- Tell a toddler a story about oranges
- Skip forward 7 years
- Fail a persuasion check with said child because I picked the wrong bedtime story, directly determining this character's fate which will not be revealed until the absolute final moment of the game

very good game, plz play

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.

A bit of context before I start: in the middle of 2022, Pangburn and I had just finished up reviews of Ys: The Oath in Felghana and we were looking for something new to try out on the backlog. Now, as the overambitious planner I tend to be, I suggested that we play Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure, as a Wii game that I had bounced off of a year ago but had wanted to get back to for a while since. He agreed, and we were to get at it and quickly finish this one up because a lot of other impending 2000s era classics were on the docket in the months to come.

Consider this review my comeuppance, because I am directly responsible for Pangburn’s anguish and due to many schedule slips (and existential dread after many conversations before and after that review), I didn’t end up finishing the game until yesterday, playing it in splurts over the course of my holiday break. I always sympathized with his pain, but now, I think I can genuinely empathize with his struggle.

As a preface to discussing the game, we first have to briefly talk about difficulty in video games, particularly difficulty in the point and click adventure game genre. Difficulty in video games can usually be divided into two categories: the knowledge test (i.e. figuring out and knowing what to do) and the execution test (that is, actually performing the actions to progress). While the two categories aren’t mutually exclusive (as there is always some degree of learning on the fly/recognizing context clues and pairing that up with performance), difficulty in plenty of scenarios will tend to lean more towards one category than the other, and that especially tends to ring true in point and clicks; knowledge tests usually reign supreme due to the nature of the genre relying heavily on puzzles, and execution tests boiling down to a few timed environmental interactions or performances in included side minigames.

We can then think of Zack & Wiki as a successor to the classic point and click adventure games of the 1990s, especially those of LucasArts, whose work evolved into the 3D adventure game space with more intricate timing and precision placement puzzles as reflected in titles such as Grim Fandango and its infamous forklift puzzle. I bring up this particular model, because Zack & Wiki is in many ways exemplary of that exact style, for better or for worse. Simply put, Zack & Wiki takes many of the general conventions of the genre, and many of the classic weaknesses too, but its many “innovations” also led to the game becoming much more frustrating than the games it built off of.

There’s a very good video regarding difficulty in point and click adventure games by Yahtzee; while I won’t go into detail regarding all his points, one of his main takeaways is that a certain balance regarding puzzle difficulty has to be reached. You have to create puzzles that are not so simple as to where they can just be solved instantly (simple lock & key puzzles), and not so complicated as to where shaky logic/obscure environmental clues must be relied upon and players are instead incentivized to trial and error their way through the game. Yahtzee highlights the spitting puzzle in Monkey Island 2 as a good example of perfect difficulty, where he mentions that multiple locks (noticing wind direction, thickening your phlegm, and needing a distraction to move the finish line flags) require multiple keys (hearing a conversation regarding the wind as a factor, color mixing drinks, and earlier context clues with blowing your horn). As such, puzzles need to be both intricate and reasonably intuitive to give players that rush of satisfaction.

Zack and Wiki unfortunately tends to fail on both fronts with regards to this. Many of the puzzles are pretty damn simple, to the point where a good chunk of them are quite literally “fit a square peg into a square hole” environmental interactions. It also doesn’t help that many of the tools that you’ll get will be used once or twice and then replaced with another tool that you’ll obtain from solving that scenario; it’s in many ways a stream of classic inventory puzzles (using object A to solve problem B) with one lock and one key at a time. There are exceptions of course, for example needing to occasionally flip held objects to utilize the other side (like for instance, using a spread out umbrella to shield against wind and then using the hook side of the umbrella to snag far away chains) or shaking Wiki to transform animal tools back into animals for those specific interactions, but in general, these exceptions tend to be scant and are very obvious follow-ups when there exist few other approaches as dictated by the environment around you.

However, Zack and Wiki also performs the sin of doing the exact opposite; that is, making puzzles require so many steps from so many different places that the solution cannot be reasonably intuited from context clues, often with somewhat obtuse conclusions. One great example actually came up a couple of days ago when Pangburn and I were talking about the airship level. This is an “infiltrate the enemy base” stage where Zack & Wiki must sneak into Captain Rose’s plane, systematically eliminate or avoid enemy goons, and then escape via Rose’s personal vehicle, with tons of steps involved. One of these steps involves unlocking and then using a turret directly outside the hangar to not only destroy an air vent cover, but also destroy the already open hangar door. Pangburn actually got softlocked because he didn’t destroy the hangar door and some goons later lock the door and block the door controls, and after talking this through, we figured out why; there are no tells given signifying that the elimination of the door is crucial to solving the level. The closest I could think of comes earlier in the level, where after turning off a propeller, some alarm apparently goes off and a goon comes to check on the propeller controls. However, not once does the goon signal to check the hangar door controls from this alarm that they will mess with the controls and block Zack’s exit route, nor do any of the crew throughout the level’s runtime. You can leave the hangar door and air vent cover open (and in fact even leave Rose’s plane on with the engine running) without the goons noticing or taking action until they close the escape routes, at which point it becomes too late. Because this level is quite lengthy and requires so many different actions before the potential soft lock, I can’t fault Pangburn for not destroying the hangar door, and in fact planning so far ahead to secure the getaway gets easily overlooked when so many precise steps are necessary.

