Moonstone Island

While I 100% recommend this game as I've had fun with it, this may come across as a bit of a mixed review as while there's plenty of pros, there's quite a few cons that I feel should be considered before buying.
On the positive side, I've really loved spending time exploring in this, collecting all the different crops and seeds, hunting for the psychic storms and most of all, finding and capturing all the different creatures. I especially love that while the creatures have different levelling, other than maybe dark and psychic, none are particularly better than the others; so which ever ones you think are the cutest, you can stick with them and level up.
I was very surprised at how well I got on with the deck/card combat system. I have never played a game with this before, bar maybe one or two free mobile games, so while I have no knowledge to compare the system to, I think it shows how accessible this game is for all audiences given how easy they made this mechanic for a total newbie to pick up.
Overall, the collecting, exploring, the combat and the small amount of farming contains plenty of hours of fun.
My negatives so far are being forty hours in and not feeling much more motivation to continue. Most games with a simulation, farming, social element are games you can get many, many more hours out of where as it feels like in this time, i definitely could have done everything. I'm also not even done with the first in game year yet and normally, that's barely the surface.
So far I have managed to discover all plant and seed types, collect all spirit types, explore the entire map, visited all the islands along with having absolutely no trouble with the combat on the most difficult ones. I found the progress didn't feel particularly gradual either, i went from having a set of creatures all in the level 20's, to immediately a full set of dark/psychic creatures in the 60/70's, easily evolving them and causing some of the most challenging areas of the game to go from very difficult to quite easy - I'm unsure if scaling becomes a thing later but so far, it doesn't seem like it.
I still have to work my way through most of the dungeons to collect the 'seals' and 'shards' but so far it seems like collecting these things doesn't actually benefit your character in any way or even effect anything? I'm hoping to find the motivation to actually bother with the dungeons, but currently, I don't see much point.
My only other negative is the town and villagers. It feels quite empty and the villagers feel very hollow and devoid of life, almost like they had nothing going on until the player character came along - there's no couples, no parents, just a bunch of single shopkeepers yet the town is old enough to have a historian? The dialogue doesn't always make sense either, especially not at first - they'll comment on how great you are at cooking or growing plants meanwhile I had cooked one dish and grown like three plants at most. I also find the dialogue feels a little repetitious and the npcs seem to have no story or development - other than go get me this to improve our friendship but it wont really effect what i say.
I will say the quests given to you by the villagers are fun, collecting the specified spirits, seeds, fishing and completing the cooking quests have all been very enjoyable. They aren't timed, they aren't annoying fetch quests, instead they give you something to figure out and have fun with. The levelling system for friendship itself is also one of the most enjoyable I've found in a game with this mechanic as you can actually level it up just through completing quests and events. You can still give gifts, but it doesn't turn into a exhaustive grind like it to often can be.
This is definitely a game with pro's and con's, I would love to see a little more depth to it. But the price is reasonable for what you get, and there's plenty of enjoyment to be had with it, so I would still recommend it.

I wasn't sure I was going to like this when I saw it has a card based battle system, as I am not a fan of card games despite the fact that if I focus enough, I can be decently good at them. BUT, as it turns out, the card system is simple enough for my lazy brain to focus on and crank out some pretty good strategies in battle.
I'm nowhere near completing the game yet; there are still a ton of "spirits" I haven't tamed yet, and several Temples that I haven't completed.
And there's an evolution update coming soon that I'm super stoked about, but I wanted to give my thoughts before that comes out, just to show that this game is pretty enjoyable even before that update.
One of the ONLY CONS I have with this game has to be that NPCs don't show up on the map, so I have to run around trying to find them. The town is small, so it's not a terribly big deal, but if I had to pick something to complain about, that's all I have.

This is a really great fusion of Stardew Valley, Pokemon, and something like Baten Kaitos. It doesn't do anything incredibly, but it does everything competently, and it turns out the three games play really well together. Super fun and engaging.

I’ve played about 50 hours and I’m kinda addicted. The game feels like a cozy mix of Pokémon and Stardew Valley - you catch spirits, explore, and the characters are super fun to get to know. Decorating your home is AMAZING (you can go all out), and I just wish there were more ways to customize my character - like new hair colors or outfits, so they feel more like me.

