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Amber Isle Review

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Amber Isle

Amber Isle is so addictive and so much fun! I have been playing for hours and hours without noticing how long I was already playing that sitting, which in my book is a sign for a good game! No missable achievements.

Steam
Switch

Approximate amount of time to 100%: My guess will be 40h+ but I’ll update this when I finish or are closer to completing the game myself
Estimated achievement difficulty: 2/10
Minimum number of playthroughs needed: 1
Is there a good guide available: Not yet
Multiplayer achievements: No
Missable achievements: No
Grinding Achievements: Yes, unlocking all recipes will be quite grindy, and having a million coins. However, those two work nicely together as you’ll need to run your shop for both.
DLC-Only achievements: No
Speedrun achievements: No
Time-gated achievements: No
RNG-achievements: No
Does difficulty affect achievements: No difficulty option
Unobtainable/glitched achievements: No

Yay, another shop-keeping game! I love that we see more and more shopkeeping games as those are one of my favorite genres! And what can you wish more for than a shop-keeping game with cute dinos and an amazing art style?

In Amber Isle you land (or should I say fall?) into a small village (Can we call it a village if 3 people live there?). your fall damaged the roof and the mayor takes this chance to scare you away with how much money he wants to repair the roof. His attempts to scare you away fail and you’ll end up running the shop. You’ll forage for the resources to make items and sell those. In the meantime, you’ll use the reputation you earn for unlocking new recipes as well as unlocking new areas on this beautiful island. Although…. they aren’t as beautiful when you open up and area, but you’ll clean up the area and invite people to live there to increase the population of the island.

There is so much to do in Amber Isle. At the beginning of the game, I felt a bit lost… I had many questions, not everything was clear and I wanted to do everything. I highly recommend just following the quests as much more will be clear later on.

I love the amount of choices the game gives you, it can feel overwhelming but you can really customize your character, your shop, the island and even have choices between so many items to create in different categories. I also love how much storage space we have in our shop and that if you want to there is a specific storage for requested items so you don’t accidentally sell them or give them away.

Another thing I love is the gameplay loop. You clean up areas and invite new people to come live in the island while also choosing which parts of the day your shop will be open. And when you have made enough new friends, you get to open a new area and start cleaning it and inviting new people while also finding new resources. I also felt that each new villager had their own personage and story, it were not just nice-looking new NPCs but they all came with a story and a different personality.

Amber Isle has no missable achievements, but they can be quite grindy. The one I think that will take the most time is for unlocking all recipes. Some others are a bit luck based like selling an item to a person who hates that item, or hassling with the mayor for 200% of what the item is worth. That last one can be made easier by using the trend of the day and having it placed around the window for the bonuses. Gladly most of the achievements you’ll just by playing the game and going through the story.

I give Amber Isle 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Publisher:
Team17 logo

Developer:
Ambertail Games

This review for Amber Isle was written on 10 October 2024, based on the current Steam version of the game which has 29 achievements at the time of writing this review. This information can be outdated, for example, when the developer adds or removes achievements or releases (new) DLC.

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