Cute little game, if a little disappointing after the developer's previous effort, Sheepo. Has more combat than Sheepo, which is the disappointing part, and at first I really didn't like Islets, due to the base movement not feeling great, but with a few movement upgrades and some practice under my belt, I was converted and started really enjoying running, double jumping and dodge rolling around, completing tasks and hunting for secret rooms and ability upgrades. I really liked the little upgrade system, where you find items in various tough-to-reach spots that then let you pick one of three randomized upgrades, roguelite-style. You do end up getting all upgrades by the end, if you collect all of the things, but it was nice to (mostly) get to pick the ones I wanted first. Also liked the little attention to details, like how a character's name pops up above their speech bubble after they've introduced themselves. Lots of little care like that going on, plus charming dialogue that doesn't overstay its welcome, with the added bonus of having a mailbox that other characters send cute letters to.

The big cool thing is, of course, the game's namesake and the fact that your task is you rebuild the world and take it from separate levels to one interconnected metroidvania map and that's not something the genre has ever seen, I'm pretty sure. Now, ultimately, it doesn't really amount to much of anything on a mechanical level, since it's just another type of ability gate like needing the double jump or wall climb, as connecting the islands creates new pathways, but it's still pretty neat.

All that said, this is a smaller and less impressive game by design and definition, and while it is quite enjoyable, it doesn't exactly reinvent the wheel and, outside of the aforementioned things, it doesn't really do anything exceptional. There are no especially cool sights to experience, no especially cool rooms to discover. The final power you unlock is something as supremely boring as...a charge attack. The others are the usual, like the obligatory double jump and wall climb, with the final exception being these tracer arrows that create temporary platforms you can walk on and use to scale tall rooms. Those arrows are really cool conceptually, but I didn't find them super fun to use. Maybe because there weren't any especially fun rooms that are built around using them.

In all, this is a good, short time that is ultimately a little forgettable since it doesn't really do anything crazy. At the same time, you could do much worse than Islets if you've either played every other good metroidvania on the market, or if you're a beginner that wants a taste of the genre. It's pretty perfect for those demographics, while it's probably skippable for everyone else and not because it's bad, but because the market is so saturated and this one is more of a cute little diversion than any sort of must.

(Spoiler: bonus points for the game ending first with an adorable scrapbook with images detailing what happened after, as well as a party being thrown for our main character. So cute!)

Islets mostra que não é preciso uma grande narrativa para contar uma boa história.

Num resumo rápido: seguimos Iko, um pequeno aventureiro que tem por missão reconectar as ilhas separadas do seu mundo e trazer harmonia de volta à terra. Meio genérico, né? E é mesmo, mas o que tornou esse jogo tão bom para mim foram seus personagens.

Não espere nada muito especial no combate ou na exploração, tem características muito parecidas com quase todo bom metroidvania que você vai encontrar por aí. É bom, só que não é sensacional. Dá para ver claramente que foi produzido por um exército de um homem só. Mas ele possui uma dupla muito cativante de personagens, GreyBird e Snoot. As esporádicas interações com esse dois, que aumentam de frequência ao longo do tempo, foram fatores determinante para me apaixonar pela simples história. Existe uma bonita poesia no covarde Greybird vencendo seus medos e um humor muito divertido nas interações com o egocêntrico Snoot. Além deles, temos: o engraçadíssimo guia turístico, a florista lelé da cuca e um aventureiro sem lá muito jeito para a coisa.

Apesar da simplicidade, me peguei muito emocionado no final e muito apegado aos personagens. No fim, é uma história com claro final feliz e tá tudo certo, às vezes é só que a gente precisa mesmo. Um exemplo em que tudo dá certo.

What a great Metroidvania.

