Raiders of the Lost Island Review (Nintendo Switch) - LadiesGamers (2025)

Game: Raiders of the Lost Island
Genre: Action, Party
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PC)
Developer| Publisher: Last Tales
Age Rating: EU 3+ | US Everyone
Price: US $12.99 | UK £9.69 | EU € 12,99
Release Date: March 18th, 2021

Review code provided with many thanks to Last Tales

Home of Couch Co-op

The Nintendo Switch feels like the home of the couch multiplayer experience. Many games have been released since the console launched where you can share the fun and fluffy feel of gaming with friends, family and maybe even your highly intelligent pet. Today we have Raiders of the Lost Island (which we’ll just name Raiders for the rest of the review). A unique multiplayer game that aims to bring folk together as much as drive them apart in a mix of cooperative and competitive gameplay styles.

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A Pirate Like Jig

Raiders doesn’t have a story or plot to speak of. But what it does have is an opening screen where you can watch the 3D sprites do a funky little dance to a pirate style piece of music. It’s quite hypnotic and I’d be lying if a part of me didn’t want to jump off the sofa and start replicating the sight I was seeing on screen. Of course, I’m too cool for that, or am I?

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The graphics are low poly 3D models with some good use of colour. Levels are blocky isometric designs with simple island themes and a few Aztec ruins thrown in. There are a variety of unusual characters to play as from Santa to male and female variants of Zombies. For something with a pirate feel to it the choice of characters on display felt a bit random, therefore lacking a particular style or tone to go with the game. Overall, the game is not the biggest looker but graphics aren’t everything and in Raiders gameplay is where things start to shine.

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The Sinking Island

So what is Raiders? You are placed on an island that is gradually sinking into the sea. You need to run about the island looking for bags which you need to collect, to fix up a ship and escape before the island totally submerges into the ocean. As you play through the level the water is constantly rising and falling. You can swim temporarily in shallow water, but, fall into a deep area and you drown losing any gold or items you’ve collected. You’ll respawn somewhere safe on the island after some time has passed. Eventually, the sea will sink to its shallowest level and gradually rise permanently until the island is totally submerged giving you one last hoorah to fix the ship or collect any gold or collectables to take with you to the next level.

The oceans are not the only threat. Some islands also have traps like rolling boulders and the islands themselves often feel like mazes when searching for the bags and gold. From the main menu, you can select adventure mode or play a single island level. Adventures are a range of randomly selected levels from a pool of around 20 levels. Between levels, you enter a hideout where you can find items to use in future levels, like rope and oxygen tanks, to cosmetic hats to wear and tokens you can use in a mini-game towards the end of the session.

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The overall goal is to cooperate with other players to fix the ship and escape, while at the same time collecting as much gold as possible. The player with the most gold at the end of the game is the winner. As you run around the island you can actually steal gold off other players. But this strategy comes with a lot of caution as choosing to go on the offensive can potentially harm your progress in fixing the ship.

It’s a unique and interesting mix of cooperation and competitive gameplay that gives Raiders its charm and you’re even able to play this with up to four people locally. You can of course just choose to cooperate together to fix the ship and escape the island but I often found there was that little niggle in the back of my head of how can I get the edge over my co-op partner. The game is clearly designed to be played with other people. You can opt to play the game alone but the experience feels as the developers say themselves quite ‘lonely.’

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Pick up and Play

Controls are quite simple which is handy as you may choose to play this with more casual players. The game also has a useful tutorial showing all players how to play the game individually before diving into the main experience if needed. You move your character with the stick and use the face buttons to pick items up, climb ladders and shoot your little gun. Yeah, you heard that last bit right. The gun felt pretty useless in this game. You have to charge it up and its main use is to shoot items which gradually draws them towards you. It felt pointless as the time wasted doing this you could just walk up to the item and pick it up.

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There’s Some Niggles

As original as Raiders is, the game does still come with a fair few niggles worth mentioning. To start the isometric level design can be quite confusing. As we explored the island we often fell off the level as it was hard at times to pinpoint the platform your character occupied. This was tricky on TV but made much more of an issue if opting to play in handheld mode. Another glaring issue is the bags to fix the ship mostly spawn at the lowest point of the island, making it quite hard to collect them.

Often my co-op partner and I were just waiting for the tide to go out for a brief period to collect them since there was nothing else to do. It slowed down the gameplay a lot and many of our games abruptly ended as we just could not collect enough bags in time. It almost feels like the game must be played with four people. There’s nothing to unlock or progress to be made. Much like a board game, everything is made available from the get-go. But since this is probably something you’ll pull out to play with friends on a delightful game night that feels like a good thing here.

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Conclusion

For all my critique I actually walked away from Raiders quite happy. While many game developers who focus on multiplayer still go for the boring tried and tested deathmatch or battle royale boredom that floods the market,Raiders of the Lost Island is trying something new. And despite its flaws, it succeeds in being a fun experience.

This is easy to recommend if you’re able to share this ideally with up to four other players, it will certainly make for a good game night. It’s sure to make you laugh and giggle for an hour or two and then possibly make you want to do a pirate jig. I know that’s what I am going to go do now!

Final Verdict: I like it

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