I’m sorry, Spiritfarer. I never really gave you enough of a fighting chance, and you came back right when I needed you again. Consider this review my apology.
After playing through That Dragon, Cancer this summer, I realized that I wasn’t being fair to this genre of “games for impact.” We don’t all play games for the same reason. Sure, plenty of games market themselves as straight entertainment, played for pleasure and excitement. But there are games that aim to not necessarily be fun, but rather be compelling. Games that seek to provoke a wide range of emotions and questions rather than just provide means to an end.
Spiritfarer was one such title that I admit I originally approached with the wrong mindset. It did not do me any favors to rush through in order to complete the game on my limited PC Game Pass, or to try and move onto the next title on my growing backlog, because this is a game both about taking your time while making the most of every moment possible. I also found myself stymied by the supposedly “shallow” gameplay loop while also complaining about its excessive runtime. That’s why upon my second playthrough of Spiritfarer, finally buying my own copy on Steam, I found myself constantly surprised and overwhelmed that all of these preconceptions turned out to be wrong. It all starts by properly contextualizing Spiritfarer’s appeal and purpose.
Just like That Dragon, Cancer, Spiritfarer grapples with the omnipresence of death differently. Death may be a game mechanic, but it is not a punishment; rather, it is the final destination. Heavily inspired by Spirited Away’s hotel for spirits, Spiritfarer tackles one important question; what if we didn’t fear death as much? As part of the Death Positivity movement, the game encourages its players to think of death as more than just a mechanism or taboo subject, and to have healthy and open conversations as to speak more freely regarding all the consequences and feelings surrounding it. To better handle its subject matter, Thunder Lotus focuses the gameplay loop on preparing you to care for souls at the end of their lives as well as the various processes associated with the cycle of grief.
As the newly dubbed Spiritfarer, the player character as Stella must find lone spirits scattered across the vast seas, and handle their final requests. These requests can range from a variety of fetch quests, to constructing little homes and decorations for them, to feeding them their favorite meals and handling their last regrets and affairs with other characters. As a backbone for this request structure, Stella must construct other various facilities and travel to other locales to gather resources and both upgrade the ship and gain new abilities to access new events. Once these last requests have been fulfilled, the spirit will ask to be taken away to the Everdoor, and pass on to the afterlife.
One particular complaint kept popping up in the back of my mind as I fulfilled my duties. A year ago, a close friend and I had a discussion regarding Spiritfarer, when he complained that Spiritfarer didn’t feel cozy at all. If anything, he felt pressured and constantly anxious that there was always something more to do. There were new crops to tend to, or more ore to smelt, or more fish to find and more dishes to cook, and so on so forth. I certainly related to his dilemma; in fact, during quiescent nights where I had the option to go to sleep to start a new day, I often found myself cleaning up my remaining tasks and frantically checking my stockpiles to see if anything else had to be worked on. I simply could not afford to lose time; if daytime was the only acceptable time to travel in order to explore new islands, then even my nighttime had to be optimized to fulfill my obligations and stay “on schedule.”
It was then that I realized, that there was a method to Spiritfarer’s madness. This constant state of scrambling and juggling tasks to keep everyone happy that had made me feel so uncomfortable… was the same exact state experienced by those in palliative care. Moreover, those were the same feelings that my family went through when taking care of my grandmother and grandfather on my mother’s side during their last years. They were often fickle with exactly what had to be done; sometimes, I didn’t know if they even knew what they really wanted. We often left my grandma’s apartment with this sense of restlessness that kept us up at night, unsure if there was even anything left we could do to ease their final moments. It was this delicate but never-ending push and pull that we had become so accustomed to, that I had almost forgotten the sensation after my grandma left us in March 2020. I can sincerely say that no other video game I have ever played has forced me to reconfront my feelings and memories from back then… and I can’t help but respect Thunder Lotus for the audacity to not only address it, but also impart those feelings so effectively through gameplay as an compelling example of player perspective.
To Spiritfarer’s credit, I later came to understand that this sense of coziness is not lost at all, because there are plenty of surrounding elements that alleviate this heaviness. The art style, as well as the color palette, are key factors; the graphics are heavily influenced by the Japanese woodblock painter Hiroshi Yoshida, which the lead artist stated as “bringing [her] serenity.” That tranquility and desire to explore the landscape was a key motivation behind the lush and vibrant environments of Spiritfarer, combined with the use of soft pastels and a lack of the color “black;” darkness is instead communicated through softer alternatives such as dark reds, blues, and greys. It’s not without its use of contrast either (see: Bruce and Mickey’s “McMansion” of clashing red and white), which both allows the game to express more clearly express character personalities while providing the opportunity to allow for the player to experience “negative feelings” such as sadness in a softer environment. Finally, Spiritfarer’s fluid hand-drawn animation also breathes life into its many characters while promoting mobility through Spiritfarer’s expressive gameplay.
Spiritfarer also shows further care in establishing mood and ambience as to gently tuck players into an emotional experience outside of the art style. Firstly, Max LL’s accompanying soundtrack appropriately imparts moods without the need for excessive flair and gusto. Simple piano, string, and flute melodies provide ambient backdrops in tunes such as At Sea or At Night. More exotic instruments play important parts in tracks such as Furogawa to convey curiosity, or more upbeat pieces such as Hummingberg excite players into romping around the island to soak in the sights. Then, you’ve got your frenetic tunes such as Freeing the Dragon and Pulsar Pursuit to spur the player into action and snag as many timed collectibles as possible to assuage the spirits’ wants and fears. Finally, epics such as Last Voyage convey emotional upwellings through volume swells while establishing a sensation of finality to bring journeys to a close. Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a more fitting soundtrack to instill a sense of adventure for Spiritfarer while appropriately illustrating more thoughtful moods along the way.
Secondly, while many post-death games are often filled with hostile and frightening creatures, Spiritfarer instead chooses to surround the player with friendly and welcoming personalities. Of course, there’s the spirits themselves; while some spirits can initially come off as aloof or even acerbic and uncompromising at times, you soon get to learn more about their backstories and interests that allow you to warm up and celebrate with them. Around the vast expanses of Spiritfarer are also many sea creatures and island inhabitants that are sincerely interested in you, with many going out of their way to help you in your role of caring for your friends. There’s also a lot of silly “dumb” jokes and melancholy humor across many of these characters to poke light fun at the world they live in and the situations that Stella finds herself in, all while providing a welcome distraction when juxtaposed with the emotional subject matter of the game itself.
Further adding to this coziness is the lack of a permanent “fail-state” within Spiritfarer. There’s no way to reach a “game-over” screen or enter a state where the player is directly punished for errors. For example, mining requires a specific timing of holding down and releasing the X button, but holding for too long doesn’t lead to negative consequences such as losing resources or health. Rather, you receive a cutely animated sequence where Stella accidentally drops her pickaxe and glances back at what happens, before she picks up the pickaxe again with a smile on her face. It’s like the game is gently encouraging you to try again; sure, you didn’t play optimally and messed up your timing, but it’s okay, for you can always give it another go. Vice versa, you’re also rewarded for playing well due to the ability to save time from optional animations and the potential to gain additional resources (i.e. cutting planks strictly by the lines gets you double the amount of planks you would have gained otherwise), but failure in these cases is not so much a permanent setback, but rather a delayed success.
Similarly, this “feeling” of failure translates to the spirits themselves. If the spirits aren’t fed properly, they will complain to Stella and have lowered mood. Again, this isn’t a permanent setback, because this mood can be risen by feeding them their favorite dishes and hugging them. Of course, there are visible consequences here to playing “well;” happy and ecstatic characters will often aid Stella by playing music to make other characters happier as well, or participate in the ship’s tasks by giving you valuable resources (raw ingredients, ingots, dishes, luxury sellables, etc). Most importantly though, these characters feel alive, both because of their written design/stories (often heavily based off the development team’s friends and families, resulting in a lot of personal investment) and because the gameplay loop of performing their last rites and caring for them creates attachment; you get to learn their histories a bit better based off the stories they tell you as they request specific chores that reflect upon their quirks and personalities.
As a result, I found Spiritfarer’s gameplay loop engaging due to its great emotional investment; not only does it give you just enough time to grow attached to spirits before sending them off, it also emulates aspects of grieving extremely well in a video game setting. For example, as characters finally depart for the Everdoor, all other characters on the ship will gather around the departing rowboat to say their farewells, similar to how friends and family surround loved ones on their deathbeds. Another example of this occurs during scripted resource gathering events scattered across the map; you would typically need to speak to a specific spirit to begin the event, but once that character has departed, Stella must instead start the event from the departed spirit’s door. This connection, as well as the inability to remove the deceased spirit’s former house (now analogous to that of a tombstone), constantly reminds the player of the experiences and memories of those who have moved on, and emulates the process of revisiting final resting places or old ramblings of deceased loved ones. Thus, Spiritfarer thoughtfully embeds traces of former spirits to instill both metaphorical meaning and surface meaning that their lives will forever remain with you. By constantly exposing the player to so many different spirits and their transitory stays, Thunder Lotus is able to properly guide players to express these healthy mechanisms that come with loss.
As a related aside, Spiritfarer, similarly to That Dragon, Cancer, utilizes the medium’s ability to capture specific instances to allow players to properly adjust for events in-game. We’ve already talked about the game’s leniency with regards to its fail-states, since every “negative” externality can be quickly superseded with the proper actions; as a result, there are no lasting consequences to playing at your own pace and no real “wrong” choices to be made. However, Spiritfarer also creates opportunities to let the player soak in emotionally-heavy moments without the passage of time interfering, such as the Everdoor scenes. Here, the player can reflect in this frozen moment in ludic space and take all the time they need to absorb the reality of the situation. But as with That Dragon, Cancer, the player must eventually progress and move on, just like real life.
My prior emphasis upon this emotional attachment to characters through the busying gameplay loop might imply that the game itself is mechanically lacking… but I honestly don’t believe that's true. Spiritfarer controls extremely well, especially for a game where the emphasis isn’t necessarily precision platforming. By the end of the game, you’ve got expanded abilities to double jump, mid-air dash, float, and cling to ziplines to quickly zoom up and down and build up momentum. These movement options are further aided by the everchanging landscape of the ship itself, which naturally evolves over time, both from a want to create more aesthetically pleasing or simple to navigate structures, and from a need to construct additional facilities for resource gathering/housing spirits. Furthermore, this structure serves an important purpose, not just as a playground where Stella can bounce and run around, but also as the main stage where resource gather events at sea take place, and Stella must quickly move around the ship to snatch as many collectibles as possible before time runs out. Finally, traversing the expanding ship can be aided by constructing optional devices such as bouncy umbrellas or air-draft machines, should raw jumping on top of houses not suffice enough for clean movement. As such, these movement mechanics and design opportunities provide welcome outlets for creative expression and player agency, which contrasts nicely with the lack of control that often comes attached to games about death.
Finally, there’s a real sense of progression to be found in Spiritfarer, when compared to other “artistic” and emotional indie titles such as Sea of Solitude. As mentioned prior, the ability to unlock new movement options by visiting shrines help keep the player advancing to the next stage, whether it be a signified by an out-of-reach chest or a traversable element such as an air current that you don’t have the movement tech to exploit. Moreover, these upgrades require obols (which are usually given to the player when new spirits come aboard), just as the ship upgrades that allow you to travel to new areas require Spirit Flowers that are left behind from a spirit’s passing. As a result, the personal investment from meeting and saying good-bye to spirits is matched by the extrinsic investment gained from interacting with the spirits, resulting in a powerful marrying of storytelling and gameplay mechanics. By progressing the story, the player is in turn rewarded with new areas, abilities, and accessories to create further opportunities of discovery and novelty.
