Iris Island

I really enjoyed this game immensely. In fact, I just lost my entire afternoon playing it :D

One of the great aspects is the way skill type tasks are interwoven with small quests, so that you are often leveling skills while working on or towards a quest. I loved all the different little quests. In fact, I wish there had been more--I kept going back to all the characters hoping that they'd give me something new to do.

The game map is small. You're repeatedly moving back and forth amongst the same areas. In most games, that factor will bore a player to tears. However, I didn't find that happening at all with this game, probably because there were always so many different things to do (stop and fish on your way to one location, mine ore in another, etc.)


There are a few things that could be tweaked as they can slightly detract from the game. Most of them, however, are things you can work around as long as you know about them in advance. I realize I have a long list of cons, but they really are little things that would make the game a bit smoother.

1) My biggest complaint was with leveling the skills. Fishing is by far the most pleasant skill to level. It would be nice if leveling the other skills were more akin to the fishing one because, due to the time involved in mining, cooking, crafting, etc.; leveling these other skills can get a bit tedious. As you level up in mining, it should take less time to mine a material and that material should give you more experience--something better than 1 experience point per rock mined. Cooking could give the option to cook multiple items, rather than just one. And so on. Cooking might have been the most annoying as you had to go through like 5 screens of dialogue every time you cooked one item.

2) Warnings. After one round of crabbing, I lost my most lucrative method of making money, and I needed a lot more money to restore the pirate ship. Apparently, once you talk to the pirate and the trade ship lands, you no longer have access to your fishing boat. That fact would have been nice to know in advance.

3) There is a warning at the end of the game, but I had no clue the game was ending. Yes, I could have gone back to a save file, but I discovered a little glitch and didn't have an early enough save file. I probably could have worked around the glitch, but I was a little frustrated because my earliest prior save file set me back a good half hour, and I'd already had to exit and restart a couple of times before.

4) The glitch. Once you've got your cellar key and go through the gate in your basement, you'll hit a certain point where you can't go back until you complete the entire sequence. If you go back to the mines to keep working on other things before you search out Frem, when you enter the large room with the amethyst rock, you end up trapped. Entering the room triggers the "follow Frem" sequence, even if you haven't talked to him. You can't jump across the lava, as Frem takes you through the room from a different tunnel, and you can't exit the room. You're just stuck.

5) The coloring in the blue-black caves with magma/lava is a little too dark. It's very difficult to see things. I had to adjust the brightness/contrast/hue in order to get a better visual of the area. This actually probably isn't a big deal, but since I was trapped in one of those rooms. . . I kept looking for a way out :P

6) Before the first time you need to use it (I think at the exit next to the mine elevator), there should be a sign posted that says A + arrow key = jump, or something like that. Took me forever to figure out how to get out of the mine :D

I know this seems like a long list, but don't let that stop you from checking out this game. Besides, you get to buy and furnish your own house on a small, island paradise!