For starters, Iko moves fast, but there's still room for precise movements. Most bosses and enemies incorporate some bullet-hell style attacks, so the fact that Iko's movement is so reliable is incredibly useful. The fast paced gameplay also helps when returning to old areas to find collectables and story progression. Iko's moveset stays small, gravitating around the sword and bow. That said, a number of unique abilities can be unlocked that helps add diversity to the game. On top of abilities, the player can find bonus items across the map. These offer the player a choice between three useful upgrades that are permanent. This makes each choice extra meaningful, and I can imagine future playthroughs are slightly more distinct thanks to this inclusion.

The game takes place on a number of separated floating islands. The player has a simple ship that can be used to reach these islands, and these parts offer a fun diversion from the normal platforming. The player's goal is to combine the islands together into a super island. Not only does this make using teleporters easier, but it also helps the player avoid getting lost. When combined, new pathways open between the islands, meaning there's always something new to investigate. Each Island has a number of unique biomes, and each one has its own story, characters, and encounters. The platforming challenges are great, but the highlight are the bosses. These can be quite challenging at first, but with enough practice, weaving through attacks is satisfying.

My gripes lie in some of the monotony. Despite the fast walking speed, backtracking can be a chore, especially if you need to travel to another island. This requires traveling to the ship, flying across the sky, landing on an island, and hoping you didn't make the wrong choice. I also never encountered a reliable way to heal. It's disheartening to survive with 1 HP for a long period of time only to die to something silly. I was still able to beat the game, so this is more of a nitpick.

Islets is a neat indie metroidvania that needs more recognition. The main island has been shattered into 5 pieces and it is your quest to be the next hero to rebuild these islands into one. There are some quirky characters along with some mysteries of the land. As far a metroidvanias go, the story and lore is as good as it gets and quite like it.
The level design, although quite large and easy to get lost I found to be well made. Especailly how you can explore some older areas when you bind the worlds in progression.
The difficulty overall is fine, I died a few times in the main world but nothing was too challenging.
The problem I have would be that the world is a little too big and can be confusing on where to go. My main issue is the bosses seem to have too much health causing them to be 'bullet sponges'. The bosses mechanics and difficulty of the bosses is fine, just a few less hits would balance better.
The game took about 9 hours to go though and was a relaxing experience.

Chill metroidvania.

Combat is fine, mostly there to break up exploration. You're very mobile, but the controls aren't super precise. Most enemies are a bit boring, but the bosses are fun to fight with a couple of exceptions. The moveset upgrades you get as you progress don't increase the complexity of combat, the abilities are mainly for traversal.

Level design is very simple as well, but has substantial variety between areas. There's some wasted space and rooms that could get cut down without sacrificing much, but altering those layouts would've probably messed with the game's gimmick of connecting entire levels together into one big map over time. Enemies should've repeated less between areas though.

I can't think of any issues with the other systems. QoL is fine, the upgrade system is inoffensive, the overworld flying sections are brief and pretty good, the game takes a very generous approach to checkpoints in that dying doesn't erase your progress and only relocates you to the last save point.

The presentation is very cute and the music is very good - some of it will probably end up on my sleeping aid playlist beside Ghost Song's OST.

I was completely blind to this, I didn't even know it was a metroidvania. Luckily for me, that's one of my favorite genres.
And among the many metroidvanias I've played, this one is above average. It's fast-paced, and difficulty is just right to have some casual fun. (Maybe a LITTLE too easy for the most part)
It has some great bullet-hell segments too.
The dialogue is simple but relatively charming. The act of bringing the islands back together, combining the maps into one, is very novel - not really something I've seen before. Not that I can recall, anyway. I really like this aspect of the game.

I breezed through this game in around 6 hours, and I don't mean that in a bad way. It was so hard to put down and I couldn't wait to get back to it between every session.

Ever since its release on March 22nd, I've been playing Dragon's Dogma 2 nonstop. But DD2 is a very long game, and I needed a break, lest I sacrificed my enjoyment with it. Then, in one of their weekly giveaways, Epic put this game up for free. It looked like a cute metroidvania, and ever since December 2023 I've been on my 2D platformer phase. Still, I needed an extra push to actually give it a try, and it was then that I made a discovery: It is the previous game from the developer of another indie metroidvania I've been keeping an eye on, Crypt Custodian. That was enough for me to pull the trigger and download it, and I don't regret it for a second.

