In Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island you play Alex, a fit young woman travelling to Ambrosia Island on a small boat named the "Argo II" owned by a man known simply as "The Captain". She's looking for a change to her humdrum life and a bit of adventure, and soon finds it as a storm develops and wrecks the boat she's travelling on! Washed ashore, there are signs of the wrecked Argo II, but no sign of the Captain.
Right from the off I was rather surprised to see that the game is played via a flick-screen system, with a brief black screen between transitions. This seems like an old-fashioned solution, particularly on the Xbox Series X/S in 2025. While the graphics are pleasant on the eye, they're hardly "cutting edge" and low detail so this way of following Alex's movement seems archaic, and the way the camera changes directional orientation can also be a bit confusing.
Cutscenes involving conversations are handled with animations, a few vocal expressions (mainly "hmms", "haas," grunts and groans), with hardly any actual speech and closed captions. All you have to do is advance the conversation by pressing 'A'. Sometimes you'll be able to ask an NPC multiple questions, and this might help you figure out what to do next or solve a puzzle.
Conversing with the locals will make them become more friendly, and doing favours for them earns "Friend Points" which improve your friendship level, which will unlock further items and delivery jobs. Once you reach a high enough Friend Level you can also trade Ambrosia Fruit (which is found growing around the island) for various items.
Ora (short for Oracle) is an all-knowing statue that helps Alex find her way around, and it turns out that the locals are, in fact, a rather weird imagining of several Greek gods, who, for some unknown reason, have all lost their memories. Finding momentos from their pasts will help them regain their memories and restore their relationships.
While trying to help the locals Alex can use benches dotted around the island to rest (save the game) or pass time. Passing time is important because the sparse local population have their personal routines and will only be available at certain times of the day.
There are various collectable items, various playable tunes on audio cassettes (do kids even know what they are?), messages in bottles and pin badges that denote achievements.
There's nothing much wrong with the game apart from some lengthy, prompt-requiring, unskippable and frequently pointless conversations with the NPCs and the previously mentioned flick-screen format, which, apart from feeling archaic, can be disorientating. Fortunately the map and "To Do" list will always point you in the right direction.
Although it's a pleasant, easy-to-play game, the big problem with Mythwrecked is that the search 'em up, RPG-lite gameplay never really evolves and it boils down to a lengthy series of fetch & carry missions. These all entail finding things for certain NPCs and then returning to them to get a reward that will advance the game in some way. I'm also not sure what the target audience is, the gameplay is so basic and the puzzles so simple to solve that I imagined it's aimed at kids, but some of the dialog definitely isn't. Mythwrecked is a bit of an oddity, but not a bad game, and it's easy, 'chill' gameplay and atmosphere may be just what you're looking for.
Many thanks to White Thorn Games for the review code.