That said, there are a few other nitpicks regarding certain aspects of Spiritfarer’s design, such as moments of less focused dialogue writing. Spirits will often run out of things to say, and that might limit interaction on the ships outside of jobs to scant bumps where they tell you they’re hungry, especially when you’re super busy micromanaging other tasks. This honestly doesn’t bother me as much as before (since we as humans will inevitably run out of interesting things to say); however, it is a bit more annoying speaking with non-spirit NPCs and either getting “trapped” in several lines where I had to mash X to move on, or being confronted with terse and meaningless scripts where the NPC would continually parrot some variation of “Hello. Leave me alone now.” This wouldn’t be as problematic if I didn’t feel the need to speak with every generic NPC to try and fulfill the requirement, since the “correct” NPC is not marked.
While I did find the gameplay loop much more palatable upon my second playthrough, I do agree that it’s easy to feel as if there’s a bit of padding near the end of the game as well. By this time, most of the spirits have departed your ship, and it’ll probably be down to Stella and a few remaining hardy spirits to pick up the pieces. It can definitely feel a bit lonely and out of place having to finish the remainder of Stella’s backstory with little spirit interaction in the last few hours. To its credit, Spiritfarer remedies this somewhat by finally allowing you to travel at night to quickly sweep up the story if you so desire, and with most bus stations unlocked and most speed upgrades having been fulfilled at this point, it’s not too arduous of a task. I do wish that there was a way to speed up time in Spiritfarer’s endgame though, since the backstory can only really be accomplished at night. As mentioned prior, you can fall asleep to skip nighttime and proceed with daytime events, so it is a little ironic that Spiritfarer’s endgame suffers from the exact opposite problem of running out of things to do in the day and lacking an analogous mechanism to get right back to the story at night.
I’m willing to look past these minor issues and more though, because ultimately those shortcomings end up making the game feel more human somehow. I tend to be a completionist at heart, wanting to 100% every experience and see everything there is to see. But I had to throw away that mentality and go against all my previous instincts, because Spiritfarer is a game about brevity.
While in the video game space, the developers have provided enough opportunities to artificially extent deadlines when so desired, it is Spiritfarer’s impermanence that makes its experiences so fruitful. I didn’t have enough time to learn every single detail about all the spirits, nor am I sure that the spirits were necessarily prepared to spill their entire life story in a single sitting to someone whom they had just met. Similarly, this experience’s meaning would be greatly diminished if you just let it stretch on to infinity and beyond. You most likely won’t have the time to finish every single task or close every loop… and that’s okay too.
Ultimately, while it can feel off-putting to some that characters can seem inscrutable to some degree (which may urge players to seek additional details on a wiki or in the Spiritfarer Artbook), I found myself content with what I knew. The condensed experiences that I had with these characters more than moved me upon my journey, and in fact put me in a headspace where I constantly found myself translating these experiences to my real life. Atul made me wonder if I really got to know my deceased relatives and friends well enough. Gustav left me contemplative regarding humanity’s eternal struggle with meaning. Stanley left my heart broken that innocence, while powerful, was just as fleeting as life itself. And Alice’s story left me speechless and frightened, because I saw signs of my grandmother within her.
That was, until Christmas night, when my dad received the call that my grandma on my father’s side had suffered a stroke. How bitterly ironic that the exact moment as I finished my second playthrough, my grandmother was left in a coma and I’d be forced to recontextualize my experiences once again. I knew that playing Spiritfarer would prepare me for this… but I wasn’t prepared for it to be this soon.
Had these lessons imparted upon me not meant anything? Sure, Spiritfarer is a game about dying… but it is also a game about living with death. Honor those who have moved on, so that you make the most of every moment with those who are still here. I hadn’t gotten the chance to see my grandma since a family vacation right before the 2020 outbreak, and I was hoping that someday, I’d get the chance to make it up to her. Now, I might not even get that chance. What could I even do at this point? Was my best not good enough anymore? Was my time spent all for naught?
I don’t really know. I spent a couple of days agonizing over my inability, my words feeling empty and my actions feeling directionless. I’m still waiting, because at this point, that’s all I have left.
But I’d like to think that my time wasn’t wasted. I don’t wish to make the same mistakes again… even if it might be too late this time. I think a game that’s willing to be as boldly emotionally vulnerable as Spiritfarer, despite all its potential pacing and mechanical issues, is something that has to be shared and treasured regardless of consequences. We can’t let trivial issues stop us from discussing that which is feared to be discussed, because we don’t have all the time in the world to pretend that everything’s okay. We wouldn’t improve if we never erred, and even if some missteps can’t be taken back… at least we can try to stop others from following our paths by connecting and sharing stories, right?
I can’t deny that Spiritfarer might not have hit me as hard the second time had these unfortunate events not occurred almost immediately after finishing. But I also can’t deny that Spiritfarer’s narrative power is the reason why I will always associate this game with everything that’s happened, nor can I think of any game that would have better prepared me for this moment and left such an impact upon me than Spiritfarer. Regardless of any gripes I may have had, this game is now a part of me, and I’m honestly not sure if I would change anything that I had experienced, lest I somehow forget about everything I strove to become moving forward.
So, let me leave you with these final thoughts of what I learned from Spiritfarer.
Grief is not a wave; it is an ocean. Every time you glance at it from a distance, you think you’ll be ready, but then it hits you, and you’re still swept away. As it washes over you, you start to wonder what it’s like to drown. Just to linger in that space a little longer, to try and lose yourself again in that gap in time where there was, before there wasn’t.
But there is nothing deep about drowning. Ultimately, we must carry on, for just as life has no meaning without death, those who pass on have no meaning without those who remain. Your ship will keep getting rocked by tide after tide, storm after storm, and you still might not be ready by the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or however many waves hit you over and over. Nevertheless, you learn to navigate the waters a little better each time. There’s nothing wrong with getting seasick, but that doesn’t mean you have to drown.
Love is watching someone die. But love is so much more than that too. Love is a balancing act between letting others in and watching them leave. Love is living every day like it’s your last, but realizing it’s okay to forget about life too. Love is learning to accept everything about us: the pleasures, the turmoil, the fallacies, all of it. Love is preparing for the inevitable while savoring the ephemeral.
Love… is letting go.
Sources referenced:
Representation of Death in Independent Videogames: Providing a Space for Meaningful Death Reflection
Spiritfarer And Death Positivity
Corporate Intervention In Video Games
(also please see Fudj's separate review of Spiritfarer on this site, as I find that it effectively communicates many of its strengths and provided motivation to write this up)
Spiritfarer Explained: Letting Go Is Everything
Mindful Games: Spiritfarer
Spiritfarer Documentary: A Game About Dying
Healing Together on Discord: The Spiritfarer Community
Zero Punctuation: Spiritfarer
Spiritfarer's Art Book: Can be found here or purchased as part of Farewell Editions or separately on GOG/Steam.
After playing through That Dragon, Cancer this summer, I realized that I wasn’t being fair to this genre of “games for impact.” We don’t all play games for the same reason. Sure, plenty of games market themselves as straight entertainment, played for pleasure and excitement. But there are games that aim to not necessarily be fun, but rather be compelling. Games that seek to provoke a wide range of emotions and questions rather than just provide means to an end.
Spiritfarer was one such title that I admit I originally approached with the wrong mindset. It did not do me any favors to rush through in order to complete the game on my limited PC Game Pass, or to try and move onto the next title on my growing backlog, because this is a game both about taking your time while making the most of every moment possible. I also found myself stymied by the supposedly “shallow” gameplay loop while also complaining about its excessive runtime. That’s why upon my second playthrough of Spiritfarer, finally buying my own copy on Steam, I found myself constantly surprised and overwhelmed that all of these preconceptions turned out to be wrong. It all starts by properly contextualizing Spiritfarer’s appeal and purpose.
Just like That Dragon, Cancer, Spiritfarer grapples with the omnipresence of death differently. Death may be a game mechanic, but it is not a punishment; rather, it is the final destination. Heavily inspired by Spirited Away’s hotel for spirits, Spiritfarer tackles one important question; what if we didn’t fear death as much? As part of the Death Positivity movement, the game encourages its players to think of death as more than just a mechanism or taboo subject, and to have healthy and open conversations as to speak more freely regarding all the consequences and feelings surrounding it. To better handle its subject matter, Thunder Lotus focuses the gameplay loop on preparing you to care for souls at the end of their lives as well as the various processes associated with the cycle of grief.
As the newly dubbed Spiritfarer, the player character as Stella must find lone spirits scattered across the vast seas, and handle their final requests. These requests can range from a variety of fetch quests, to constructing little homes and decorations for them, to feeding them their favorite meals and handling their last regrets and affairs with other characters. As a backbone for this request structure, Stella must construct other various facilities and travel to other locales to gather resources and both upgrade the ship and gain new abilities to access new events. Once these last requests have been fulfilled, the spirit will ask to be taken away to the Everdoor, and pass on to the afterlife.
One particular complaint kept popping up in the back of my mind as I fulfilled my duties. A year ago, a close friend and I had a discussion regarding Spiritfarer, when he complained that Spiritfarer didn’t feel cozy at all. If anything, he felt pressured and constantly anxious that there was always something more to do. There were new crops to tend to, or more ore to smelt, or more fish to find and more dishes to cook, and so on so forth. I certainly related to his dilemma; in fact, during quiescent nights where I had the option to go to sleep to start a new day, I often found myself cleaning up my remaining tasks and frantically checking my stockpiles to see if anything else had to be worked on. I simply could not afford to lose time; if daytime was the only acceptable time to travel in order to explore new islands, then even my nighttime had to be optimized to fulfill my obligations and stay “on schedule.”
It was then that I realized, that there was a method to Spiritfarer’s madness. This constant state of scrambling and juggling tasks to keep everyone happy that had made me feel so uncomfortable… was the same exact state experienced by those in palliative care. Moreover, those were the same feelings that my family went through when taking care of my grandmother and grandfather on my mother’s side during their last years. They were often fickle with exactly what had to be done; sometimes, I didn’t know if they even knew what they really wanted. We often left my grandma’s apartment with this sense of restlessness that kept us up at night, unsure if there was even anything left we could do to ease their final moments. It was this delicate but never-ending push and pull that we had become so accustomed to, that I had almost forgotten the sensation after my grandma left us in March 2020. I can sincerely say that no other video game I have ever played has forced me to reconfront my feelings and memories from back then… and I can’t help but respect Thunder Lotus for the audacity to not only address it, but also impart those feelings so effectively through gameplay as an compelling example of player perspective.
To Spiritfarer’s credit, I later came to understand that this sense of coziness is not lost at all, because there are plenty of surrounding elements that alleviate this heaviness. The art style, as well as the color palette, are key factors; the graphics are heavily influenced by the Japanese woodblock painter Hiroshi Yoshida, which the lead artist stated as “bringing [her] serenity.” That tranquility and desire to explore the landscape was a key motivation behind the lush and vibrant environments of Spiritfarer, combined with the use of soft pastels and a lack of the color “black;” darkness is instead communicated through softer alternatives such as dark reds, blues, and greys. It’s not without its use of contrast either (see: Bruce and Mickey’s “McMansion” of clashing red and white), which both allows the game to express more clearly express character personalities while providing the opportunity to allow for the player to experience “negative feelings” such as sadness in a softer environment. Finally, Spiritfarer’s fluid hand-drawn animation also breathes life into its many characters while promoting mobility through Spiritfarer’s expressive gameplay.
