall of them map, or in a large body of water, you spawn back in your house, why not just spawn me back at the beggining of the area,
Why is there no swimming every map with water is just you standing in it or falling through it.
These are the biggest nitpicks I could come up with at the top of my head.
In conclution these issuse hold the game back from being a great game, but that doesn't mean it isn't still a good game, it has a good foundation and core mechanics that work well. I do think I will continue to play, but just less now that I have finished the main story, please if you have anything you would like to add let me know.
