Starsand Island

Starsand Island is an enjoyable although not perfect addition to the cosy life sim genre. It has plenty to do and collect and its flexible building system will keep some players glued for hours. If you're a fan of cosy farming mechanics, collecting bugs and fish, and developing relationships with NPCs then there's plenty here to like. The games pretty graphics are also going to be a big draw for anime fans.

As far as the core game goes, there's nothing truly terrible about Starsand Island, but there's not a lot unique either. The gameplay loop is pleasant, picking your own path is nice, and the menus were extremely helpful. It's a decent length at over 60 hours minimum – though with the slow load times and delays it can be much longer. In fact, the ubiquitous bugs and performance issues weigh the entire experience down.If you take away all the bugs, the game is reasonably fun. It's just hard to justify picking this one when there's a sandstorm of cute cosy farm sims on the eShop. Still, if the anime art style and gameplay loop grab you, I'd suggest waiting until the bugs get patched, or seeking it out on another platform.

Starsand Island is a farming game with a good variety of mechanics and a very rewarding progression system. Unfortunately, in its current state, the game feels literally unfinished, suffering from terrible performance, long load times, and many, many bugs.

While an undeniably cozy experience, the bugginess and less developed aspects of play also make it tough to truly love at times

Starsand Island presents an idyllic island retreat. Its profession system provides a steady path of progression, while the highly flexible building system leaves plenty of room for experimentation in the mid to late game. However, most of its mechanics remain fairly basic, crafting becomes increasingly cumbersome later on, and NPCs lack sufficiently lively reactions. The game is constantly giving players different things to do, but few of those activities truly stand out enough to set it apart from similar titles.

If I could make one wish, it would be for Starsand Island to have spent a little more time in the oven. I was initially excited for the patches, as I really wanted to play a polished version of the game. After a few crashes forced me to replay entire days, boredom set in, and the title will have a hard time winning back my goodwill.

Starsand Island offers a relaxing and enjoyable experience with a beautiful and charming art style inspired by the famous Ghibli style. It also features a great variety of activities, ways to travel, and exploration, giving you plenty to experience and enjoy. However, its poor technical performance is a major issue that can hurt the overall experience.

Starsand Island is frustrating precisely because its foundation is so promising. Its satisfying grind, interconnected progression, generous resources, and charming presentation provide the makings of a genuinely enjoyable farming RPG, but a hollow narrative, underdeveloped relationships, and an unfortunate number of bugs keep it from reaching its potential. There is enough here for dedicated farming game fans to enjoy, but at 1.0, it feels like a game that needed more time to grow into the experience it was promising to be.

Starsand Island has an addictive farming, crafting, exploration, and relationship loop, but its Switch 2 port is plagued by poor performance, extreme pop-in, long loading times, glitches, and crashes. Wait for the patches.

Starsand Island is an accessible and engaging cozy simulator that blends familiar life‑sim elements into hours of relaxing gameplay. It embraces the fantasy of retreating to island life, where players can farm, fish, and ranch freely while cultivating meaningful relationships with residents and tourists alike.