Thanks to Whitethorn Games for the review code

Title: Beasts of Maravilla Island
System: Xbox One
Price: $9.99
Release Date: 07/09/2021

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Story

In this photographing adventure game, you take control of Marina, a photographer out on a quest to explore a strange island her grandfather did research on, in order to learn the mystery behind the creatures of the island!

A rather cozy game, Maravilla has a pretty cute story, and while nothing in it will shock or surprise you, (You can see the general plot coming from a mile away) it does serve as a fun, family friendly tale that accompanies a really gorgeous game.

Presentation

Maravilla Island is a game set all around taking photographs of wildlife, and luckily the game manages to sport a really cute art style that makes every biome and creature really pop, with gorgeous lighting effects, adorable creature designs, and a relaxing soundtrack that fits the general vibe.

Having recently acquired my first 4K TV, I was very delighted at how gorgeous Maravilla looks on it, especially with the lovely colors standing out far more than they did on my previous HDTV. As the first Ultra 4K game covered on SFG, I feel that Maravilla is an absolute stunner, since while the cel shaded look really benefits from the high resolution, the lighting is even better, with the River biome looking drop dead gorgeous if you have a good 4K display.

It isn’t too often I gush on visuals like these, but considering the game wants you to photograph and zoom into things often, Maravilla absolutely nails the look needed to pull a game like this off, and while the camera’s interface does remind me a lot of how the Breath of the Wild duology handled its camera feature, I don’t really consider that a bad thing, since Maravilla just uses what worked great elsewhere to work great in its own flavor here.

Gameplay

Maravilla Island is a photography game set across three biomes. As Marina, you must head deep within the island, all while photographing anything cool that you come across, and right from the onset of the game photographing is very addicting. Anywhere that you glance at, there’ll be something new to photograph, at least for a short while.

Each of your photos are saved in the journal, and you can hold several photographs per creature, with only one being hand-picked as the “main photo” to feature for that species. The triggers are used to operate the camera, with the D-pad being used as the zoom and I found this control scheme to work delightfully well, making it very easy to just whip out and photograph something cool on short notice. You even have a selfie mode to mess around with, although this doesn’t record the species in your journal, and is more or less for goofing around.

Exploring the island is fairly casual, since you only have the ability to move around, photograph, and whistle, which can be used to mess with the wildlife and get them to react in specific ways, which can also be jotted down in the journal. Each of the three biomes have their own objectives to clear, and they consist mostly of documenting every species, along with a few rare behaviors. The game is pretty linear, and the few times I got stuck on a simple puzzle I was able to eventually get past it, making Maravilla pretty chill to play through.

I managed to clear every last objective in around 4 hours or so, which is pretty darn short, and even if you do miss something you unlock a chapter select to make revisiting an earlier biome way easier than replaying the game from the start, so Maravilla really doesn’t have much at all when it comes to replay value. Yet I just couldn’t stop enjoying my time with the game, as each biome is memorable and has their own unique species associated with them, and the gorgeous visuals really do make the island stand out.

The photography system controls well too, giving me good memories of my time completing every last pictobox task in Wind Waker, and I didn’t have any troubles getting a photo of anything that caught my eye.

Conclusion

Maravilla Island is a game I really, truly regret sleeping on. While I do think it’s great that I was able to come back to it with a proper 4K setup to appreciate every lovely detail and the chill vibe of the game, I definitely feel that this game is great enough that it would still be a fun time even if you don’t have such a setup, and for fans of obtaining every last creature in Pokemon Snap or Breath of the Wild, you’ll definitely get the same sort of satisfaction out of this cute gem.

The game may be rather short and easy to 100% complete, but I really don’t consider that a bad thing in the slightest. The quality of the content, the gorgeous visuals, the smooth controls and the great vibe all come together to make a memorable showpiece for my new display, and as one of the last overdue games in my Xbox Series queue, this was a great gem to catch up on, and might just be one of the best cozy games that I’ve ever played.

In the end, if you need a calming experience, then Maravilla does a great job at providing one. Photographing to grow beanstalks has never been so much fun!

I give Beasts of Maravilla Island an 8 out of 10.