Price: 2 bucks
Time: 5 days

As always it was the colours and casual look that attracted me to this switch game. Although I've nevers seen Adventure Time the artstyle reminded me of it. When the game opened with an adult themes warning and ominous sounds and visuals, i was truly wondering what way this story was gonna go.

As i expected, gorgeous visuals. Early issue: i hate realistic jump height. This girl literally jumps maybe 30cm off the ground, that's below realistic height. What i do like is that the collectibles actually add something to the story.

This game has some incredible skies, something I've always adored. The core of this game is movement which doesn't feel too great on the switch. A lot of backtracking and puzzles feel slow, as they're also movement based.

Although the cartoonish artstyle and the adult themes, both in writing and in visuals, are a great match, i cannot finish this game in one go as I usually would. It's simply too much of the same after 2 giants, i have to play something else inbetween. The game however doesn't easily allow this. Because of the backtracking you can easily get truly lost in a cave if you haven't played in a while.

The gameplay is really quite repetitive, the intrique of the story and the gorgeous art keeps me going. I must admit though, the Crypt is so damn beautiful i can't imagine it getting any prettier, and i still have 2/4 giants to go, which feels like a chore.

It actually went by quite quickly, which is good. The ending leaves you with a lot of questions though that i wish would've been answered. Overall a decent game if you enjoy colourful artwork.

living like WWE, get the belt put it on me
u gotta be kidding yourself if u think i’m giving up easy

i’m not sure what i had expected from minute of islands. i guess that may have been why it stayed on my wishlist for so long until a friend of mine graciously gifted it to me for christmas
the art is what pulled me in, like how could it not?
a beautiful arrangement of colour and giants. and you. and the weight of the world.
the almost 6 hours i spent playing, no matter how slow i was moving or the times the game stops you to say “hey, take a look” i felt like i was almost done. i felt like i was GOING and i was going to achieve my goal any second now, any minute

everyone saying the puzzles aren't great are right. but they're largely inoffensive and won't get in your way too much. i'm clumsy at all platforming and i did ok. if you don't like the art and if you don't like exploring you won't like this game. while they don't force you to go out of your way ever, they will ask you to walk back to the beginning of an area in order to leave to the next zone. it didn't bother me but i know it would bother some people. similar to a small-scale Hob you make a few shortcuts and you'll get out just fine

yeah I used to have friends. yeah i used to roll deep
til I ruined my health, ain’t been getting no sleep
i got sick of myself, i got sick of these dreams
getting bigger my eyes start hallucinating

you play as a young apprentice named mo who is stubborn and bratty and refuses to let anyone get in her way. she will do the right thing, the right way, on her own. always on her own
the land you all called home is decaying, the air is thick and noxious and you're getting sick. you'll run into family of yours who stayed behind (for you) while the rest of civilization fled. there is no time to sit with your uncle for a glass of homemade wine, no time to join your sister for a pot of stew.
mo will work with the giants, mo will help them power their machines and mo will cleanse the air again. there is no other way. if you stop you fail
if you stop it's all your fault
and then your grandmother asks for a favour and you get the chance to reflect

CURSING OUT FUCK THE WORLD IN EVERY LANGUAGE NOW WHO FEELIN JADED? I AM. I CHANGED INTO SOMEONE I CANT FIX

the final act of this game is definitely where it all starts to come together for me and mean something. i didn't like mo, but i think that's the point. i didn't like how slow the game wanted me to move and the way it would stop me as i finished single pieces of puzzles that i already thought had taken me too long. but again, i think that's the point. it's all against you, it's all against mo and there can only be so much time. you can't save the world, it's not going to wait
there are things bigger than you and you can run from your fear for only so long. SO long that there are people close to you ready to mourn you at any moment because you're always fucking running
but it's bigger than you, it's huge, it's tremendous, it's giant

play it or don't. but i can say that after wanting to play it for 4 years or something, i'm glad i did even if i probably won't be playing it again

yeah i did it all me

Minute of Islands has a lot of weird issues. The platforming is totally unnecessary and awkward; the narrator talks way too much especially at the beginning; the game constantly breaks its own flow with slow panning shots, cutscenes where nothing happens and so, so many loading screens; and there are even out-of-place and half-baked stealth puzzles.

All that being said though, I can't dislike this game at all. The art is too good, the world is too interesting and the story being told is too deep and relatable. Minute of Islands would most likely have been better as a simple point-and-click adventure game, but what it is is still fantastic and I loved it.

i want to rate this higher because it has such a cool setting and lore, and is stunning with bright, vibrant cartoon art depicting such bleak and eerie landscapes. it makes for an amazing setup, but the execution is sadly just awkward.

this is a 3-hour game stretched out to double that time because everything is slow. running is slow. crawling in and out of tunnels is slow. watching your boat dock and undock is slow. every single unnecessary camera pan is slow. finding the exact right spot you have to jump to get to the next edge and then watching mo slowly float back down because you missed is slow. i played when i was tired and sometimes i'd keep the joystick pressed left for a minute while i rested my eyes because i knew nothing would happen in those sixty seconds. you get the idea. oh, and that long climb you took to reach this peak? if you were wondering if you have to take the long way back down—yes, of course you do.

i normally have a lot of patience but this bothered even me. you know how hayao miyazaki said that stories need ma, like downtime in between story beats, time to breathe and observe the scenery? this game is like 80% ma forced upon you, broken up by 20% actual content.

i think if this had been a point-and-click game, i'd've forgiven it, because calling it a puzzle platformer is... generous. there aren't many puzzles and the platforming is mediocre. its meat lies in its story, not in the many platforms that exist just to make you press jump a few more times. if it had been advertised as a narrative adventure or maybe reworked as a walking sim, it'd have excelled, because the gameplay mostly consists of walking around slowly just to finally, finally press a button. and i like those games, but i don't consider them puzzle platformers.

am i irritated that this game made me play through a dozen hallucination scenes just because the main character won't wear a fucking mask while walking through several poisonous clouds of gas? yeah, maybe.