Spiritfarer also shows further care in establishing mood and ambience as to gently tuck players into an emotional experience outside of the art style. Firstly, Max LL’s accompanying soundtrack appropriately imparts moods without the need for excessive flair and gusto. Simple piano, string, and flute melodies provide ambient backdrops in tunes such as At Sea or At Night. More exotic instruments play important parts in tracks such as Furogawa to convey curiosity, or more upbeat pieces such as Hummingberg excite players into romping around the island to soak in the sights. Then, you’ve got your frenetic tunes such as Freeing the Dragon and Pulsar Pursuit to spur the player into action and snag as many timed collectibles as possible to assuage the spirits’ wants and fears. Finally, epics such as Last Voyage convey emotional upwellings through volume swells while establishing a sensation of finality to bring journeys to a close. Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a more fitting soundtrack to instill a sense of adventure for Spiritfarer while appropriately illustrating more thoughtful moods along the way.
Secondly, while many post-death games are often filled with hostile and frightening creatures, Spiritfarer instead chooses to surround the player with friendly and welcoming personalities. Of course, there’s the spirits themselves; while some spirits can initially come off as aloof or even acerbic and uncompromising at times, you soon get to learn more about their backstories and interests that allow you to warm up and celebrate with them. Around the vast expanses of Spiritfarer are also many sea creatures and island inhabitants that are sincerely interested in you, with many going out of their way to help you in your role of caring for your friends. There’s also a lot of silly “dumb” jokes and melancholy humor across many of these characters to poke light fun at the world they live in and the situations that Stella finds herself in, all while providing a welcome distraction when juxtaposed with the emotional subject matter of the game itself.
Further adding to this coziness is the lack of a permanent “fail-state” within Spiritfarer. There’s no way to reach a “game-over” screen or enter a state where the player is directly punished for errors. For example, mining requires a specific timing of holding down and releasing the X button, but holding for too long doesn’t lead to negative consequences such as losing resources or health. Rather, you receive a cutely animated sequence where Stella accidentally drops her pickaxe and glances back at what happens, before she picks up the pickaxe again with a smile on her face. It’s like the game is gently encouraging you to try again; sure, you didn’t play optimally and messed up your timing, but it’s okay, for you can always give it another go. Vice versa, you’re also rewarded for playing well due to the ability to save time from optional animations and the potential to gain additional resources (i.e. cutting planks strictly by the lines gets you double the amount of planks you would have gained otherwise), but failure in these cases is not so much a permanent setback, but rather a delayed success.
Similarly, this “feeling” of failure translates to the spirits themselves. If the spirits aren’t fed properly, they will complain to Stella and have lowered mood. Again, this isn’t a permanent setback, because this mood can be risen by feeding them their favorite dishes and hugging them. Of course, there are visible consequences here to playing “well;” happy and ecstatic characters will often aid Stella by playing music to make other characters happier as well, or participate in the ship’s tasks by giving you valuable resources (raw ingredients, ingots, dishes, luxury sellables, etc). Most importantly though, these characters feel alive, both because of their written design/stories (often heavily based off the development team’s friends and families, resulting in a lot of personal investment) and because the gameplay loop of performing their last rites and caring for them creates attachment; you get to learn their histories a bit better based off the stories they tell you as they request specific chores that reflect upon their quirks and personalities.
As a result, I found Spiritfarer’s gameplay loop engaging due to its great emotional investment; not only does it give you just enough time to grow attached to spirits before sending them off, it also emulates aspects of grieving extremely well in a video game setting. For example, as characters finally depart for the Everdoor, all other characters on the ship will gather around the departing rowboat to say their farewells, similar to how friends and family surround loved ones on their deathbeds. Another example of this occurs during scripted resource gathering events scattered across the map; you would typically need to speak to a specific spirit to begin the event, but once that character has departed, Stella must instead start the event from the departed spirit’s door. This connection, as well as the inability to remove the deceased spirit’s former house (now analogous to that of a tombstone), constantly reminds the player of the experiences and memories of those who have moved on, and emulates the process of revisiting final resting places or old ramblings of deceased loved ones. Thus, Spiritfarer thoughtfully embeds traces of former spirits to instill both metaphorical meaning and surface meaning that their lives will forever remain with you. By constantly exposing the player to so many different spirits and their transitory stays, Thunder Lotus is able to properly guide players to express these healthy mechanisms that come with loss.
As a related aside, Spiritfarer, similarly to That Dragon, Cancer, utilizes the medium’s ability to capture specific instances to allow players to properly adjust for events in-game. We’ve already talked about the game’s leniency with regards to its fail-states, since every “negative” externality can be quickly superseded with the proper actions; as a result, there are no lasting consequences to playing at your own pace and no real “wrong” choices to be made. However, Spiritfarer also creates opportunities to let the player soak in emotionally-heavy moments without the passage of time interfering, such as the Everdoor scenes. Here, the player can reflect in this frozen moment in ludic space and take all the time they need to absorb the reality of the situation. But as with That Dragon, Cancer, the player must eventually progress and move on, just like real life.
My prior emphasis upon this emotional attachment to characters through the busying gameplay loop might imply that the game itself is mechanically lacking… but I honestly don’t believe that's true. Spiritfarer controls extremely well, especially for a game where the emphasis isn’t necessarily precision platforming. By the end of the game, you’ve got expanded abilities to double jump, mid-air dash, float, and cling to ziplines to quickly zoom up and down and build up momentum. These movement options are further aided by the everchanging landscape of the ship itself, which naturally evolves over time, both from a want to create more aesthetically pleasing or simple to navigate structures, and from a need to construct additional facilities for resource gathering/housing spirits. Furthermore, this structure serves an important purpose, not just as a playground where Stella can bounce and run around, but also as the main stage where resource gather events at sea take place, and Stella must quickly move around the ship to snatch as many collectibles as possible before time runs out. Finally, traversing the expanding ship can be aided by constructing optional devices such as bouncy umbrellas or air-draft machines, should raw jumping on top of houses not suffice enough for clean movement. As such, these movement mechanics and design opportunities provide welcome outlets for creative expression and player agency, which contrasts nicely with the lack of control that often comes attached to games about death.
Finally, there’s a real sense of progression to be found in Spiritfarer, when compared to other “artistic” and emotional indie titles such as Sea of Solitude. As mentioned prior, the ability to unlock new movement options by visiting shrines help keep the player advancing to the next stage, whether it be a signified by an out-of-reach chest or a traversable element such as an air current that you don’t have the movement tech to exploit. Moreover, these upgrades require obols (which are usually given to the player when new spirits come aboard), just as the ship upgrades that allow you to travel to new areas require Spirit Flowers that are left behind from a spirit’s passing. As a result, the personal investment from meeting and saying good-bye to spirits is matched by the extrinsic investment gained from interacting with the spirits, resulting in a powerful marrying of storytelling and gameplay mechanics. By progressing the story, the player is in turn rewarded with new areas, abilities, and accessories to create further opportunities of discovery and novelty.
That said, there are a few other nitpicks regarding certain aspects of Spiritfarer’s design, such as moments of less focused dialogue writing. Spirits will often run out of things to say, and that might limit interaction on the ships outside of jobs to scant bumps where they tell you they’re hungry, especially when you’re super busy micromanaging other tasks. This honestly doesn’t bother me as much as before (since we as humans will inevitably run out of interesting things to say); however, it is a bit more annoying speaking with non-spirit NPCs and either getting “trapped” in several lines where I had to mash X to move on, or being confronted with terse and meaningless scripts where the NPC would continually parrot some variation of “Hello. Leave me alone now.” This wouldn’t be as problematic if I didn’t feel the need to speak with every generic NPC to try and fulfill the requirement, since the “correct” NPC is not marked.
While I did find the gameplay loop much more palatable upon my second playthrough, I do agree that it’s easy to feel as if there’s a bit of padding near the end of the game as well. By this time, most of the spirits have departed your ship, and it’ll probably be down to Stella and a few remaining hardy spirits to pick up the pieces. It can definitely feel a bit lonely and out of place having to finish the remainder of Stella’s backstory with little spirit interaction in the last few hours. To its credit, Spiritfarer remedies this somewhat by finally allowing you to travel at night to quickly sweep up the story if you so desire, and with most bus stations unlocked and most speed upgrades having been fulfilled at this point, it’s not too arduous of a task. I do wish that there was a way to speed up time in Spiritfarer’s endgame though, since the backstory can only really be accomplished at night. As mentioned prior, you can fall asleep to skip nighttime and proceed with daytime events, so it is a little ironic that Spiritfarer’s endgame suffers from the exact opposite problem of running out of things to do in the day and lacking an analogous mechanism to get right back to the story at night.
I’m willing to look past these minor issues and more though, because ultimately those shortcomings end up making the game feel more human somehow. I tend to be a completionist at heart, wanting to 100% every experience and see everything there is to see. But I had to throw away that mentality and go against all my previous instincts, because Spiritfarer is a game about brevity.
While in the video game space, the developers have provided enough opportunities to artificially extent deadlines when so desired, it is Spiritfarer’s impermanence that makes its experiences so fruitful. I didn’t have enough time to learn every single detail about all the spirits, nor am I sure that the spirits were necessarily prepared to spill their entire life story in a single sitting to someone whom they had just met. Similarly, this experience’s meaning would be greatly diminished if you just let it stretch on to infinity and beyond. You most likely won’t have the time to finish every single task or close every loop… and that’s okay too.
Ultimately, while it can feel off-putting to some that characters can seem inscrutable to some degree (which may urge players to seek additional details on a wiki or in the Spiritfarer Artbook), I found myself content with what I knew. The condensed experiences that I had with these characters more than moved me upon my journey, and in fact put me in a headspace where I constantly found myself translating these experiences to my real life. Atul made me wonder if I really got to know my deceased relatives and friends well enough. Gustav left me contemplative regarding humanity’s eternal struggle with meaning. Stanley left my heart broken that innocence, while powerful, was just as fleeting as life itself. And Alice’s story left me speechless and frightened, because I saw signs of my grandmother within her.
That was, until Christmas night, when my dad received the call that my grandma on my father’s side had suffered a stroke. How bitterly ironic that the exact moment as I finished my second playthrough, my grandmother was left in a coma and I’d be forced to recontextualize my experiences once again. I knew that playing Spiritfarer would prepare me for this… but I wasn’t prepared for it to be this soon.
Had these lessons imparted upon me not meant anything? Sure, Spiritfarer is a game about dying… but it is also a game about living with death. Honor those who have moved on, so that you make the most of every moment with those who are still here. I hadn’t gotten the chance to see my grandma since a family vacation right before the 2020 outbreak, and I was hoping that someday, I’d get the chance to make it up to her. Now, I might not even get that chance. What could I even do at this point? Was my best not good enough anymore? Was my time spent all for naught?
I don’t really know. I spent a couple of days agonizing over my inability, my words feeling empty and my actions feeling directionless. I’m still waiting, because at this point, that’s all I have left.
But I’d like to think that my time wasn’t wasted. I don’t wish to make the same mistakes again… even if it might be too late this time. I think a game that’s willing to be as boldly emotionally vulnerable as Spiritfarer, despite all its potential pacing and mechanical issues, is something that has to be shared and treasured regardless of consequences. We can’t let trivial issues stop us from discussing that which is feared to be discussed, because we don’t have all the time in the world to pretend that everything’s okay. We wouldn’t improve if we never erred, and even if some missteps can’t be taken back… at least we can try to stop others from following our paths by connecting and sharing stories, right?