I'll start by saying that, despite not getting a higher score from me, there really isn't a whole lot of negatives to talk about. Part of the reason it doesn't have a higher score are small issues here and there, too small individually to impact the score, and some people might not even notice/be bothered by them to affect their judgement (Myself included), but since I like having some objectiveness in my reviews, I have to take them into consideration. The other part of the reason is that this game follows "How to make a metroidvania 101" a little too much by the book, which in one hand means that it's a good game within the genre, but also a little too safe gameplay-wise. Of course, not every game needs to be revolutionary, and there are unique mechanics, but a lot of them are underutilized, therefore it ends up a mostly textbook example of a metroidvania.

And yet, it compensates its bumps with everything else it offers. The best word I can use to describe Islets is "lovely", it's such a charming experience full of personality. Every aspect of this game blends together in wonderful and colorful vibes, calming and soothing, from the art style to the music. It's a very relaxing experience, even at its most intense moments.

At first, I had to get used to something I don't usually expect from metroidvanias: Momentum. It's something that you'll normally find in 2D platformers, not metroidvanias. But the more I played it, the more natural it felt, and you'll soon be rushing through the map with fluid movement. Exploration is very fun, it never felt like a chore to revisit areas to check new places I couldn't access due to not having a certain skill, or looking for secrets. If anything, it's hard to not be willing to get 100% completion.

Combat is simple, every now and then you'll use a couple of arrows but it's mostly based on poking enemies with your sword. Speaking of enemies, there's a decent variety of them, and sometimes they can be troublesome. Even better than that are the boss fights. They start simple and get more complex as you advance, and are pretty much all fun battles, I never raged at any of them even if sometimes it took me a few tries to beat them. There are also flying boss battles - which block your path towards new isles - in which you use your flying boat to fend them off. These only happen a couple of times and play like a bullet hell, they're pretty cool but half of them were a bit annoying, and I wish there were more of these sections. Other small complaints are that, firstly, the way you get your upgrades, finding collectibles in the map and then picking one of 3 random options, can often give you 3 mediocre options, leaving you with no choice but to pick one of them (Sometimes all the options are the same!). Secondly, the game is a little inconsistent with its difficulty. I played the entire thing on Hard, and yet sometimes things were a piece of cake, and other times enemies were super tough. Bosses do tend to follow a more linear difficulty progression at least.

If you expect a big story and books worth of lore, don't. And you know what? That's not a problem at all with this game! You'll learn most of what you need right as you start, and then get more worldbuilding and character interactions as you play, and the lighthearted and wholesome tone of it all makes for a very nice and positive experience. The characters are all fun too, and they'll have interesting things to say in every encounter, either collaborating with the worldbuilding or guiding you closer to your objectives.

The last two aspects of this game are what gives Islets the chill and wholesome tone it has: The visuals and the music. This game has a very pretty and well animated style, with vibrant colors and cute looking characters and enemies. Meanwhile, the music in this game is super chill, even the ones for battles, which in one hand isn't particularly memorable exactly because it doesn't stand out much, but in the other it is integral to the full experience in my opinion. Sound effects are good too, I don't know how to describe them better than "they totally fit", however I'm pretty sure it uses some borrowed sounds, such as a Minecraft grass sound for rolling and a Star Wars blaster for an enemy's attack.

Islets is a game that I would be willing to play a whole lot more if it was longer, taking me close to 12 hours to get 100%. It's fun, it's cute and it's a lovely experience. I dare say it's a perfect introductory game to the genre, maybe even to people that have never played games before (On lower difficulties) since it doesn't require many buttons or skill. A surprisingly great game and a hidden gem that I must share, even if it does have some lesser issues.

SCORE: 8.5/10