Under The Island Review

Judging from their popularity, it’s clear that action-adventure games tap into a feeling of wonder that a lot of us are searching for. There’s something about getting whisked away to a world full of secrets that captures the imagination, and the sense of discovery that typifies the genre is something that helps to make it so deeply appealing across the board. In such a saturated landscape, though, it’s easy to get lost amongst the crowd, and newcomers need to do something to stand out. Under The Island, the latest title looking for success in this category, is a quirky adventure which leans heavily into its sense of discovery, and while it doesn’t rewrite the rulebook, it’s a delightful experience nonetheless.

Under The Island follows the story of Nia, an outspoken teenager who is unwillingly moving to Seashell Island for the summer while her parents study its ancient ruins. She’s not thrilled about the prospect of being cut off from her old life for three months, and the game begins during the journey where she makes this abundantly clear. Despite her convictions, however, it’s predictably not long before Nia ends up roped into an adventure of her own; it turns out that the island is sinking into the sea, and Nia must traverse the island and collect a series of sacred artifacts to save Seashell Island from calamity.

Help island residents and receive helpful items

Narrative is an essential component of the adventure genre, and Under The Island blends humour and quirkiness to create a buoyant tale. The story is mostly delivered through dialogue with Seashell Island’s residents, and Nia’s adventure takes her to the far reaches of the island to solve problems such as pirates overtaking a cereal factory and horticulture gone wrong. While the story does touch on some slightly heavier topics at moments, the framing always keeps the seriousness at arm’s length, helping to keep the tone firmly within the realm of wide-eyed adventure and exploration. There is some stiltedness in the dialogue, owing partially to the one-dimensional nature of a lot of the characters, but the world is nevertheless cheerful and fun to get to know.

The island itself is similarly vibrant, with a series of bright, distinctive regions from the highest mountain peaks to the deepest caverns to explore. While access to some areas is restricted depending on the items and abilities you have acquired, much of the world is open, with area gating often relying on enemy difficulty and your combat abilities rather than hard locks. It’s therefore possible to wander a fair distance when you’re not actively working on the main quest, and although you can encounter some content out of story order as a result, it nevertheless helps to encourage a lot of the optional exploration that makes up a large portion of the game’s content.

Hell yeah, ghost chickens

Something that helps Under The Island to stand out in the genre is the excellent balance between its individual systems and how this translates to gameplay. The equilibrium between the main story and the side content is nigh-on perfect; the steady difficulty scaling puts a meaningful value on ability upgrades, while the well-calibrated economy ensures you’re never quite swimming in the resources needed for those upgrades unless you venture off and explore the optional content. Because every item has tangible value, most of this exploration feels worth the time and effort, but since none of the rewards are individually essential to game completion, there’s equally no pressure to find every last secret unless you truly want to.

In this, Under The Island strikes a rare balance that makes exploration inherently and consistently rewarding without ever feeling like work, and there’s so much creativity within the world and its secrets that it’s a lot of fun to explore. If there is one critique here, it’s that it can be tricky to remember where all of the secret locations are hidden; given that you can find a good number of them before you have all the tools to complete their puzzles, the game would benefit from some small quality of life additions to help you keep track of it all, such as marking the locations of caves you have discovered on the map.

Puzzles also take a central role in Under The Island, featuring in the dungeons and in the broader world alike. While there are plenty of recognisable formats such as block puzzles, lock-and-key puzzles, and even nonograms, there’s a lot of variety to limit repetition, and there are some really creative uses of the game’s mechanics to keep things feeling fresh. Animal lovers will appreciate the role that pets and wildlife play in the game too; different animals can help you to knock items out of trees, press switches, or protect you from enemies, and there’s even a hidden Cat God you can meet – so make sure to be nice to animals.

By far the most important side quest: reuniting a family of cats

Combat, on the other hand, is passable without ever feeling solid. Melee attacks lack weight, making combat a little unsatisfying, and timing can also be quite finicky, whether this is in melee or ranged attacks. You can hit some projectiles back at enemies, for example, but the return angle depends on precise timing which a lack of useful feedback makes difficult to learn. Similarly, your ranged fire attack takes so long to charge that you can easily get rushed if you shoot too close to your target, or alternatively miss your shot if you’re shooting from further back and your adversary wanders off. Attacks from some higher-level enemies can also chew through your HP at an alarming pace, and while this is effective at keeping you out of the regions that you’re seriously underlevelled for, there are some optional areas that are quite difficult to explore even once you’ve found most of the possible upgrades. It’s great for a challenge, though, so these can be worth revisiting toward the end of the game.

There are also a few areas where the game is lacking polish, such as with small proofreading errors and some miscellaneous glitches that I encountered on the Nintendo Switch 2. The most annoying of these is a visual rendering bug that occurs when resuming play after putting the console to sleep. Among other things, you lose the colour distinctions that mark out safe paths through water, making it impossible to cross through these areas unharmed. You can reset the bug by exiting and restarting the game, but it gets old after you’ve had to do this a few times, especially if the closest save point is a little out of the way.

Final Thoughts

Under The Island is a charming, puzzle-filled adventure that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The balance between the game’s systems ensures that progress always feels meaningful, and while it would have been good to see some slightly more rounded out combat and extra polish, there’s enough substance here to make for a fun and memorable adventure.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2 // Review code supplied by publisher

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