I can’t deny that Spiritfarer might not have hit me as hard the second time had these unfortunate events not occurred almost immediately after finishing. But I also can’t deny that Spiritfarer’s narrative power is the reason why I will always associate this game with everything that’s happened, nor can I think of any game that would have better prepared me for this moment and left such an impact upon me than Spiritfarer. Regardless of any gripes I may have had, this game is now a part of me, and I’m honestly not sure if I would change anything that I had experienced, lest I somehow forget about everything I strove to become moving forward.
So, let me leave you with these final thoughts of what I learned from Spiritfarer.
Grief is not a wave; it is an ocean. Every time you glance at it from a distance, you think you’ll be ready, but then it hits you, and you’re still swept away. As it washes over you, you start to wonder what it’s like to drown. Just to linger in that space a little longer, to try and lose yourself again in that gap in time where there was, before there wasn’t.
But there is nothing deep about drowning. Ultimately, we must carry on, for just as life has no meaning without death, those who pass on have no meaning without those who remain. Your ship will keep getting rocked by tide after tide, storm after storm, and you still might not be ready by the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or however many waves hit you over and over. Nevertheless, you learn to navigate the waters a little better each time. There’s nothing wrong with getting seasick, but that doesn’t mean you have to drown.
Love is watching someone die. But love is so much more than that too. Love is a balancing act between letting others in and watching them leave. Love is living every day like it’s your last, but realizing it’s okay to forget about life too. Love is learning to accept everything about us: the pleasures, the turmoil, the fallacies, all of it. Love is preparing for the inevitable while savoring the ephemeral.
Love… is letting go.
Sources referenced:
Representation of Death in Independent Videogames: Providing a Space for Meaningful Death Reflection
Spiritfarer And Death Positivity
Corporate Intervention In Video Games
(also please see Fudj's separate review of Spiritfarer on this site, as I find that it effectively communicates many of its strengths and provided motivation to write this up)
Spiritfarer Explained: Letting Go Is Everything
Mindful Games: Spiritfarer
Spiritfarer Documentary: A Game About Dying
Healing Together on Discord: The Spiritfarer Community
Zero Punctuation: Spiritfarer
Spiritfarer's Art Book: Can be found here or purchased as part of Farewell Editions or separately on GOG/Steam.
This review contains no spoilers, but it reveals how the game's structure works in a general sense. I wouldn’t recommend reading it unless you’ve played a little bit already.
Spiritfarer is a narrative-focused management game, and that description is deceptively informative: it’s not a story game with management, it’s a management game with a story. The short pitch is that you’re the ferrymaster to the deceased, so it’s easy to expect the game to be mostly therapeutic heart-to-hearts with your passengers, but the reality is that 95% of your time will be spent running daily errands for them on your massive houseboat. Grow some plants, catch some fish, start a meal in the oven, go spin some thread as it cooks, smelt ore until you arrive at the next island, jump off and start chopping trees for a new house… you’re constantly juggling these little jobs, and most dialog is just getting new tasks or being told how well you’re doing. While the character growth and narrative progression are wonderfully executed, these sorts of interactions are awash in a sea of repetitive, filler responses to the egregiously repetitive list of errands. The idea was that by having each spirit demand so many specific amenities, players could bond with them over time and get used to their presence on the ship before they inevitably depart. Considering how important it is to convey a sense of loss in a game about death, it’s a sound theory, but the vast amount of repetition turns your passengers from living people into blatantly artificial checklists. After the first few characters make it to the Everdoor, the suspense is gone, and it’s harder to get attached to the new spirits when you know they’re just going to put you through the same food/house/improvements/quest/Everdoor cycle as before. The people who enjoy the crafting and sailing for its own sake might not feel this is a problem, and that a repetitive, slow pace is exactly what one should expect from the genre, but the way it smothers a beautifully unique narrative hook was unavoidably disappointing to me. In spite of how amazing some of the character moments are, and of how wonderfully it's presented overall, these qualities won’t balance out the mundanity if you’re anything less than a crafting enthusiast. Luckily, that’s probably most people, and I’m probably the weird one for never having gotten sucked into Minecraft, Terraria, Stardew Valley, or something comparable. If you love any of those games, I would highly recommend Spiritfarer, and I’ll sit here in jealousy that you get to enjoy a game I was just a few hours of chores away from actually loving.
Spiritfarer is a narrative-focused management game, and that description is deceptively informative: it’s not a story game with management, it’s a management game with a story. The short pitch is that you’re the ferrymaster to the deceased, so it’s easy to expect the game to be mostly therapeutic heart-to-hearts with your passengers, but the reality is that 95% of your time will be spent running daily errands for them on your massive houseboat. Grow some plants, catch some fish, start a meal in the oven, go spin some thread as it cooks, smelt ore until you arrive at the next island, jump off and start chopping trees for a new house… you’re constantly juggling these little jobs, and most dialog is just getting new tasks or being told how well you’re doing. While the character growth and narrative progression are wonderfully executed, these sorts of interactions are awash in a sea of repetitive, filler responses to the egregiously repetitive list of errands. The idea was that by having each spirit demand so many specific amenities, players could bond with them over time and get used to their presence on the ship before they inevitably depart. Considering how important it is to convey a sense of loss in a game about death, it’s a sound theory, but the vast amount of repetition turns your passengers from living people into blatantly artificial checklists. After the first few characters make it to the Everdoor, the suspense is gone, and it’s harder to get attached to the new spirits when you know they’re just going to put you through the same food/house/improvements/quest/Everdoor cycle as before. The people who enjoy the crafting and sailing for its own sake might not feel this is a problem, and that a repetitive, slow pace is exactly what one should expect from the genre, but the way it smothers a beautifully unique narrative hook was unavoidably disappointing to me. In spite of how amazing some of the character moments are, and of how wonderfully it's presented overall, these qualities won’t balance out the mundanity if you’re anything less than a crafting enthusiast. Luckily, that’s probably most people, and I’m probably the weird one for never having gotten sucked into Minecraft, Terraria, Stardew Valley, or something comparable. If you love any of those games, I would highly recommend Spiritfarer, and I’ll sit here in jealousy that you get to enjoy a game I was just a few hours of chores away from actually loving.
Admittedly its kind of cheating to make a sad game about death and grief, try to make a sad game about the Zucker Brothers and there's a challenge! But seriously this game came to me at a particularly challenging moment in my life when I lost my Dad, and it helped me through some personal stuff.
It also does so without being a walking sim or visual novel, no, this is a game that uses its game mechanics to help tell it's story whilst being compelling gameplay wise. This game accurately recreated the experience of losing a loved one unexpectedly through the medium of videogame in a way that was both clever and utterly devastating to me, in a good, cathartic way.
More importantly it's a game about death which is sad precisely because it isn't miserable, much like we only feel the pain of losing a loved one because we had good times with them, Spiritfarer achieves its melancholy by being a joyous , humourous game about celebrating life as much as it is mourning it's ends. There are some gameplay and story niggles but ultimately I don't want to get bogged down in them because they are unimportant, spiritfarer is an utterly unique experience I will think about for the rest of my life
It also does so without being a walking sim or visual novel, no, this is a game that uses its game mechanics to help tell it's story whilst being compelling gameplay wise. This game accurately recreated the experience of losing a loved one unexpectedly through the medium of videogame in a way that was both clever and utterly devastating to me, in a good, cathartic way.
More importantly it's a game about death which is sad precisely because it isn't miserable, much like we only feel the pain of losing a loved one because we had good times with them, Spiritfarer achieves its melancholy by being a joyous , humourous game about celebrating life as much as it is mourning it's ends. There are some gameplay and story niggles but ultimately I don't want to get bogged down in them because they are unimportant, spiritfarer is an utterly unique experience I will think about for the rest of my life
If there is a game for our time, this is it. Through the efforts of standout writing and the sum of the repetitious actions you undertake, Spiritfarer will usher you into a rhythm that viscerally contemplates the mortality of humanity and the lives we live. Every aspect and mechanic is in service to this goal. Even when specific parts of the game, if isolated, seem under-baked, they often still build to inspired moments.
The knock against it is found in those lacking elements. The handling in the platforming sections are far too loose and unexciting, the clicker/base building aspects can become tedious and don’t progress enough in and of themselves, and the endgame, if the player indulges in it, is effectively an amalgamation of all the worst parts divorced from the game’s guiding thesis.
However, when you hit the seas, exploring the secrets of the map and its islands with the transcendent score accompanying you, scurrying to finish projects on the boat during the voyage, all the while building relationships with your passengers, it all comes together to make a wonderful miniature ecosystem that is simply hard to put down.
Make time for Spiritfarer. It will surprise you and pull you in. And you won’t be able to leave unaffected.
The knock against it is found in those lacking elements. The handling in the platforming sections are far too loose and unexciting, the clicker/base building aspects can become tedious and don’t progress enough in and of themselves, and the endgame, if the player indulges in it, is effectively an amalgamation of all the worst parts divorced from the game’s guiding thesis.
However, when you hit the seas, exploring the secrets of the map and its islands with the transcendent score accompanying you, scurrying to finish projects on the boat during the voyage, all the while building relationships with your passengers, it all comes together to make a wonderful miniature ecosystem that is simply hard to put down.
Make time for Spiritfarer. It will surprise you and pull you in. And you won’t be able to leave unaffected.
I'm terrified of death.
I have so far been incredibly lucky and have never had anyone close to me die. But I know that one day that will change and I am scared of that.
I am also scared of my own death.
But this game has made me slightly less afraid of death.
I have so far been incredibly lucky and have never had anyone close to me die. But I know that one day that will change and I am scared of that.
I am also scared of my own death.
But this game has made me slightly less afraid of death.
LordDarias already defined this game in the perfect way. It's extremely impressive how a game about the death can emanate so much joy at the same time. It provides all sides of the spectrum as it can make you cry, smile and even laugh some times.
It's able to convey all of these emotions while presenting a very fun 'farm simulation' type of game with a gradual and rewarding system for obtaining resources. However, instead of managing animals you're doing so with spirits with unique and endearing personalities, and your farm is a boat which you're free to tune.
Then there's the visuals which are absolutely beautiful. Its nothing exceptionally innovative or artistic but in a way it's perfect for what the game is trying to portray. The same can be said about the music which fits in perfectly.
Life is all about memories and the older you get the more you realise about this. Spiritfarer understands that life is fragile and that's why it encourages the player to cherish each special moment with the people you most care about; whilst comprehending that people have ups and downs, and the best way to go through this is with the company of each other. Death can be scary and terribly damaging, but it's inevitable and can help us get perspective on appreciating the people you love.
This game is a charming experience which is true that it might drag out a bit longer than it should of, but it always hits the right note so it has to be a 5/5.
It's able to convey all of these emotions while presenting a very fun 'farm simulation' type of game with a gradual and rewarding system for obtaining resources. However, instead of managing animals you're doing so with spirits with unique and endearing personalities, and your farm is a boat which you're free to tune.
Then there's the visuals which are absolutely beautiful. Its nothing exceptionally innovative or artistic but in a way it's perfect for what the game is trying to portray. The same can be said about the music which fits in perfectly.
Life is all about memories and the older you get the more you realise about this. Spiritfarer understands that life is fragile and that's why it encourages the player to cherish each special moment with the people you most care about; whilst comprehending that people have ups and downs, and the best way to go through this is with the company of each other. Death can be scary and terribly damaging, but it's inevitable and can help us get perspective on appreciating the people you love.
This game is a charming experience which is true that it might drag out a bit longer than it should of, but it always hits the right note so it has to be a 5/5.
A lovely game with lovely characters that's unfortunately a massive drag to play. Spiritfarer is a grindy busywork simulator masquerading as a town-building sim or platformer. In reality it's a clicker game where, unlike other click games, you have to spend enormous amounts of time traveling between the things you click on. There's no challenge to any of it, just tedium and a continual test of patience.
