There is an old adage where it comes to technology that says if you have a gadget or a piece of tech that does a lot of different things, often it doesn’t do any one thing particular thing all that well. This adage can be true for video games as well. Sometimes if you throw too many mechanics into the mix, things just get jumbled and messy. Stranded Sails: Explorers of the Cursed Islands is a great example of this idea in action. I was excited to pick this game up, but after spending some quality time with it, I find myself disappointed.

Stranded Sails puts you in the role of the son (or daughter) of Charles, a seafaring captain who seeks to take you and your crew to new lands, to find a new home for yourselves. Initially, you are heading to a snowy land, prepared to survive and thrive in a new climate. However, after running afoul of a storm on the high seas, you and your crew are shipwrecked and scattered across a group of islands that hold many secrets.

Since you are stranded on these islands, it makes sense that there is a lot to do. You can explore the islands to find your crewmates, supplies from your ship that have scattered around, and ultimately build up a camp for your crew to survive in. Building your camp means you have to farm, cook, fish, explore to gather wood and materials, travel by boat to other nearby islands, fight ghost pirates (once you reach a certain point) and, of course, craft necessary things for your crew to thrive.

This is where you immediately start to realize that this game hates you. Every action you take consumes energy from your energy gauge. Walking, sprinting, chopping, digging, fishing, rowing, attacking, even watering your crops, all of these things consume your energy gauge in various ways. Personally, I would probably be okay with all of my tasks taking energy, if a few factors didn’t get in the way.

For example, in order to refill your energy, you can either sleep in bed or consume food. The problem with this is, you can only carry a limited amount of food, though the limit increases over time. This becomes even more of an issue when it takes half your energy gauge to reach an island by boat, then you only have three or four spaces for food. You won’t get very far exploring since every step you take slowly depletes your gauge.

Sleeping is also a problem, as you can’t sleep away from the camp. There is no bedroll, no sleeping bag, only the bed in your camp. You can explore at night, but it is very hard to see, so I wouldn’t say it’s much of an option. Yet, if you don’t take care of your farm and whatnot before you leave (to save daylight) then your farm suffers. This wouldn’t be as much of an issue if they gave you a torch or light source, but they don’t.

This means that all of your exploratory adventures are very short-lived before you have to hurry home so you can keep from passing out. Granted, passing out doesn’t *really* hurt anything, except you lose a bit of time. Losing time can be a problem though since farming requires you to water your crops pretty regularly.

The crew on the island does basically nothing, so while you are gone, your farm is drying out, and if by some chance you actually get enough time to explore and get somewhere, half your farm may be dead when you get back. Luckily, you get seeds back if any of your plants die, so it isn’t as punishing as it could be.

Farming starts out fun, but like everything else, it becomes a chore really quickly. You have to dig each hole for each seed by hand, fighting the aiming system which is very imprecise, while also having to plant everything. Once everything is planted, you have to fill your water bucket and water everything. The problem is, if you accidentally switch to a different tool, your water bucket empties so you have to go refill it again, wasting time.

Farming serves a secondary purpose beyond just cooking meals and following recipes. You can cook a stew for your crew, which not only provides you a generous amount of energy from eating it out of the pot but also boosts your crew’s affection for you. By finding what each crew member’s favorite ingredient is, you can make their affection grow even faster. As their affection grows, they will provide you with upgraded tools or other rewards, like extra farm plots or useful things to build.

Discovering recipes through the cooking menu is fun, but a little confusing, since each ingredient has to be in the right spot on the crafting menu. This means there is a lot of trial and error to discover new recipes, as you can’t just throw all the ingredients in and call it a day. You can also find spices out on the islands which will provide you with buffs on meals that you cook containing the spices. The problem is, they are few and far between.

Scarcity is almost the name of the game though. Spices are rare, crafting materials are only found in boxes on the islands, and trees don’t regenerate, so you are always looking for new areas to deforest. The boxes containing crafting materials and spices don’t regenerate either, so you’re always looking to make sure you haven’t missed any, because you are always low on supplies.

It doesn’t make matters any easier that the crafting requirements for buildings and other essentials are somewhat steep. A single tree provides you with two wood logs, yet a single set of wooden planks requires three wood logs, meaning you have to cut down two trees just to get a single plank. This gets frustrating when you need twelve or more wood planks, and your energy is depleting so you are constantly running back and forth to camp.

Surprisingly, the combat is one of the least offensive parts of the game. It plays out like a standard action RPG, you touch a totem that summons enemies (required to pass through areas) and then you just hack at them with your sword. No gimmicks, no issues, just plain action gameplay. I did also enjoy finding artifacts and digging up treasure from exploring, but those two things are such small parts of the experience that the enjoyment is short-lived.

It also wouldn’t be quite so bad if traveling wasn’t so slow. Rowing the boat takes forever and takes a lot of energy. Walking is slow and takes energy while sprinting is only marginally faster but takes more energy than walking. I normally love fishing in games as well, but the fishing plays like a rhythm mini-game, and frankly, the controls are clunky and unintuitive.

Fishing spots only give you 3 to 5 fish as well, so after you catch a few, if you still have energy left you’ll have to find a new fishing spot. Also, the game provides you with a telescope that is supposed to help you navigate, but it is incredibly difficult to use, especially while you’re rowing, and the field of view is too small. It also doesn’t help that the boat can be difficult to maneuver most of the time.

Stranded Sails: Explorers of the Cursed Islands is a game that I was very excited about throughout its’ development cycle. I loved the idea of a mashup between Wind Waker and Harvest Moon. However, the developers at Lemonbomb Entertainment tried to do way too many things in this title, and none of them were really pulled off all that well. Even the artifacts don’t really give you much of an incentive to keep playing beyond finding a tiny bit of lore here and there.

Stranded Sails is easily one of the biggest disappointments of 2019 for me. I was very excited, but it seems that this game is a lot like buying things online. Sometimes what you see in the pretty packaging isn’t what you get when it arrives.

A Nintendo Switch review copy of Stranded Sails: Explorers of the Cursed Islands was provided by Merge Games for this review.

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Stranded Sails: Explorers of the Cursed Islands

$24.99

4

Score

4.0/10

Pros

• Interesting Story
• Cute Characters

Cons

• Materials too Scarce
• Bad Controls
• Character and Boat are too Slow
• Energy System Hampers Progress
• Gets Frustrating and Monotonous Quickly