This is an excellently made puzzle, 3d platformer that has elements of a cozy game where there is no combat or dying. A great "my first 3d platformer" contender but also just a relaxing playthrough, I really enjoyed it and wish there was more of it!

You play as a mouse who, for no reason at all, wants to help humanity. You show up trying to return a woman's' scarf that has blown away and this leads you to meeting up with this weird, annoying little electrical half god guy who bestows upon you some electrical powers. He sends you out to not only help people but to return to him with the positivity (heart thingies) to prove it and send him back into the sky. So off you go to do your good deeds.

As a mouse, this is a lot to ask because you will have to climb all kinds of huge areas in town to reach your goals. The verticality of this game is awesome and controlling the mouse feels really good! Climbing and maneuvering around the outside of a building to reach the roof is a common occurrence in this game.

As mentioned, the game is a 3d puzzle platformer and much of the gameplay depends a lot on environment puzzles. However, believe it or not, you can not jump!

Some players might get irritated that you can't jump in the game and since you play as a mouse, it does seem odd. However, I completely understand why they went with no jumping, because it would ruin most of the puzzles in the game where you need to line yourself up to fall in certain areas to collect a thing or speak to someone.

While I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game, there are a couple things that I am docking the game for and the first is length.

Depending on how much of a completionist you are, it may only take you a couple hours to finish the game. It only took me 5 hours to 100% the game, so I was a little let down because I was enjoying myself so much that I wanted at least another part of the town to do quests in.

I'm also docking it for the annoying main character, the electrical god guy, because his voice was very annoying and his design didn't mesh with the world at all. The other little underlings of his that you meet throughout the world didn't bother me as much, but they also felt strange in this world. It was like the developers were trying to cram Studio Ghibli characters in where they don't belong.

Lastly, I'm not docking the game for this one, but I felt like the issues you were helping people with were VERY light. Like one character, their main issue was their show was starting soon and the tv won't work. It's all very first world. I don't have a huge issue with that but to me it comes off as saccharin at times. The game however is about positivity and treating each other better, so I get it and its why I said it makes a great "my first 3d platformer" game.

However in most other aspects of the game, you can tell there was so much love put into this game and I loved playing it. Really hoping for a sequel of some kind because I would love more.

Sights & Sounds
- The art direction is fairly strong, but the execution leaves something to be desired. The town of Saint-et-Claire is scenic and the characters are charming, but it's a little hard to overlook some sloppiness in the geometry. The very first intro scene zooms way in on the mouse and shows how his fur is an overlapping mess of polygons. You can see similar clipping on other character models as well as the environment geometry
- The music is a really nice accompaniment to the gameplay, and I can't find much to complain about. The overall tone of the game is relaxed and cozy, and the various solo and accompanied piano tracks hit all the right notes (pun unashamedly intended)

Story & Vibes
- The plot in brief: You're a little street mouse wandering through the little (French? French-Canadian?) town of Sainte-et-Claire. Looking through the windows you pass, you notice that everyone seems pretty unhappy with their lot in life. A twist of fate sees you obtaining powerful abilities that help you eventually make the world just a little bit better
- The take-home message of "even if you don't feel like much, you can still help" is a well-worn trope, but the reminder is still nice every now and then
- As mentioned before, this is an extremely cozy game. Don't expect much stress, frustration, or challenges that can't be overcome through simple perseverence

Playability & Replayability
- As far as puzzle platformers go, The Spirit & the Mouse isn't breaking any new ground. You run and climb your way through the small open world and complete the tasks given to you by the spirits you encounter throughout the game, occasionally solving a puzzle. Neither the puzzles nor the platforming challenges will give the average player much difficulty. Notice how I said "climb", not "jump"? That has a lot to do with the lack of challenge
- In a way, it's a lot like Stray, but not nearly as interesting
- There is a shop for unlocking maps (handy until you learn the lay of the land) and various abilities (only one of which is necessary for progression). You buy them using the small sparks you can find hidden around the levels. These respawn each time you leave and re-enter an area, so getting the funds necessary to buy everything won't take you a terribly long time
- I suppose I could go back for the achievements I missed, but there's not much here that I'm eager to get back to. The ones I missed also pertained to grindy elements of the game (finding lightbulb collectibles, finding an arbitrary amount of sparks in each area, etc.), so those aren't really motivating either

Overall Impressions & Performance
- As much as I love a good puzzle platformer, The Spirit & the mouse doesn't really do much to challenge or impress the player. None of the puzzles are particularly clever, nor is any of the platforming very tricky
- It ran well on the Steam Deck

Final Verdict
- 5.5/10. I wouldn't call it a bad game, but I would suggest waiting for a sale even if the coziness is sufficient to reel you in. It doesn't have much going for it besides its cuteness, and the base price is a little steep for a 5-7 hour playthrough

I love a nice, relaxing game to curl up in bed with, and in that respect The Spirit and the Mouse was delightful. It's a low-stakes adventure about kindness and exploration with plenty of collectibles to find and some lovely environments to explore. I did find that the game tended towards over-wordiness and that it suffered from overly explanatory NPCs, with its unskippable scenes that would play each time I'd finished a "quest," but it didn't get too much in the way of the relaxed nature of this game.