I stuck with it for >5 hours expecting it to get better as I unlocked more features. Instead it only got worse as I uncovered more of the world and was forced to spend more and more time on mindless errands which in turn only unlock more mindless errands. The game occasionally rewards you with cute bits of character dialogue, but those are a few and far between compared to the amount of time you'll spend operating click-to-complete chore machines and engaging with possibly the most annoying fishing minigame I've ever encountered.
I've heard there's a beautiful ending, and it saddens me to say I won't stick around to see it. When I saw the average time to main story completion on How Long to Beat was 24 hours, I nearly died.
I stuck with it for >5 hours expecting it to get better as I unlocked more features. Instead it only got worse as I uncovered more of the world and was forced to spend more and more time on mindless errands which in turn only unlock more mindless errands. The game occasionally rewards you with cute bits of character dialogue, but those are a few and far between compared to the amount of time you'll spend operating click-to-complete chore machines and engaging with possibly the most annoying fishing minigame I've ever encountered.
I've heard there's a beautiful ending, and it saddens me to say I won't stick around to see it. When I saw the average time to main story completion on How Long to Beat was 24 hours, I nearly died.
Man, I really wanted to like this but I was very, very dissapointed.
I was very interested in this game when I read that it would portray death in a different way most mediums do, which is from the perspective of accepting the inevitability of it with optimism.
Sooo, what happened?
Gameplay is really, really boring. Nothing about it is interesting or fun. Managing your ship, building, and gathering materials is really dull and doesn't work at all. Every action requires little to no input so it's not entertaining, and while I understand this game is more aligned with the experience side of videogames instead of gameplay, it could have at least tried to do something cool with it instead of... this.
Then there's the writing... this was what eventually made me drop it. There's just nothing interesting nor engaging going on at all. Characters just spout the same three lines every. single. time. without changing it up or having significant development. All of them have a very one-dimensional personality and don't have an interesting backstory. There's not a single memorable character here, all of the dialogue is repeated ad infinitum and they're not specially likeable.
The only engaging part was when they go to die since they actually say a new line of dialogue for once.
Then there's the death aspect. It's ok, I guess? Didn't really make me reflect. It's just kinda there and since the writing is so uninspired, I couldn't really be bothered to care. Every single attempt at exploring the concept of death just feels like something I've seen before.
I really wanted to like this game, I was almost done with it when I just kinda stopped playing it and couldn't make myself come back to it. I just didn't see any reason to play this game to the end instead of doing literally anything else.
I was very interested in this game when I read that it would portray death in a different way most mediums do, which is from the perspective of accepting the inevitability of it with optimism.
Sooo, what happened?
Gameplay is really, really boring. Nothing about it is interesting or fun. Managing your ship, building, and gathering materials is really dull and doesn't work at all. Every action requires little to no input so it's not entertaining, and while I understand this game is more aligned with the experience side of videogames instead of gameplay, it could have at least tried to do something cool with it instead of... this.
Then there's the writing... this was what eventually made me drop it. There's just nothing interesting nor engaging going on at all. Characters just spout the same three lines every. single. time. without changing it up or having significant development. All of them have a very one-dimensional personality and don't have an interesting backstory. There's not a single memorable character here, all of the dialogue is repeated ad infinitum and they're not specially likeable.
The only engaging part was when they go to die since they actually say a new line of dialogue for once.
Then there's the death aspect. It's ok, I guess? Didn't really make me reflect. It's just kinda there and since the writing is so uninspired, I couldn't really be bothered to care. Every single attempt at exploring the concept of death just feels like something I've seen before.
I really wanted to like this game, I was almost done with it when I just kinda stopped playing it and couldn't make myself come back to it. I just didn't see any reason to play this game to the end instead of doing literally anything else.
I've always been infatuated with various interpretations of life after death, or the passing of our spirits or souls, so I was immediately intrigued by Spiritfarer when it was announced in uh, I think 2019 game awards? I forget. It was one of the few that I really looked forward to.
The intro to this game is fantastic in my eyes, it's slow but feels deliberate and starts to set the tone the game will have right away. Very somber, bittersweet; absolutely my thing.
It doesn't waste time introducing us to our first spirit, who is the main protagonist's sister(?). I love their interactions and the dialogue in the game for the most part, it feels genuine.
Unfortunately it's also not long after this that they begin to start piling chores on the player, which honestly they're mostly fun---one at a time, once or twice, but the problem becomes now I'm focusing more on this bloated management sim that was tied to this wonderful narrative on death. It bothers me particularly because a lot of the ways you gather resources etc. all feel like neat little minigames, but then they ask you to do these minigames dozens upon dozens of times, and they're very simple minigames; I can do most of them blindfolded except maybe the saw and loom without any exaggeration. There's also the time it takes for you to travel to and from any location, which while you can offset this as you progress, you don't really do so meaningfully until over halfway through the game and most of the game is comprised entirely of fetch quests.
God, I love Spiritfarer's premise so fucking much. I can't convey how much I want a game like this, I just wish it were structured closer to something like Night in the Woods and focused more on its excellent character interactions instead of figuring out which side of the map you need to be on for that one log you're missing to fill out a checkbox to progress a character's otherwise lovely arc.
The intro to this game is fantastic in my eyes, it's slow but feels deliberate and starts to set the tone the game will have right away. Very somber, bittersweet; absolutely my thing.
It doesn't waste time introducing us to our first spirit, who is the main protagonist's sister(?). I love their interactions and the dialogue in the game for the most part, it feels genuine.
Unfortunately it's also not long after this that they begin to start piling chores on the player, which honestly they're mostly fun---one at a time, once or twice, but the problem becomes now I'm focusing more on this bloated management sim that was tied to this wonderful narrative on death. It bothers me particularly because a lot of the ways you gather resources etc. all feel like neat little minigames, but then they ask you to do these minigames dozens upon dozens of times, and they're very simple minigames; I can do most of them blindfolded except maybe the saw and loom without any exaggeration. There's also the time it takes for you to travel to and from any location, which while you can offset this as you progress, you don't really do so meaningfully until over halfway through the game and most of the game is comprised entirely of fetch quests.
God, I love Spiritfarer's premise so fucking much. I can't convey how much I want a game like this, I just wish it were structured closer to something like Night in the Woods and focused more on its excellent character interactions instead of figuring out which side of the map you need to be on for that one log you're missing to fill out a checkbox to progress a character's otherwise lovely arc.
For some reason my brain always forgets that this game is rated T for Language so I'll get into this groove of feeding french fries to my Wholesome Frog Uncle in this Studio Ghibli-styled time management game only for this cartoon hummingbird to look me in the eye and go "Shit man, these douchebags make me sick to my ass".
UPDATED REVIEW AFTER THE DARIA AND JACKIE UPDATE:
Goddamnit i'm a mess rn :'(
Goddamnit i'm a mess rn :'(
My GOTY 2020. Nearly every character has a beautiful story, and the resource management aspect is tight and easy to understand, but not stressful. Equal parts relaxing, engaging, funny, and heartbreaking. Few games that I wish I could experience for the first time again, and Spiritfarer is easily in that group.
fishing is not a lot of fun in this game
Una preciosidad de principio a fin. Quizá se le pueden achacar algunos problemas de ritmo cerca del final, pero más allá de eso me ha gustado todo muchísimo.
Ran into a bug in the first 30 minutes and could not progress. Game did not interest me enough in first 30 minutes to try again.
I think Spiritfarer's greatest strength is being able to wield the specificity of its characters' lives and the real life stories of grief that they take inspiration from whilst also remaining quite universal. Though, in a rather morbid way, I think one's mileage with Spiritfarer will vary mostly by one's life experiences with the subject matter. That's not to say that the storylines are hollow without being able to relate to them, some of my favourite characters in Spiritfarer are meant to serve as catharsis for a particular type of grief I'm simply not familiar with on that level.
This is all to say, one story in particular has had a more profound impact on me in a way that I think would simply not work quite as well if I hadn't lost a loved one in the way that I did.
I am going to put a spoiler warning here, though first of all, I obviously recommend the game if that wasn't clear; and second of all, go and read Drax's Excellent piece on the game, which is genuinely my favourite write-up about spiritfarer on the site, and maybe even the entire web.
I want to talk about Atul. A few days ago a friend of mine @MrCanilla finished his playthrough and wrote a thoughtful piece on it which I enjoyed (and the shoutout was nice too, lol). I then reflected on my original piece on the game and I wasn't very happy with it. So I replayed Spiritfarer and quickly dispelled the idea in my head that there was no way the emotional impact would be as effective on a second go. But the main reason Im writing this is because I never talked about Atul, and that surprises me, because it sat on my mind for a while when I originally played Spiritfarer in 2021.
Atul is a jolly Frog spirit you pick up as one of the first spirits you can ferry to the afterlife. He's the world's least picky eater, he's a handyman who runs the sawmill and breaks out into song, one of my favourites : thunder harvest. He asks you to go on a pretty long and arduous quest to feed him various foods which remind him of memories of his family, which he misses. As you get to know him you realize that behind his jolly facade is a real void, a void that he may be filling with food, judging by his appetite.
The real turn comes when his quest advances to organizing a big dinner for everyone on board, another set of food quests to make a big feast. Then as you go back to the ship and go to sleep, you realize the next morning that Atul is simply not there anymore. And I may be misremembering, because originally I played a much earlier version of the game, but I think originally that was it, you went to his room and found the spiritflower, the symbol left behind by the spirits in their quarters after they are ferried to the everdoor. On replay though, it seems there is a bit more clarification, with characters confirming quite plainly that Atul simply left. I am rather conflicted on this "QOL?" decision for reasons I will explain at the end.
You see, up until that point in the game (and they made damn sure that Atul's quest cannot be finished before sending at least 3 or 4 spirits I think to the everdoor) the game had established a sort of routine. Relating to the main thrust of the game being essentially the experiences of a palliative care nurse who would take care of patients in what little time they had left, all of the spirits follow the pattern of seeing off a dying relative, the spirits gathering around when taking their fellow to the everdoor analogous to gathering around a deathbed, as Drax pointed out. It doesn't get easier but it does follow a pattern; you take the spirit to the everdoor, they have some parting words somewhat concluding their storyline and then you cry and they leave forever.
Atul, however, simply leaves, utterly subverting the established pattern brilliantly. My reaction and many others was that of utter confusion : "What? What the hell? Where did he go? I didn't even get to say goodbye! That's not how it was supposed to go?" to anger "how could he leave without saying goodbye! How could he do this to me?". I simply couldn't believe it. In the case of Atul, there is some implication given his character arc that he simply didnt want to make Stella sad and went to the Everdoor himself, characteristic of his personality, but there is also an implication in my mind that this may well be Stella and by extension the audience trying to make sense of that which has none. And sometimes our loved ones will leave us without the chance to make peace or say one final goodbye, and we kind of just have to live with it and make what time with them count.
The reason this was all so devastating is that with a simple upending of established mechanics, spiritfarer pulled me back to 2018 and the exact emotional reaction I felt when my father unexpectedly past away. Without getting into needless details, it was simply an accident, one of tragically countless which happen every day. I was studying abroad at the time and got a call from my mother on an evening that was until then utterly mundane, I think I was planning on playing skyrim and procrastinating on work as I always did back then. Unbeknownst to me my Father had already passed when I received the call, but I was just told he was in the ICU and to get home ASAP. I hurried to the airport as fast as I could to take a late night flight back home. Looking back I am almost thankful for the eventful trip which took my mind off it all, getting lost and without battery in central london until some helpful people pointed me in the right direction, talking to a tourist on the plane, etc.
