Our Verdict
What could be a genuinely fun farming and life sim is clouded by performance so poor that it rivals that of the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy. In the year since the Nintendo Switch 2 launched, Starsand Island is easily the most shoddy piece of work I've played on the system, and it's simply inexcusable. Right now, it's not worth your hard-earned money.
2026 is apparently the year of cozy games for me. I've never been a connoisseur of the genre, only having ever played a couple of games like Disney Dreamlight Valley and Stardew Valley, the latter of which I can't get into no matter how many times I try. Still, I fell in love with Moonlight Peaks earlier this year and figured I'd give Starsand Island a try and keep that cozy train running. Unfortunately, I want to leap from the train 007-style and run all the way back to my beloved Moonlight Peaks.
However, there are some positives I'd like to tell you about before I tell you what makes Starsand Island so horribly poor. Let's start with the town itself - exploring the island is actually a lot of fun, with a decent city full of NPCs that are genuinely quite charming. I actually want to look around, see everything the area has to offer, and meet all of my neighbors.
The game begins with you choosing and customizing your character. I have to say, I find the hair and clothing options very lackluster; you essentially have just five options per category, and none of them are particularly appealing to me. I'm about to move to a paradisic island; where are my flowy shirts and shorts? After whizzing through the character creation process, it's time to return to Starsand Island after a ten-year absence, where you meet one of your old friends who teaches you the basics of the game.
While you have that typical inherited property that you can fix up and build a farm on, you also have access to five different professions: Explorer, Farmer, Crafter, Angler, and Rancher. Each lets you learn skills that can help you build your life on Starsand Island, though I'm particularly fond of both Explorer and Angler - I'm a sucker for fishing in games, and I genuinely enjoy it in Starsand Island.
The profession system is intuitive and surprisingly in-depth, allowing you to do more than merely grow and harvest crops on your farm. I feel as though there's always something for me to be doing, especially as I work to become more than a mere apprentice in each profession.
In theory, getting around town should also be a lot of fun (I'll explain why it isn't shortly), as you have access to a range of vehicles, and the island is big enough to warrant using them. I appreciate having the option to choose between mopeds, motorbikes, and skateboards, especially since you get access to them almost immediately, so you don't have to spend the first few hours of the game running everywhere; I just wish they were…better.
At its base, Starsand Island has everything you want to see in a farming and life sim, and I can honestly say that there's a solid foundation there, especially in terms of features and gameplay. However, its shortcomings make it hard to focus on the good at the moment.
I'm genuinely appalled at the state of Starsand Island on Nintendo Switch 2. In terms of performance, this is, without question, the worst game I've played on the system so far. No, I'm not exaggerating.
One of the things that lured me to Starsand Island was knowing that I could ride a skateboard everywhere. Now, as someone who used to enjoy the hobby in real life, I can confirm that I would have hated it with a passion if riding a board had been as bumpy as it is on Starsand Island. Every other second, the game stutters and you do a clunky jump that completely ruins your flow.
That's just one example of the shoddy performance; the game's initial loading screen is so long that it rivals that of a PS2 game. In a world where the likes of Resident Evil Requiem, Pragmata, and Cyberpunk 2077 run swimmingly on Nintendo Switch 2, I struggle to understand how Starsand Island struggles so much. Honestly, the game shouldn't be available to purchase in its current state, and certainly not for the current price $31.99 (and, to make things worse, this increases to $39.99 on September 14).
Beyond the terrible skateboarding and horrid loading times, the game looks more than a little fuzzy most of the time, too, ruining what I know should be a beautiful world with a quaint town, stunning beaches, and enchanting forests. Then there's growing and harvesting your crops; anytime I use fertilizer to speed up the process, the game slows right down, which kind of defeats the purpose of trying to speed up the growth cycle, doesn't it?
Right now, on Nintendo Switch 2 at least, I can't in good conscience recommend Starsand Island. Yes, I acknowledge that there's been a patch to address some issues and that more updates are coming (though the patch has done very little on Switch 2), but the level of issues at launch is simply inexcusable. It's a shame, as underneath the bugs and fuzzy appearance, there's a good farming and life simulation game here just waiting lure you in. But, with the highly saturated state of the cozy games market right now, I highly recommend looking elsewhere.