Spirit Island is a highly popular fantastic cooperative game where Spirits (you) face off against invaders (the game). The invaders are corrupting your island and its your job to stop the corruption from spreading and drive out the invaders. Spirit Island plays out over a small tile based board and contains a multitude of pieces and markers. Every turn you place out presence pieces onto the board and use your powers to push back, destroy, or support your other spirits in your defense against the invaders
Spirit Island plays out on average between 90 minutes and 120 minutes, though on your first few games expect to be pushing 180-240 minutes as you learn all the small rule details. Spirit Island by nature is a complex game so it will take plenty of time to get familair with the rules, however by doing so you’ll be hard press to find a more rewarding game. Spirit Island allows the players to present mastery over their spirits, so putting in time and learning how your spirit is played will pay off in the long term.
To speak to some of the downsides, like mentioned earlier it is very rule dense, so it will take active and willing participants to learn the game (this is not the game for a quick family gathering!). Also due to the amount of pieces on the board it can feel “cluttered” and overwhelming to look out which requires more careful care when performing actions and turns. However, all of these downsides are mostly mitaged with the official digital version though I haven’t played it myself.