But of course when I landed I got the news. It was quite surreal, in a way. Now, I don't think anyone is fully prepared to lose a loved one ever, but when someone young and healthy leaves in such a fashion it makes you question a lot of things. And my Dad was not all that similar to Atul, personality wise, but much like the sawmill he used reminds you of Atul even when he's gone and you miss his supply of planks and all the other helpful activities he would do like most spirits in the game, I realized a few weeks later when I started to cycle again, that I was going to finally have to learn how to change tyres by myself. A sad reminder of who I lost but also an important lesson to move on and to let life's hardships as well as its good times serve as lessons. Its been 5 years now, and though this replay may have resurfaced a few bits, I am doing well, And I can confidently say that Spiritfarer is still a great game which accomplishes with its mechanics what couldnt be accomplished in a different medium. Its personally inspiring to me genuinely.
I must say, playing Spiritfarer in 2023 makes me think we should mandate Minecraft's version history system into every single game, because I think Spiritfarer 2020 was a great game which was a little padded and could have ended a bit earlier than it did, and lo and behold that's even more so the case now. In principle, I understand why they clarified a bit more on Atul, even if it robs it of the full impact of the utter confusion and shock it was originally intended to convey. However, if you are one of the people who complained enough about it that they added the option to turn off the Bus stop music, we cannot be friends; and I will see you in hell. And I have the sneaking suspicion that the new spirits were always supposed to be there in the original version but were cut due to time constraints and later added in, in which case I can see why they were chosen to be cut out of all of them, I'm sorry. They're not awful, but y'know.
Anyways, I don't know If I have much of conclusion beyond the obvious plea to love those closest to you and live a life you won't regret, so let's idk share our favourite spiritfarer tracks in the comments. Have a good one
This is all to say, one story in particular has had a more profound impact on me in a way that I think would simply not work quite as well if I hadn't lost a loved one in the way that I did.
I am going to put a spoiler warning here, though first of all, I obviously recommend the game if that wasn't clear; and second of all, go and read Drax's Excellent piece on the game, which is genuinely my favourite write-up about spiritfarer on the site, and maybe even the entire web.
I want to talk about Atul. A few days ago a friend of mine @MrCanilla finished his playthrough and wrote a thoughtful piece on it which I enjoyed (and the shoutout was nice too, lol). I then reflected on my original piece on the game and I wasn't very happy with it. So I replayed Spiritfarer and quickly dispelled the idea in my head that there was no way the emotional impact would be as effective on a second go. But the main reason Im writing this is because I never talked about Atul, and that surprises me, because it sat on my mind for a while when I originally played Spiritfarer in 2021.
Atul is a jolly Frog spirit you pick up as one of the first spirits you can ferry to the afterlife. He's the world's least picky eater, he's a handyman who runs the sawmill and breaks out into song, one of my favourites : thunder harvest. He asks you to go on a pretty long and arduous quest to feed him various foods which remind him of memories of his family, which he misses. As you get to know him you realize that behind his jolly facade is a real void, a void that he may be filling with food, judging by his appetite.
The real turn comes when his quest advances to organizing a big dinner for everyone on board, another set of food quests to make a big feast. Then as you go back to the ship and go to sleep, you realize the next morning that Atul is simply not there anymore. And I may be misremembering, because originally I played a much earlier version of the game, but I think originally that was it, you went to his room and found the spiritflower, the symbol left behind by the spirits in their quarters after they are ferried to the everdoor. On replay though, it seems there is a bit more clarification, with characters confirming quite plainly that Atul simply left. I am rather conflicted on this "QOL?" decision for reasons I will explain at the end.
You see, up until that point in the game (and they made damn sure that Atul's quest cannot be finished before sending at least 3 or 4 spirits I think to the everdoor) the game had established a sort of routine. Relating to the main thrust of the game being essentially the experiences of a palliative care nurse who would take care of patients in what little time they had left, all of the spirits follow the pattern of seeing off a dying relative, the spirits gathering around when taking their fellow to the everdoor analogous to gathering around a deathbed, as Drax pointed out. It doesn't get easier but it does follow a pattern; you take the spirit to the everdoor, they have some parting words somewhat concluding their storyline and then you cry and they leave forever.
Atul, however, simply leaves, utterly subverting the established pattern brilliantly. My reaction and many others was that of utter confusion : "What? What the hell? Where did he go? I didn't even get to say goodbye! That's not how it was supposed to go?" to anger "how could he leave without saying goodbye! How could he do this to me?". I simply couldn't believe it. In the case of Atul, there is some implication given his character arc that he simply didnt want to make Stella sad and went to the Everdoor himself, characteristic of his personality, but there is also an implication in my mind that this may well be Stella and by extension the audience trying to make sense of that which has none. And sometimes our loved ones will leave us without the chance to make peace or say one final goodbye, and we kind of just have to live with it and make what time with them count.
The reason this was all so devastating is that with a simple upending of established mechanics, spiritfarer pulled me back to 2018 and the exact emotional reaction I felt when my father unexpectedly past away. Without getting into needless details, it was simply an accident, one of tragically countless which happen every day. I was studying abroad at the time and got a call from my mother on an evening that was until then utterly mundane, I think I was planning on playing skyrim and procrastinating on work as I always did back then. Unbeknownst to me my Father had already passed when I received the call, but I was just told he was in the ICU and to get home ASAP. I hurried to the airport as fast as I could to take a late night flight back home. Looking back I am almost thankful for the eventful trip which took my mind off it all, getting lost and without battery in central london until some helpful people pointed me in the right direction, talking to a tourist on the plane, etc.
But of course when I landed I got the news. It was quite surreal, in a way. Now, I don't think anyone is fully prepared to lose a loved one ever, but when someone young and healthy leaves in such a fashion it makes you question a lot of things. And my Dad was not all that similar to Atul, personality wise, but much like the sawmill he used reminds you of Atul even when he's gone and you miss his supply of planks and all the other helpful activities he would do like most spirits in the game, I realized a few weeks later when I started to cycle again, that I was going to finally have to learn how to change tyres by myself. A sad reminder of who I lost but also an important lesson to move on and to let life's hardships as well as its good times serve as lessons. Its been 5 years now, and though this replay may have resurfaced a few bits, I am doing well, And I can confidently say that Spiritfarer is still a great game which accomplishes with its mechanics what couldnt be accomplished in a different medium. Its personally inspiring to me genuinely.
I must say, playing Spiritfarer in 2023 makes me think we should mandate Minecraft's version history system into every single game, because I think Spiritfarer 2020 was a great game which was a little padded and could have ended a bit earlier than it did, and lo and behold that's even more so the case now. In principle, I understand why they clarified a bit more on Atul, even if it robs it of the full impact of the utter confusion and shock it was originally intended to convey. However, if you are one of the people who complained enough about it that they added the option to turn off the Bus stop music, we cannot be friends; and I will see you in hell. And I have the sneaking suspicion that the new spirits were always supposed to be there in the original version but were cut due to time constraints and later added in, in which case I can see why they were chosen to be cut out of all of them, I'm sorry. They're not awful, but y'know.
Anyways, I don't know If I have much of conclusion beyond the obvious plea to love those closest to you and live a life you won't regret, so let's idk share our favourite spiritfarer tracks in the comments. Have a good one
I haven't cried at a videogame since I saw the end of the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games at 9 years old, and I didn't cry at Spiritfarer, either, but I came astoundingly close on multiple occasions. I find very few things are able to tug at my heartstrings nowadays, I've grown up on the Internet, am bombarded with tragedy and heartache almost every day and have found myself incredibly jaded as a result of it. There's a lot of media that claims to be - or attempts to be "heartfelt" or "emotional" and I feel never manages to deliver on that promise, but Spiritfarer does.
I don't want to spoil you because I truly think you need to go into this game knowing as few specifics as possible so I'll say this, it's a game about dying. Getting to know people in the last moments of their lives, and then having to let go. In doing so, you'll play around with a core gameplay loop not entirely unlike that of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, but not so similar that it feels derivative. Spiritfarer forges a very unique identity of its own and it genuinely takes a good few hours of playing the game before you realise what the core "loop" is, and even when you do, it won't get tired or uninteresting for a very long while.
One of the biggest problems with games like Animal Crossing or to a greater extent - Stardew Valley is that once you've maxed out whatever kind of "relationship parameters" you have with characters in those games, they stop being interesting. You know everything there is to know about them, heard everything they have to say. They stop being characters and instead become lifeless heaps of code that wander around repeating the same behaviours. This is why the fact that you eventually have to say goodbye to all the Spirits you welcome aboard your ship in Spiritfarer is so genius, as it is also heart-wrenching. You get to know these people, cater to them and enjoy life with them, and then they go away forever. It's incredibly powerful, and it's something you'll have to deal with countless times throughout the game.
Many games that attempt to be more narrative or emotional experiences are exactly that - "experiences" moreso than they are games, but Spiritfarer manages to be so artful and so evocative whilst also still having enjoyable, solid, and reasonably deep gameplay. The game largely takes place aboard your ship, which you'll upgrade in terms of size, travel speed, biomes you can navigate and other things throughout the game. The ship is where the Spirits you're escorting to the end of their lives will reside, so you'll have to build them houses aboard this ship as well as other buildings like kitchens and orchards to maintain the materials you'll need to keep them satisfied. In order to build things like this, you'll sail around a surprisingly large map to a bevy of locations gathering materials, talking to NPCs and often engaging in some quietly deep and well thought-out platforming puzzles.
There's a lot of times you'll see a faraway rock or a high ledge in Spiritfarer - realise that you can't make it there without an ability you haven't unlocked yet and have to keep it in mind for later so you can return with said ability and earn a reward. It's this kind of mindfulness of the game's mechanics, this kind of occasionally Metroidvania-like level design that makes Spiritfarer's core gameplay so fundamentally satisfying in moments like this, and gives it a huge leg up over both its life-sim game competition and its narrative game competition.
You watch your ship slowly expand over time and take all these wacky different shapes as you shift all the buildings and houses you've made around the place, the ship itself becomes a level of your own making as there'll soon be so many buildings that getting to where you want becomes it own fun, yet brisk and constantly interesting platforming challenge. It's a game you can take at your own pace, and mould in your own ways, the way any game looking to relax you should do.
Everything in this game is engineered to instil in you a feeling of serenity. From gorgeous visuals and environment design often taking inspiration from a variety of cultures like Feudal Japan, modern North America and the frozen Arctic to consistently glistening gold UI to a humble, quiet and charming soundtrack. Even its writing and dialogue is far beyond what you expect of most indie games - which often (understandably) show a disregard for writers compared to most of the game's other facets.
This is where one of my only two criticisms for Spiritfarer comes in; whilst its writing is detailed and consistent with the fleshed-out backstories for each of its characters, those specific characters' motivations and backstories themselves are often made a little bit too obtuse. Characters like Astrid & Summer's backgrounds will only really be fully understandable if you read up about them on the Wiki. Their dialogue is often vague and suggests some detail that you'll only really be able to find out if you do some extra-curricular research on the game. At many points the game will hint at its characters' backgrounds without ever really giving you the full picture even after you've seen their arcs through to the end. It has me wondering if the game perhaps respected its audience's intelligence a bit too much? Or if I'm just a monkey-brained idiot.