My only complaint is that the days fly by way too fast, so I’m always rushing home before bedtime. But honestly? Even with that, I keep telling myself “just one more day" and suddenly hours have passed. Highly recommend if you love cozy games with adventure sprinkled in! :)

I will preface this by saying that when I first played the game, i put it down after a few hours. I probably went in with expectations about a Stardew Valley game with creature-collecting. But this isn't exactly that. You have a lot of freedom and you do have to have your own goals, while Stardew does guide you around for a while (like the Community Center).
When I gave it a second try, I went in with no expectations, taking things chill and slow. Made my own goals, started with exploring as much as possible and getting as many monsters as possible. And I had a much better experience and I was able to finish the story of the game and get all creatures.
The characters weren't that memorable to me, but I did like that you can romance a certain someone that was a bit more special in my eyes. Planting is there mostly for creating potions to help you catch monsters. Exploration is pretty fun after unlocking stuff to make it easier.
The deck-building is good and there are many options to create your own playstyle. There really isn't a "meta" here because of the way you can organize and change your deck depending on your party choice.
Overall a good creature-collecting game (that also added evolutions) with some farming mechanics and a little bit of villager interactions.

I have seen so many people say this, I really wish there was a "meh" rating, or "it's ok" not just GOOD or BAD. Because this game is alright. I wouldn't just say "YES BUY IT NOW!" The way I would with other games similar to this. A lot of people seem to LOVE it, but it is "meh" to me. It is so repetitive. The "friendship" system is BAD, imo. It is % chance based. You get 3 chances per day to talk to a person in the town, and if you fail, you lose friendship points. WHAT? And you don't even actually "talk" to the people. It just shows
you a menu with 3 options, each listing their % chance to succeed. "Talk - 50%. Joke - 30%. Flirt - 10%."
I am not even going to bother with it anymore.
The monster battles are card battles, but they are so boring. And your mons get such a small amount of xp for every battle. It feels like you're not progressing sometimes. And the cards you get are not always good. You can choose a power up to remove a card or upgrade a card, but these "power ups" are scarce. I like the other things about the game - exploration, decorating and items, the art, the music. However, with the crafting system, the most valuable item is moonstone. This item is SO RARE. I don't expect it to be plentiful, because there are some end game things that we shouldn't have until end game. But then why require early game items and mid game items to have MULTIPLE moonstone bars?? A moonstone bar needs 3 moonstones. Which, again, are very rare. So, I do LIKE this game. But i have these issues with it. To be honest, I am not sure how much longer I can play because of how boring and repetitive the battles are. It's killing me. (My play tame says over 60 hours, but I have accidentally fallen asleep at night while the game was running multiple times, and also paused the game to walk away and do things, forgetting i have the game open. So my actual in game time is probably about 15 hours. So I have yet to experience late game, but idk if I can hang on that long.) Bottom line, it's "ok" but kind of a slog in the battle-mon system.

I love this game so much. I beat it on the Switch, and still decided to buy the steam version and do a replay because it's so great. It's basically a cross between Pokemon and Animal Crossing, and I'm a big fan. The devs also keep updating things and adding new features (for free!) that keeps me coming back for more.

Pros:
-Battle is beginner-friendly. I don't do a lot of "combat" type games, so this is perfect for me.
-It's a deck-builder, which is super fun
-Clear task list that helps you learn the game features
-The "dating" aspect is fun
-You can decorate as much or as little as you want
-Collecting all the creatures is SO FUN, they're so cute!! And I love that you can collect the sparkly versions of them, too.
-Super cozy game - there's not a lot of stress. Even if you don't do things the most efficient way possible, it's not the end of the world. Very forgiving.

Cons:
-You are forced to sleep every night. It kinda hinders whatever task I'm hyperfixating on.
-I wish you could teleport/travel easier once you beat the game
-I'd love to be able to gain the ability to go directly to the date location at the right time (could be a creature evolution ability maybe?). I often miss the reminder and end up missing dates a lot accidentally.

I'll support this dev team through hell and high water at this point haha. Love the game!!