The original Earthlock was an unashamedly old-school JRPG that played well but offered little in the way of innovation. However, the game benefited from a pretty major overhaul in 2018 when the development team at Snowcastle Games added a load of extra features for the Switch port. Adding these all onto the original version as a free upgrade was a move that generated a lot of goodwill and therefore the announcement of a sequel was met with plenty of excitement. Earthlock 2 is due in 2024 but to tide us over we have a surprising spin-off in the form of Ikonei Island.
Despite being primarily a survival and crafting experience, Ikonei does offer a decent story to carry you through – albeit one that suffers from the usual genre annoyances of being blocked behind incremental building progression. You play as one of four unique characters stranded on a mysterious desert island who must survive and explore. While I played through in solo mode there is up to 4 player multiplayer available. Bizarrely, the characters you don’t control just stay standing on the beach unless you switch to them and move them. I chose to just let them chill out where they were throughout.
Graphically, Ikonei is pretty solid with a cartoony aesthetic that is in keeping with the main game. Everything is bright and colourful with interactive objects being clear enough to ensure that they are easily visible. Characters and animals are nicely designed and the island contains an unusual range of biomes with different looks and challenges. Music is pleasant without being particularly memorable and the occasional voice acting is much the same. Cutscenes feel a little underwhelming with static images but that is understandable for a lower budget spinoff project.
Exploring the island of Ikonei reveals a number of buildings to restore and a small number of NPCs scattered around the various areas. Working through their quests will result in them joining you back at the main hub area when you have rebuilt their shops and this is necessary to kickstart your early progress. These buildings can then be upgraded to enable further progress and items to purchase. Buying items or blueprints from these stores requires that you sell items you find, grow, or craft in a manner very similar to Stardew Valley but the much smaller cast of characters ensures that this is a far more focused experience than the usual sprawling survival game.
Various enemies stand in your way as you explore, with sinister blobs of slime being the most frequent. There are also nefarious pirates with bases across the island which you must defeat but these sections take the form of stealth puzzles rather than the standard hack and slash gameplay of combat. You craft weapons but these have a very short life initially as each type has different durability stats. This can easily lead to you having no weapon to hand but it’s usually pretty easy to run away and, even if you don’t manage this then there is little penalty for fainting (this is a death free game).
So far, so generic, but there is some innovation to be found in Ikonei. Perhaps the most obvious example is that you can befriend and tame a range of helpful creatures to assist you in exploring the island. These are essential in order to break down rock barriers or trees and later to dig up or fish for materials. Once you’ve befriended these creatures by feeding them specific foods you’ll be able to summon them at any time to work with you. If you keep them happy and fed then they will follow your commands but for a more efficient time you can bond with them and then control them directly.