My other gripe with Spiritfarer is that I think it goes on for a bit too long. If it were 5 or so hours shorter, I think its length would be perfect but as it is, I think it drags a bit. Towards the latter half of the game, when you've begun to figure out what the game's loop is, you can quite accurately predict what the rest of the game will look like, and you've already been doing it for quite some time and it starts to wear a bit thin. If you're anything like me, you get a bit antsy about finally finishing the game and seeing the ending, but there's still a fair bit of trekking about the place and completing menial tasks. I do appreciate how packed full of content this game is though, as many indie games of its ilk often charge about the same price for a far less meaty package. There's no doubt in my mind that you'll get your money's worth when you buy this game, even if its soft demeanour may have you convinced otherwise.
Don't let these two minor grievances dissuade you, this is an amazing game. As I write this review it's late June 2021 and I've just seen the end credits and I can comfortably tell you that this is the best game I've played since I played Breath of the Wild for the first time in 2018. It's real. It's about something real by people who have clearly been through some harrowing experiences and made a shockingly beautiful piece of art to encapsulate what they were like, not just the bad parts, but the good parts too.
Spiritfarer is incredible, and it's hard to believe it was made by a studio considered "indie" and not a huge, triple A company considering the quality of its production value in every facet. It deserves to be held up as an indie game masterpiece alongside the likes of Hades and Undertale. It made me go upstairs and check on my Mum, who's been suffering with a litany of illnesses and conditions for the better part of a decade now. This game will stay with me for a very long time, and I'm very glad of that.
I don't want to spoil you because I truly think you need to go into this game knowing as few specifics as possible so I'll say this, it's a game about dying. Getting to know people in the last moments of their lives, and then having to let go. In doing so, you'll play around with a core gameplay loop not entirely unlike that of Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, but not so similar that it feels derivative. Spiritfarer forges a very unique identity of its own and it genuinely takes a good few hours of playing the game before you realise what the core "loop" is, and even when you do, it won't get tired or uninteresting for a very long while.
One of the biggest problems with games like Animal Crossing or to a greater extent - Stardew Valley is that once you've maxed out whatever kind of "relationship parameters" you have with characters in those games, they stop being interesting. You know everything there is to know about them, heard everything they have to say. They stop being characters and instead become lifeless heaps of code that wander around repeating the same behaviours. This is why the fact that you eventually have to say goodbye to all the Spirits you welcome aboard your ship in Spiritfarer is so genius, as it is also heart-wrenching. You get to know these people, cater to them and enjoy life with them, and then they go away forever. It's incredibly powerful, and it's something you'll have to deal with countless times throughout the game.
Many games that attempt to be more narrative or emotional experiences are exactly that - "experiences" moreso than they are games, but Spiritfarer manages to be so artful and so evocative whilst also still having enjoyable, solid, and reasonably deep gameplay. The game largely takes place aboard your ship, which you'll upgrade in terms of size, travel speed, biomes you can navigate and other things throughout the game. The ship is where the Spirits you're escorting to the end of their lives will reside, so you'll have to build them houses aboard this ship as well as other buildings like kitchens and orchards to maintain the materials you'll need to keep them satisfied. In order to build things like this, you'll sail around a surprisingly large map to a bevy of locations gathering materials, talking to NPCs and often engaging in some quietly deep and well thought-out platforming puzzles.
There's a lot of times you'll see a faraway rock or a high ledge in Spiritfarer - realise that you can't make it there without an ability you haven't unlocked yet and have to keep it in mind for later so you can return with said ability and earn a reward. It's this kind of mindfulness of the game's mechanics, this kind of occasionally Metroidvania-like level design that makes Spiritfarer's core gameplay so fundamentally satisfying in moments like this, and gives it a huge leg up over both its life-sim game competition and its narrative game competition.
You watch your ship slowly expand over time and take all these wacky different shapes as you shift all the buildings and houses you've made around the place, the ship itself becomes a level of your own making as there'll soon be so many buildings that getting to where you want becomes it own fun, yet brisk and constantly interesting platforming challenge. It's a game you can take at your own pace, and mould in your own ways, the way any game looking to relax you should do.
Everything in this game is engineered to instil in you a feeling of serenity. From gorgeous visuals and environment design often taking inspiration from a variety of cultures like Feudal Japan, modern North America and the frozen Arctic to consistently glistening gold UI to a humble, quiet and charming soundtrack. Even its writing and dialogue is far beyond what you expect of most indie games - which often (understandably) show a disregard for writers compared to most of the game's other facets.
This is where one of my only two criticisms for Spiritfarer comes in; whilst its writing is detailed and consistent with the fleshed-out backstories for each of its characters, those specific characters' motivations and backstories themselves are often made a little bit too obtuse. Characters like Astrid & Summer's backgrounds will only really be fully understandable if you read up about them on the Wiki. Their dialogue is often vague and suggests some detail that you'll only really be able to find out if you do some extra-curricular research on the game. At many points the game will hint at its characters' backgrounds without ever really giving you the full picture even after you've seen their arcs through to the end. It has me wondering if the game perhaps respected its audience's intelligence a bit too much? Or if I'm just a monkey-brained idiot.
My other gripe with Spiritfarer is that I think it goes on for a bit too long. If it were 5 or so hours shorter, I think its length would be perfect but as it is, I think it drags a bit. Towards the latter half of the game, when you've begun to figure out what the game's loop is, you can quite accurately predict what the rest of the game will look like, and you've already been doing it for quite some time and it starts to wear a bit thin. If you're anything like me, you get a bit antsy about finally finishing the game and seeing the ending, but there's still a fair bit of trekking about the place and completing menial tasks. I do appreciate how packed full of content this game is though, as many indie games of its ilk often charge about the same price for a far less meaty package. There's no doubt in my mind that you'll get your money's worth when you buy this game, even if its soft demeanour may have you convinced otherwise.
Don't let these two minor grievances dissuade you, this is an amazing game. As I write this review it's late June 2021 and I've just seen the end credits and I can comfortably tell you that this is the best game I've played since I played Breath of the Wild for the first time in 2018. It's real. It's about something real by people who have clearly been through some harrowing experiences and made a shockingly beautiful piece of art to encapsulate what they were like, not just the bad parts, but the good parts too.
Spiritfarer is incredible, and it's hard to believe it was made by a studio considered "indie" and not a huge, triple A company considering the quality of its production value in every facet. It deserves to be held up as an indie game masterpiece alongside the likes of Hades and Undertale. It made me go upstairs and check on my Mum, who's been suffering with a litany of illnesses and conditions for the better part of a decade now. This game will stay with me for a very long time, and I'm very glad of that.
A fantastic game that makes you ponder over death and our impermanence on earth while making you do head calculations about the amount of ore needed to craft steel sheets so you can upgrade your foundry, also please do not forget that your spirit inmates are starving and you completely forgot to make them food oops. Suffice to say I loved every minute of my 30-hour time with it, despite some annoying bugs.
Spiritfarer’s emotional narrative gets shamefully wasted on its gameplay loop which seems to be satisfying at first, but turns out to be occupational therapy that fails to reward you even half as much as it should be — which is why I abandoned this game after 8 hours of gameplay eventually.
The gameplay at first is just fine but grows stale before the midpoint of the game. It turns into a routine of daily chores and fetch quests that will send you all over the map for the most part. My biggest problem is the pacing. At some points there feels like there is to much to do and times where you literally have nothing to do. The reason I give this game a 3 and a half stars though is the story. The characters, for the most part, are genuinely likable and have fleshed out stories. This story tackles death again and again but in a refreshing way. There is a relatable story for everyone here. I still can’t get over Stanley.
All in all this is a game that has below average gameplay with some pacing issues, with solid music and art, but is a great adventure with an amazing story.
With my rating of 3 and a half stars, I definitely recommend playing Spiritfarer
All in all this is a game that has below average gameplay with some pacing issues, with solid music and art, but is a great adventure with an amazing story.
With my rating of 3 and a half stars, I definitely recommend playing Spiritfarer
Writing improves as the game goes along, and it can be very touching and heartbreaking at times.
The many farming mechanics are odd and don't fit the game at all, they just slow it down for no reason.
Nobody plays this game for the excitement of gathering 20 cedar logs.
It's a very good game that could have and should have been shorter.
The many farming mechanics are odd and don't fit the game at all, they just slow it down for no reason.
Nobody plays this game for the excitement of gathering 20 cedar logs.
It's a very good game that could have and should have been shorter.
Solid management game that excelled at filling me with joy and expertly breaking my heart.
A lovely resource management game with a great and surprisingly emotional story.
I really enjoyed my time with Spirifarer - the gameplay, story, and the spirits themselves were all wonderful. It’s a different take on the resource management sim and it’s fun having to juggle farming materials for upgrades, managing requests, and taking care of the spirits aboard your ship. Unfortunately, I don’t think it does a great job of balancing the resource management gameplay so that it is consistently engaging throughout the entire story. The end of the game was a bit dull for me as all my upgrades and miscellaneous tasks were done so most of my time was spent sitting idle on a boat as I sailed from port to port waiting to finish out the last spirits’ stories.
The stories you experience along your journey are great. I definitely grew more than a little attached to many of the spirits, so saying goodbye to them ended up being a bit emotional. On the other hand, some of the other spirits were so insufferable I couldn’t wait to get them off my ship. But overall, Spiritfarer made me more emotional than most other video games do.
The game could also do with a number of quality of life improvements as well. Like you can’t see the map to check resources at your location unless you’re on the boat. Weird choice. I also had enormous performance issues on Switch. Not only would I see frequent framerate drops, but I had at least one crash per game session and, due to the game’s infrequent autosaves and lack of a manual save option, would result in a decent chunk of lost progress.
Overall, those gripes are easy to overlook as they don’t really impact the moment-to-moment joy of playing this game too heavily. I didn’t expect the game to make me as emotional as it did but I had no shortage of tears in my eyes when I finished the story.
+ The spirits are (mostly) great and I loved being a part of their journeys
+ Satisfying resource management and upgrade progression
+ Overall relaxing game with great music
- Could use some quality of life improvements
- Performance issues and crashes on the Nintendo Switch
- End of the game gets tedious
I really enjoyed my time with Spirifarer - the gameplay, story, and the spirits themselves were all wonderful. It’s a different take on the resource management sim and it’s fun having to juggle farming materials for upgrades, managing requests, and taking care of the spirits aboard your ship. Unfortunately, I don’t think it does a great job of balancing the resource management gameplay so that it is consistently engaging throughout the entire story. The end of the game was a bit dull for me as all my upgrades and miscellaneous tasks were done so most of my time was spent sitting idle on a boat as I sailed from port to port waiting to finish out the last spirits’ stories.
The stories you experience along your journey are great. I definitely grew more than a little attached to many of the spirits, so saying goodbye to them ended up being a bit emotional. On the other hand, some of the other spirits were so insufferable I couldn’t wait to get them off my ship. But overall, Spiritfarer made me more emotional than most other video games do.
The game could also do with a number of quality of life improvements as well. Like you can’t see the map to check resources at your location unless you’re on the boat. Weird choice. I also had enormous performance issues on Switch. Not only would I see frequent framerate drops, but I had at least one crash per game session and, due to the game’s infrequent autosaves and lack of a manual save option, would result in a decent chunk of lost progress.
Overall, those gripes are easy to overlook as they don’t really impact the moment-to-moment joy of playing this game too heavily. I didn’t expect the game to make me as emotional as it did but I had no shortage of tears in my eyes when I finished the story.
+ The spirits are (mostly) great and I loved being a part of their journeys
+ Satisfying resource management and upgrade progression
+ Overall relaxing game with great music
- Could use some quality of life improvements
- Performance issues and crashes on the Nintendo Switch
- End of the game gets tedious
Fucking. Astonishing.
