The game's main story follows Mo, a young girl on a mission to stop her world from being slowly suffocated by alien spores.
![a minute of islands a minute of islands](https://nintenfan.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Minute-of-Islands-Press-Release-Info-e1565373865371.jpg)
Don't be fooled by the girl in the cute yellow raincoat, this post-apocalyptic adventure is a grim story of isolation, broken families, learning to let go, and lots (and I mean lots) of gross, squishy gore. I didn’t encounter any bugs or hiccups during my entire playthrough, aside from the very occasional frame rate skip.Minute of Islands (opens in new tab) is a dark game. The minimalist soundtrack, complements the mood of the game nicely, but I won’t be rushing out to buy an LP of it anytime soon. My only criticism is that I wish the same care and attention had been paid to the caverns below ground as well, which are invariably a bluish-grey backdrop, strewn with the occasional vein or artery to supply power to the subterranean giants. To add a further sense of otherworldly horror, in some areas, the fungus has really taken hold and warps the scenery into a vibrant and surreal mockery of itself. Mo’s yellow attire stands out in stark contrast to the decrepit, mournful landscapes, littered with shipwrecks and whale carcasses.
![a minute of islands a minute of islands](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5u1T3P2iBko/maxresdefault.jpg)
#A MINUTE OF ISLANDS FULL#
What started as a mild case of athlete’s foot, ended with a full blown fungal infection.Īside from the story, the biggest reason to play this game must be the beautiful hand-drawn visuals that give an almost Studio Ghibli inspired feel to the narrative. Sure, the gameplay is a little one dimensional, but the story more than makes up for that and it kept me invested right until the very end. If I’m making the game sound boring that wasn’t my intention. The final chapter does throw this formula out of the window, but it’s relatively short and is more like an epilogue. Go to an island, interact with its lone inhabitant, restart the air purifiers, travel underground, and reawaken the giant. The game is divided into five chapters and for four of them, the game plays out in roughly the same way. I picked up most of these during my playthrough but I didn’t feel compelled to go back and find the ones I had missed upon finishing the game. The only task beside the events of the main story are to track down and recover Mo’s memories which will be reawakened upon finding some meaningful object or location. For longer than I care to admit, I was having trouble working out in which direction I should be heading, until it dawned on me that the Omni Switch itself includes a helpful direction pointer to direct geographically challenged people, such as myself, towards their intended target. Usually there is helpful white paint daubed on surfaces Mo can jump to, which does help a lot. Navigating the islands can be a little tricky when jumping from ledge to ledge, especially when coming downhill. I must admit I did find this approach to gameplay a little tedious from time to time, but on the other hand, it was nice to kick back for a few hours and just enjoy the process of an interactive story unfolding before my eyes. Some offer meaningful backstory, some are mandatory to progress the game forward, and others are just, well, there to be discovered. Your task is simply to navigate the islands, solve the occasional environmental puzzle (none of which are particularly challenging) and interact with literally every object you come across. The game is a puzzle-platformer so there’s absolutely no combat, no timed escape sequences, no health bar, and no falling down into a pit of nothingness. Use A to interact with objects, B to jump, ZR and occasionally ZL to wield the Omni Switch. The game runs pretty smoothly on the Switch.
![a minute of islands a minute of islands](https://spiele-release.de/games/img/screenshots/minute-of-islands_8.jpg)
The windmills of the future were never going to win any design awards. Along the way you will encounter a few of Mo’s relatives and other acquaintances, which fill in some of the backstory and prompt Mo to re-evaluate her priorities. The rest of the story unfolds gradually as you explore each of the islands, restoring the air purifiers and the giants who power them. This is a task which Mo takes a great deal of responsibility for. That is until one fateful day, when the air purifying machines start to fail and Mo must set out on a quest to fix them using the fabled Omni Switch. By using the technology and strength of the giants, Mo was able to purify the air above ground of the toxic spores and save her friends and family. A few islanders remained, however, including the aforementioned Mo, who retreated underground and discovered the existence of giants. Turns out that some time ago, deadly fungal spores started infecting and killing all forms of life across the islands, which triggered a mass exodus of the population. You play as Mo, a yellow Macintosh wearing sort of girl with a penchant for exploring underground caverns. Minute of Islands story takes place across an archipelago of islands – no surprise there.
![a minute of islands a minute of islands](https://minute-of-islands.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/MinuteOfIslands_Pre-Alpha_Screenshot_30.png)
When the snow is yellow BEFORE anyone has weed on it, then you know you’ve got a problem.