Starsand Island
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Starsand Island Media
Starsand Island | Version 1.0 Launch Trailer
Starsand Island | Official Trailer: A Countryside Fairytale for The Young at Heart
Critic Reviews for Starsand Island
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’s 1.0 release is a massive leap forward from its Early Access foundation. The addition of 4-player co-op, Steam Workshop mod support, rich NPC interactions, and sweeping quality of life upgrades make it one of the most versatile life sims available.
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.
Starsand Island is a decent farming sim, however the Nintendo Switch 2 version is filled with so many bugs, it needs an industrial-grade insecticide to make it playable.
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.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
Cozy sandbox life sim experience with plenty of content on Nintendo Switch 2
Starsand Island surprised me with just how deep of a life sim it is. There are still many bugs that need to be ironed out but they didn't stop me from sinking countless hours into its delightful world as it does a lot of things exceptionally well. 🏝️
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.