Never will I ever encounter another piece of media that makes me feel like this. To play a game that truly confronts death as something to embrace rather than fear is phenomenal. On top of that, there is nothing more relaxing than being the captain of a boat and doing miscellaneous errands while helping out the people you love. That, AND listening to the beautiful OST at the same time.
This is one of my favorite games. If you don't like this I find you genuinely confusing. Fucking 10/10
Never will I ever encounter another piece of media that makes me feel like this. To play a game that truly confronts death as something to embrace rather than fear is phenomenal. On top of that, there is nothing more relaxing than being the captain of a boat and doing miscellaneous errands while helping out the people you love. That, AND listening to the beautiful OST at the same time.
This is one of my favorite games. If you don't like this I find you genuinely confusing. Fucking 10/10
have not yet played a game so special with the delivery of that certain feeling between life and death
This game is kind of a mess. While the art is cute and the presentation is decent, it's a chore to play. It has a lot of gameplay mechanics that really only serve to fill time, for example, there really doesn't need to be multiple types of wood. The various islands are uninteresting, the art lacks character, the protagonist might as well be a refrigerator box. The characters, the "spirits," just monologue at you in paragraphs about their past and then die. I found most of them irritating and I didn't care about any of their stories. Ultimately, this game feels like it fell victim to scope-creep. It has a lot of systems that are dissonant, none of which are particularly well fleshed-out, and it doesn't spend enough time making its characters feel interesting.
Spiritfarer made me ask a difficult question of myself, for me personally, just how important is gameplay for a video game. I know that sounds like a stupid question but stick with me for a little bit. Spiritfarer at it's core is a survival/crafting game about gathering resources to craft upgrades and progress through the game, and I found it's repetitive loop of gathering/crafting to be very irritating and bothersome quite a lot of the time. There are hours I spent with this game where I became very frustrated and bored that would normally just end with me uninstalling the game and never returning.
...and yet I can't deny that I found myself still falling in love with this game.
Because the game really is more than it's gameplay a lot of the time. The art and animation is always a pure delight to look at, the soundtrack is beautifully moving, and the writing is some of the most poignant and moving I've ever seen in any piece of media. There are many moments that I'm probably going to carry with me for years to come.
But was all of this worth it? I loved the game for it's art but simply tolerated it for it's gameplay. My gut reaction is to recommend Spiritfarer but I'm confident that there will be a lot of people for whom the gameplay will be simply too tedious for them.
...and yet I can't deny that I found myself still falling in love with this game.
Because the game really is more than it's gameplay a lot of the time. The art and animation is always a pure delight to look at, the soundtrack is beautifully moving, and the writing is some of the most poignant and moving I've ever seen in any piece of media. There are many moments that I'm probably going to carry with me for years to come.
But was all of this worth it? I loved the game for it's art but simply tolerated it for it's gameplay. My gut reaction is to recommend Spiritfarer but I'm confident that there will be a lot of people for whom the gameplay will be simply too tedious for them.
This review contains spoilers
O mais importante deixado pro final, então Português abaixo.
---------- English ----------
When it shines, it shines: true heart, contemplation, spirituality, exuberance and humility - everything that makes it so profoundly human - are delivered in small doses, hidden behind routine acts of affection that slowly turn into repetitive, banal work. I wish that the game focused more on what really matters, instead of turning to the meditative sameness of checklists and collecting materials. Luckily, since I played it with my girlfriend, slowly and through a very long time, I felt as if most of these tedious chores turned into a relaxing exercise in cooperation.
I have many conflicting opinions in how it’s self-described denomination of “cozy management game” conflicts with its message: take, for example, how the beautiful representations of fuzzy memories and internal struggle, manifested through lovingly handcrafted set-pieces for each character, are transformed into something used to farm resources repetitively - would that be a poignant message about how grief and coming to terms with your end is a slow, arduously boring process, or just bad design? I felt guilty when, as I delivered to the Everdoor a character I’ve come to cherish, our arms entwined in our last walk together, I thought: “Ok, so I just need to offload granny and then I can get to the island and buy me some cherry tree seeds.”
In no other moment I felt so deeply, and so elegantly, what the game tried to show me about letting go and accepting loss: all my spirits were already gone, I had completed the encyclopedia, explored every island; the world laid silent for hours already, and we stalled to not let it go. When we finally came to terms with it, Stella, with no need for ceremonies, rowed to the Everdoor, as she had done several times, and the game ended - its end point dissolving into a beautiful, quiet nothingness. When the time comes, that’s how I want to go.
---------- Português ----------
Quando brilha, sabe brilhar: verdadeiro coração, humildade, espiritualidade, contemplação e exuberância - tudo que o torna tão profundamente humano - são entregues em doses homeopáticas, escondidos por trás de atos cotidianos de afeto que não tardam em se transformar em trabalho repetitivo e banal. Queria que o jogo tivesse focado mais no que realmente importa, do que se deixar levar na mesmice meditativa de checar listas e coletar materiais. Por minha sorte, o trabalho maçante se tornou, na maioria dos casos, em um exercício relaxante de cooperação, já que joguei ao longo de muitos meses junto de minha namorada.
Tenho opiniões conflitantes em como a parte de “cozy management game” de sua própria descrição entra em conflito com sua mensagem: penso, como exemplo, nas representações lindíssimas de memórias passadas e lutas internas de cada personagem sendo transformadas em set pieces cujo propósito final é coletar recursos - seria isto simbologia do trabalho lento e sistemático do luto e da aceitação de seu fim, ou apenas design ruim? Me senti culpado quando, ao entregar um querido personagem para o além, braços entrelaçados em nosso último passeio juntos, pensei: “Pronto, só despachar a velhinha e posso ir na ilha comprar semente de cerejeira.”
Em momento algum do jogo senti tão bem, e com tanta elegância, o que jogo queria dizer sobre saber quando abrir mão e aceitar o fim: já havia entregue todos os espíritos, completado toda a enciclopédia, explorado toda ilha; o mundo estava silencioso há horas, e nós enrolávamos pra não partir. Quando decidimos, Stella remou silenciosa até o Everdoor, como já havia feito diversas vezes, e, o jogo, sem maior cerimônia, acabou - seu ponto final esvaindo-se em um belo, pacífico nada. Assim que quero ir, quando for minha vez.
---------- English ----------
When it shines, it shines: true heart, contemplation, spirituality, exuberance and humility - everything that makes it so profoundly human - are delivered in small doses, hidden behind routine acts of affection that slowly turn into repetitive, banal work. I wish that the game focused more on what really matters, instead of turning to the meditative sameness of checklists and collecting materials. Luckily, since I played it with my girlfriend, slowly and through a very long time, I felt as if most of these tedious chores turned into a relaxing exercise in cooperation.
I have many conflicting opinions in how it’s self-described denomination of “cozy management game” conflicts with its message: take, for example, how the beautiful representations of fuzzy memories and internal struggle, manifested through lovingly handcrafted set-pieces for each character, are transformed into something used to farm resources repetitively - would that be a poignant message about how grief and coming to terms with your end is a slow, arduously boring process, or just bad design? I felt guilty when, as I delivered to the Everdoor a character I’ve come to cherish, our arms entwined in our last walk together, I thought: “Ok, so I just need to offload granny and then I can get to the island and buy me some cherry tree seeds.”
In no other moment I felt so deeply, and so elegantly, what the game tried to show me about letting go and accepting loss: all my spirits were already gone, I had completed the encyclopedia, explored every island; the world laid silent for hours already, and we stalled to not let it go. When we finally came to terms with it, Stella, with no need for ceremonies, rowed to the Everdoor, as she had done several times, and the game ended - its end point dissolving into a beautiful, quiet nothingness. When the time comes, that’s how I want to go.
---------- Português ----------
Quando brilha, sabe brilhar: verdadeiro coração, humildade, espiritualidade, contemplação e exuberância - tudo que o torna tão profundamente humano - são entregues em doses homeopáticas, escondidos por trás de atos cotidianos de afeto que não tardam em se transformar em trabalho repetitivo e banal. Queria que o jogo tivesse focado mais no que realmente importa, do que se deixar levar na mesmice meditativa de checar listas e coletar materiais. Por minha sorte, o trabalho maçante se tornou, na maioria dos casos, em um exercício relaxante de cooperação, já que joguei ao longo de muitos meses junto de minha namorada.
Tenho opiniões conflitantes em como a parte de “cozy management game” de sua própria descrição entra em conflito com sua mensagem: penso, como exemplo, nas representações lindíssimas de memórias passadas e lutas internas de cada personagem sendo transformadas em set pieces cujo propósito final é coletar recursos - seria isto simbologia do trabalho lento e sistemático do luto e da aceitação de seu fim, ou apenas design ruim? Me senti culpado quando, ao entregar um querido personagem para o além, braços entrelaçados em nosso último passeio juntos, pensei: “Pronto, só despachar a velhinha e posso ir na ilha comprar semente de cerejeira.”
Em momento algum do jogo senti tão bem, e com tanta elegância, o que jogo queria dizer sobre saber quando abrir mão e aceitar o fim: já havia entregue todos os espíritos, completado toda a enciclopédia, explorado toda ilha; o mundo estava silencioso há horas, e nós enrolávamos pra não partir. Quando decidimos, Stella remou silenciosa até o Everdoor, como já havia feito diversas vezes, e, o jogo, sem maior cerimônia, acabou - seu ponto final esvaindo-se em um belo, pacífico nada. Assim que quero ir, quando for minha vez.
A decent game that would be better if it gave you less busywork. You constantly have to balance watering your plants, cooking, and making actual progress which is pretty stressfull.
At one point, the game crashed and when I reloaded it, there were several gamebreaking bugs that meant I couldn't progress any further
At one point, the game crashed and when I reloaded it, there were several gamebreaking bugs that meant I couldn't progress any further
Some stories hit you from just the right angle at just the right time of your life, and Spiritfarer hit me with assassin-like precision, and now I'm much closer to needing two hands to count the number of video games that have brought me to tears.
A rumination on death disguised as a management sim, Spiritfarer puts you at the helm of an ever-expanding sea vessel charged with carrying souls to... whatever is next after their mortal journey has ended. A dozen or so anthromorphic denizens take up residence on your versatile skiff as they try to address their myraid earthly concerns for their values, their worth, and ultimately their lives.
All resource mainstays are here: fishing, crafting, cooking. The busywork is engaging and forgiving enough to distract from the slow burn of budding relationships and obscure their impending ends.
The game is generous and accommodating. You have to feed your passengers, but failing to do so isn't punished aggressively and can be recovered from swiftly and simply. The game is ultimately a meditation on death and its many paths and iterations. Making a player sweat their dwindling stock of onions would gracelessly undercut its main themes.
Fans of the management sim might find Spiritfarer shallow for the genre, but its broader accessibility means the grace and humanity at the game's core shines so much brighter.
A rumination on death disguised as a management sim, Spiritfarer puts you at the helm of an ever-expanding sea vessel charged with carrying souls to... whatever is next after their mortal journey has ended. A dozen or so anthromorphic denizens take up residence on your versatile skiff as they try to address their myraid earthly concerns for their values, their worth, and ultimately their lives.
All resource mainstays are here: fishing, crafting, cooking. The busywork is engaging and forgiving enough to distract from the slow burn of budding relationships and obscure their impending ends.
The game is generous and accommodating. You have to feed your passengers, but failing to do so isn't punished aggressively and can be recovered from swiftly and simply. The game is ultimately a meditation on death and its many paths and iterations. Making a player sweat their dwindling stock of onions would gracelessly undercut its main themes.
Fans of the management sim might find Spiritfarer shallow for the genre, but its broader accessibility means the grace and humanity at the game's core shines so much brighter.