Minute of Islands is something like a cross between an adventure game, puzzle-platformer, and walking simulator. What makes it truly interesting, though, is that it combines an unlikable main character and constant narration instead of dialog. Unlikable characters have long been a pet peeve of mine, while narration that prevents characters from speaking in their own voices was one of Biomutant‘s biggest dealbreakers just a month ago. Somehow, these two negative qualities balance out and allow Minute of Islands to tell a story about obsession and stubbornness that’ll resonate strongly with people predisposed to those traits. This game totally had my number. Playing it was difficult at times (mainly due to the clunkiness of its gameplay) but ultimately cathartic, and while it’s hard to say how the story will land with those who don’t relate to it, there are many things to love.

Minute of Islands is about how pride and a sense of purpose can turn ugly and isolating

This is the type of story that can be deeply unsatisfying if you need hyper-specific answers about why everything happens—Minute of Islands begins with the titular islands already ravaged by yellowish spores that induce delusions and ultimately devour their victims, and digging into the “why” of things isn’t a priority. Instead, this is a story about Mo, a young girl who befriended four giants that went underground to save the islands by using machinery and might to power the air purifiers that keep the spores at bay. When Minute of Islands first begins, the air purifiers have stopped working and spores are all over the place, which causes Mo’s mission to become one of reawakening the giants and reactivating the air purifiers.

But there’s very little left to save; most of the islands’ inhabitants have long since fled or died, and Mo’s mission is mostly pointless. Most of the people she encounters are relatives that have remained behind for her benefit despite the dangers the ubiquitous spores pose.

At the end of the day, trying to save the islands becomes a self-destructive act, an attempt to force her special destiny regardless of how much sacrifice is required. This is reflected in Mo’s decision not to wear a mask. Instead, she forces her way through spores and has taught herself how to wake up from the subsequent hallucinations. It’s not a great idea. She’s trying to save something that very likely can’t be saved because walking away from her mission wouldn’t just be failure, but also an abdication of the destiny that’s integral to her identity.

There’s an omnipresent sadness to Minute of Islands; the dilapidated (and in the case of living/dead creatures, grotesque) remains of the islands’ former glory abound, and Mo often has a comment about the ruined areas she visits that helps you to get a better sense of what the world used to be like. Every area is a ghost town, essentially, with emotionally damaged holdouts and Mo’s family being the only living humans remaining. The beauty of the islands is contrasted by the decaying or moribund creatures who have fallen prey to the spores that dance in the air menacingly.

I genuinely loved a lot of the storytelling, and having all of Mo’s dialog filtered through a narrator helps to offset her occasionally frustrating selfishness. However, I can’t help but feel that the story would have been even more effective if other characters had their own voice acting and only Mo’s words were relayed to the player. I also found myself wanting a little more information about the giants and their dynamic with Mo.

The gameplay is kind of slow and repetitive, unfortunately, and it never finds its footing

There are three basics phases to the gameplay. In the first, you wander around the outside of islands and learn about their histories through Mo’s remembrances (though many of these memories are optional) while engaging in some light platforming to reach air purifiers. All air purifiers are activated in the exact same way—just a couple of simple button inputs—so the only real challenge is getting to them. It’s usually pretty obvious where you need to go, so the difficulty comes from trying to figure out what is and isn’t a platform. Minute of Islands has incredibly strange ideas on the matter; platforms you can climb up are marked with a white line, but there’s no such distinction for areas you can drop through. Pressing down and the jump button to drop through a platform in the wrong spot causes you to jump instead, so you accidentally climb instead of descending.

That’s not really a problem per se because of the absence of timers or anything of the like (even if the story suggests that you hurry at one point), but it’s certainly an inconvenience. Movement in Minute of Islands is glacial in general. Even if you have the bright idea to jump off of ladders to speed up a descent, Mo will quickly catch the air with her yellow poncho like a parachute and glide slowly to the ground.

That brings us to the second phase of gameplay: fixing stuff related to the giants. This requires entering underground areas after all air filters have been activated and then solving some block-pushing puzzles that are barely puzzling. In fact, the hardest part of these sequences is getting lost (though that may just be my innate lack of direction) and trying to find the tunnels leading to rooms with collectible memories.

The third phase of gameplay is the real dealbreaker. Every time Mo sails into a wall of spores without a mask, she has to complete a hallucination sequence that asks you to memorize a short pattern and collect floating creatures in that same order. This can be interesting in its own way, and it uses a gimmick where you’re sometimes forced to ignore the top half of the screen to instead climb up platforms that only exist in your reflection, but the gameplay doesn’t evolve from there. Worse, one of these levels has to be completed twice since Mo sails through the same area on her way to and from an area, causing all of these sequences to feel like busywork included solely to make Minute of Islands seem longer than it is.

I love the Switch port for its portability, but there are noticeable performance hiccups

I ended up getting roped into some real-life responsibilities right when I went to start playing through Minute of Islands, which wasn’t ideal. Fortunately, I had requested a Switch version of the game, and this allowed me to make steady progress anyway. For that, I’m immensely grateful to the Switch port. There are undeniable performance issues, however, with the game frequently struggling to hit 30 frames per second. In some areas, it can drop as low as 23, and that’s in addition to momentary freezes. Sacrifices appear to have been made to reach even these frame rates; much of the background art is significantly blurrier than Mo, and the water just looks weird whenever you’re on the boat. I’d still consider this perfectly playable, and it’s a great option if you’re going to be on the go, but I wouldn’t consider it the optimal way of experiencing Minute of Islands.

Minute of Islands‘ visuals are great, but it’s the soundtrack that totally steals the show

The art style here initially reminded me of the art in Spiritfarer, but that comparison doesn’t quite reflect the chaotic busyness of the visuals. Minute of Islands is so detailed that it almost looks like a hidden object game (since the genre tends to include busy visuals as a kind of noise that further obscures items), and while that can make it difficult to tell where platforms are at a couple of points, it’s too pretty to fret about. The art here ranges from muted to rainbow-unicorn-kaleidoscope as befits (or in the case of the necropolis, contrasts) the mood, and all of it looks fantastic.

Even the art is overshadowed by Minute of Islands‘ soundtrack, though. I’ve said it a million times: be atmospheric if you need to, but don’t go thinking that atmosphere is an adequate substitute for melody. The music here is deeply atmospheric and avoids falling into that all-too-common pitfall by using evocative instrumentation to build atmosphere and establish memorable melodies and chord progressions. There are also quite a few moments of silence, which I’m normally not a fan of, but the music is so good that the silence serves as a contrast and doesn’t bother me too much.

Story: 2/3 Gameplay: 1/3 Visuals: 2/2 Music: 2/2 ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ – 7/10
*Click here and scroll to the bottom for a detailed explanation of what these numbers mean

*A Nintendo Switch key was provided for this Minute of Islands review. My Switch won’t tell me how long it took to beat for another couple of days, but 5-6 hours seems to be the common consensus.

Minute of Islands review (Switch) – Likable unlikability first appeared on Killa Penguin