Islets Review

Last year, I reviewed Sheepo, a mini-Metroidvania created by Kyle Thompson which had its charms but, ultimately, fell short in some key areas. Islets is very much a sequel to that game, and I’m delighted to say that it improves upon its predecessor in almost every regard.

Islets puts you in control of Iko, a sword-wielding mouse with core mechanics that feel very similar to Sheepo. In particular, your horizontal jump distance is quite a bit more pronounced than your vertical one, which eases the pain of traversing the environment in the game’s later stage. Fortunately, it’s accompanied by some upgrades that are indelibly tied to the genre now: double-jump, wall-climb, and a sort-of dash amongst them. Possibly most prominent, though, is the roll move which not only propels you forward but also gives precious frames to avoid taking damage. Once mastered—and especially once later buffs have been acquired—this move alone will see you flying from screen-to-screen, progressing at breakneck speed.

To look at it, you’d be forgiven for not drawing a connection between Islets and Sheepo. This game pulls you in, as so many have before, with a bright initial stage featuring blue skies, green hills, and colourful flowers in the background. It’s a strong contrast to Sheepo’s darker graphics which used black as the primary colour. The beginning reminded me very much of the beginning of Hoa, with an illustrative style that also invokes elements of Spiritfarer, Greak, and many others. These visuals work magnificently and, in contrast to Sheepo, help to create a world that’s enjoyable to inhabit. This is an oh-so-important factor in a game that involves backtracking and exploring the same environments more than once.

There’s still a very slight sense that these different biomes, and the rooms within them, blend together, but it’s far less pronounced than in Sheepo. Islets’ map definitely helps in this regard too, adding a more detailed view to the higher-level grid arrangement that is, again, such a mainstay of the Metroidvania world. This makes it far easier to distinguish one room from the next, but it’s a minor feature compared to the map’s defining quality, which may be the game’s greatest selling point beyond its beautiful graphics.

This defining quality is how the map unlocks each area as you progress. Set on a series of five islands—previously one land-mass until malevolent forces ripped them asunder—the environment can be slowly pieced together as you progress. What begins as totally separate areas end up joined together, with additional routes becoming available at the edges. In practice, it’s not that much different from discovering fast-travel points in similar games, but the idea adds some welcome variety and helps guide the player through what is a fairly linear journey.

Sheepo’s main gimmick was its passivity; a lack of combat steered the gameplay firmly towards puzzle-platforming. While it made for some originality, I was much relieved to see the injection of full-on combat in Islets. Combat makes backtracking more interesting, gives purpose to upgrades, and adds a greater distinction between difficulty levels. Those optional upgrades, by the way, are another small-but-welcome innovation: when you reach one, you’re given the option of choosing from three possibilities.

In fact, Islets goes one further, leaning into the fighting action with some welcome innovation of its own. Interspersed between platforming locations is a top-down airborne stage which acts as an overworld map linking those areas. But it also introduces a handful of bullet-hell boss fights, which the game neatly remixes in its finale, to great effect. Standard boss fights, too, are brilliant affairs: full of changing attacks, many of which are finely tuned so that recent upgrades can be used to counter them. One later upgrade, for example, lets you create temporary platforms, and a boss you’ll later face causes spiked towers to shoot from the floor.

Despite these devious touches, Islets is on the easier side for a Metroidvania. Anyone who struggled with Hollow Knight or Metroid Dread will be greatly relieved by this. However, it’s a pity that the carefully crafted platform challenges can often be cheesed with plain brute force. Particularly in the late game, there’s no real penalty for taking damage en route to an upgrade which then restores full health on collection. The ability that reveals upgrade locations also spoils some of the clever ways in which they’ve been hidden, but it’s of course up to you, the player, whether you take advantage of these shortcuts.

Overall, Islets is a highly-accomplished, enjoyable Metroidvania with little to really push the envelope, but plenty of examples of how to make one work very, very well. The game’s visuals and core mechanics are probably the highlights, but with sterling boss fights, on-the-nose touches of humour, and a carefully designed map, this is a solid entry which proves a heavily overstuffed genre still has room for growth.