Greater Than Games | Spirit Island: Branch & Claw | Cooperative Strategy Board Game Expansion | 1 to 4 Players | 90+ Minutes | Ages 14+

I wouldn’t even want to play the vanilla version of Spirit Island anymore. While the game is great as a stand-alone, this expansion adds the depth the original game was missing. First let’s start with the events: they add a degree of randomness to the game that makes it more replayable, and less of the same thing over and over again. Mostly they make the game more difficult, but that’s part of the fun.The two new spirits are both great. Arguably they feel more powerful than the original spirits due to their versatility.There are 3 new types of tokens added, wilds which prevent explore, disease which prevent a build and strike which blocks a ravage. Overall another great addition.A new adversary, the French are introduced as well with some new mechanics.And if that wasn’t enough the expansion adds several new minor and major powers.Some expansions are certainly not worth the money,but this one really is. It’s very well done

The main difference from the base game, and which can make or break this expansion for you, are the event cards.These cards add a random event, in which you will be offered two choices (and its consequences), and will also "activate" the tokens from the expansion (for example, the claw token will deal dmg).The events affect the almost perfect predictability of the core game (which is something i loved), but the truth is that it makes it even better, more interesting, and even if the event is random, the outcomes are not, so you are now tasked with being able to react to new situations every round. This is a similar feeling of what you get when a terror card is revealed, which i really enjoyed, and now i can have it every turn.B&C also comes with new scenarios and adversaries, adding even more variability and customization of the difficultyThe main downsides of this expansion can also be the positive depending on your tastes, losing a bit of the deterministic nature of spirit island in exchange for more decisions and having to react to events, and the fact that these "choose an alternative" kind of cards could feel similar to other games (Dead of Winter for example)Aside from those 2 negatives (which can actually be strong points depending on your preference), everything is just better. There's just no reason to not get this game, it adds more to a great game and is not expensive.

Just adds more of the things that make Spirit Island great. More diverse spirits and the new events are great to change up the games.

I finally complete all the expansions.If you're looking for puzzly Solo/Coop(mostly Solo), with high replayability, card driven and craving for analysis paralysis games, you're in luck, Spirits Island is for you, otherwise, no.

This is a great simple addition to spirit island. While there are a bunch of new tokens added to the game, they all play a simple role. And these tokens do not play heavily into each game unless you are playing as a spirit that specializes in those tokens. The events are a terrific. It adds an element of randomness that just was not present in the base game. In the base game the randomness stemmed mainly from the order the exploration happened (and which one card was left out), and which power cards you draft. But this didn't really feel like the island was alive. With the events, the explorers, dahan, lesser spirits, and beasts on the island all have mind of their own. Usually these pose small challenges or bothers to get around. Often they pose a tradeoff, pay some sort of negative effect or pay a price and turn that into some sort of better effect. I like that there are lots of options and decisions introduced into the game. And the island feels more like things are happening outside of your scope. This expansion also includes my favorite spirit in the entire game (including all current expansions) which is fangs. I highly recommend this branch and claw expansion for spirit island.

Two fun spirits for a reasonable price.

To get it out of the way, if you don't like the core gameplay loop of Spirit Island to begin with, this product won't necessarily be the fix for you.If you like Spirit Island and wish there was more of it, this is a good starting point. Both Spirits are very interesting, especially compared to the Base Game Spirits. They both interact with the new tokens introduced to the game, which makes the added content feel more "worth it" to me.If you like Spirit Island and wish the game was less deterministic, this is definitely a good starting point. One of my big frustrations with a lot of games is that when you get near the end, it sometimes feels you're going through the motions. The events added in this expansion are a great step away from that; they really shake up the gameplay (though some events are very "swingy"). The additional blight cards are a surprisingly great improvement in my eyes, as there's more variety to the effects from your island blighting than "lose presence every turn", which makes games feel less "samey".If I had one complaint to make, it's that this wasn't part of the base game to begin with. It really fleshes out the experience in my mind.If you like Spirit Island and want to branch out further, this is a good first step.

Cooperative Board Games are the best! This one didn't disappoint!