Luma Island Review - Indiana Jones Meets Stardew Valley

Luma Island is an RPG simulation adventure game from Feel Free Games. It has multiple professions or side quests you can choose to follow, a town that needs repairing after a natural disaster, and an ancient prophecy that's starting to become reality. There are elements of adventure games, exploration, puzzles, creature collection, and life simulators woven throughout the title. 

With all there is to do you can easily get 30-40 hours of playtime in. Even when you complete the main quest you load into the game and can continue with any professions you haven't mastered or relax with your animals. You can hop into your friend's game to help them with a puzzle or have them visit for a farm tour. There's plenty of value in the different things you can do in Luma Island. 

A Different Story

One of the main highlights of Luma Island is the story. Unlike the majority of cozy farming simulation games available, you don't come from a hectic job to revive a farm and small town. Your background isn't clarified, all you do know is you bought a used caravan and moved to the island. Instead, the focus of the story is on an ancient prophecy and the mysterious happenings of the island itself. The characters are humorous, often giving you important information sandwiched in between jokes. The prophecy itself isn't even taken seriously in the beginning. 

You go through trapped temples to obtain prized artifacts. Traps include dodging flaming projectiles, falling rocks, and rolling saws. Then there are puzzles, like rotating flamethrower statues to create a pathway. On top of that, there are ghosts and bats that live in the ruins. It really feels like you're an intrepid archaeologist searching for hidden treasure. 

If you try to play through the whole story without taking time to explore the regions, advance in your profession, or just relax, you may find yourself getting burnt out. The Forest, Mountain, and Jungle regions require you to go through three ruins in each, with traps and puzzles increasing in frequency and complexity. I found myself burnt out on puzzles, and overstimulated by all the flying, falling, and rotating contraptions by the time I was in the jungle. Puzzle lovers, however, will find themselves with at least 25 hours of content to play through. 

The downfall of the story is the ending. Not the ending itself, but you have to make a decision and there's no manual save. If you want to see both endings, you have to do two separate playthroughs. Once the ending cinematic plays the game is saved and you'll load in after your decision is in effect. I found this a bit off-putting as I wanted to experience both conclusions. For those with the time, however, this shouldn't have too much of an impact.  

The Animals of Luma Island

If you're interested in Luma Island for the creature collecting part of it, sorry to say, but that's the least satisfying element in the game. There are many different Lumas, each hatching from their own adorable egg. You feed them, pet them, and can take one with you as you explore the different regions and towns. They can find hidden treasure and their energy is used in the different professions when crafting. That's all you do with them, however. They don't do anything on the farm, don't react to other creatures, and don't give additional perks in situations they might be helpful in. 

A rabbit-type Luma could help with the weeds similar to actual rabbits, or a horse type could be ridden to shorten the time spent traveling to collect resources. Even the farm animals have more impact than these special creatures. While the Lumas are cute and have their own little quirks, they do the same task that a cat or dog can do.

Depending on the profession you pick, like Treasure Hunter, you'll even get a pet for free. Lumas' purpose in the main story doesn't even come into play until the very end, leaving a lot of possibilities for the creatures on the table. It feels like Lumas were included for the story and given little thought to their utilization in other areas of the game. 

Speaking of farm animals, how Luma Island does gardening and farming is refreshing. You can start to grow plants but find they have weeds. Instead of spending time picking the weeds every day, rabbits will take care of the problem. Chickens will clear bug infestations, but a fox will try to get into the hen house. Goats chase away the foxes and pigs can dig up Ginger for cooking. That's on top of their "normal" farm purpose of providing milk, eggs, and fertilizer. 

I would've enjoyed Luma Island more if the main story ruins and professions were more seamlessly blended. They could almost be two separate games, of which I would enjoy the profession title more than the puzzler. It's also easy to not progress through the main story unless you're working on the archaeologist profession, which needs items found in the ruins. If the two sides of Luma Island were more cohesive, the experience for both would be better.

Thankfully, the actual implementation of the game and playing it is a rewarding experience. After 34 hours I had only experienced two bugs. The first was a vase that wouldn't smash and the second, which occurred in hour 33 of gameplay, was glitching into a statue and being unable to move. Using the unstuck button in the game menu sent me home, so the overall impact was quite low. 

Overall, Luma Island is a well-executed simulation game with a variety of side quests, crafting, and regions to explore, but a few too many of the same puzzles and a lack of creativity when it comes to the Lumas. 

TechRaptor reviewed Luma Island on PC via a code from Feel Free Games over the course of 34 hours. All screenshots were taken during the process of review.