That actually leads me to what I think is the second biggest problem with Zack and Wiki: the levels are just too goddamn long. I won’t go too into detail regarding the death and ticketing system, as Pangburn has already described that sufficiently, but needless to say, the takeaway here is that there is a difference between making something difficult, and making something tedious. Performing the incorrect actions (often as part of trial and error, in fact) or running into hazards will result in not just a slight time loss from animations as is common of the genre, but in fact permadeath that requires you to restart the level or use a ticket (which has to be bought with money in the hub, and money grinding in earlier levels is another issue of itself) to respawn. That also doesn’t take into account that softlocking is extremely easy, because crucial environmental objects can be easily fumbled or destroyed and Zack doesn’t signify this softlock with an instant death or failure, but rather just the usual disappointed animation similar to more forgiving failures (such as accidentally inserting the wrong shape into a hole, where he obviously won’t die). However, not all environmental destruction resolves in softlocking either, because sometimes these objects and tools can be replenished… but not always! This inconsistency makes Zack and Wiki’s “checkpointing” system even more frustrating; how are you supposed to know what softlocks and what doesn’t without prior knowledge of events, and thus figure out exactly when or when not to restart?

The level design itself is also an issue with padding out levels, not just the puzzles contained within. Remember when I said that a lot of Zack and Wiki’s difficulty stems from simple inventory puzzles? Zack only has space to carry one item, which means you’re constantly throwing down items on the ground to replace them with something else, and backtracking plenty to recollect old items for follow up interactions. Furthermore, levels tend to be massive, and pathing is not great; players have to keep clicking around the level to specifically guide Zack to not run into obvious level hazards and die, even if this form of interaction is not particularly interesting. Compounding to this problem, levels often change their camera angles gradually as Zack walks around the stage (as opposed to classic point and clicks that lean heavily towards fixed camera angles for each room and immediately snap when absolutely necessary), so you might not even be able to click specifically where you want to go and have to keep clicking on the screen for Zack to keep up. The biggest culprit here is a level dubbed “Icicle of Prosperity,” where Zack has to continually drag up tools (many of which are heavy and slow down his movement speed) from the ground to a giant icicle up top on the same path, over and over. Needless to say, this issue annoys me because it could have just been solved by condensing single levels or allowing Zack to carry more than one item at a time; it’s just not engaging to watch Zack bumble from one part of the stage to the next, especially when failing to do so results in an entire restart of the whole process.

Okay, so if everything inbetween the action is extremely boring, then the action itself as execution tests should save the game right? Wrong. In fact, I would say that the motion control minigames actually contain some of the lowest dips in the game altogether. When the actions work and you can follow the given pose signified by the game (very similar to how WarioWare Smooth Moves expresses its starting states actually), then it’s fine; these are the simple actions like pulling a lever down, shaking a tree, pressing a button, and the usual fare. Conversely, when the motion controls don’t directly convert 1:1 with actions in-game, it is genuinely obnoxious. Again, I find myself agreeing with Pangburn regarding many of the worst culprits, so I’ll just elaborate upon a few of them.

- One level in the volcano section requires you to use a tennis racket to deflect fireballs towards specific targets. There are no context clues or hints given on how to navigate this; you just have to figure out on the fly that the timing of the hits determines if the shot goes left or right (similar to Wii Sports baseball). Pointing the Wiimote in the direction before swinging does nothing. This timing however, apparently has nothing to do with verticality, which becomes important when you have to lob a fireball upwards to hit the treasure chest. I hit multiple fireballs in the correct vicinity but kept undershooting the target before I unceremoniously nailed the target while doing the same exact thing.

- The anchor in the final boss fight is extremely stupid. You have to whirl your Wiimote like twirling a lasso, and then flick your Wiimote towards the sensor bar to unleash it when you feel the vibration. Here’s the kicker; these are emulated motion controls (there’s no built-in sensor in the Wiimote) so what is intuited versus what you must actually do is quite different. I learned from GameFAQs that you must instead, gently tilt the Wiimote and hold it in that direction to let go. It’s another classic case of the required action going against intuition and thus feeling like classic 2000s jank instead of a satisfying and tough execution test.

- Bonelich is hidden in a few levels, where he can be woken up to play in some rhythm minigames, shaking the bell in time with the prompts. Again, Zack and Wiki uses tilt sensors (to determine controller positions) over accelerometers, so shaking the bell is really more like slowly tilting the Wiimote towards the screen. Even more frustrating though, is that clearing Bonelich’s optional minigames is required to unlock certain Secret Treasure Maps, and for the life of me, I could never figure out the proper action for a sustained note in the minigame, since shaking vigorously only messed with the tilt sensors.

Thus, I now understand on a deeper level exactly what was so aggravating regarding Zack and Wiki’s motion controls, and it is an absolute shame that one of the supposed selling points of the game (that is, introducing difficulty through minigame execution tests that are supposed to be more intuitive and thus more immersive) is instead one of the most glaring weaknesses of the whole experience. All I’m saying, is that I think this would have gone a whole lot better if the game was released a couple of years later with Wii Motion Plus support so my sword swings and rotating blocks actually came out in-game as reflected by my outside actions, more similarly to that of Wii Sports Resort.

There’s one last particular moment that comes to mind as my least favorite section of the game (yes, even while considering the onslaught of motion control jank combined with exhausting and truly mental puzzling in the last hour of the game). The Frozen Temple world’s level “Keeper of the Ice” is a stage where the treasure chest is already in sight, but there’s a big catch; the level is guarded by a sweeper robot that turns on every 10 seconds to sweep up Zack’s footprints and will prematurely end the level if it collides into Zack at the end of any footprint trail. In other words, this is a forced stealth segment in a point and click adventure game, and is perhaps the worst forced stealth segment that I have ever had to suffer through in any game to date. You can either avoid the robot by hiding on a non-snowy surface (i.e. ice or any covered gazebos) or shaking nearby trees to cover your close footprints. It sounds simple but doesn’t translate well because as mentioned prior, shifting camera angles and questionable pathing make it tougher in practice to get exactly where you need to be within every 10 second interval, and you have to be standing in exactly the correct position in front of the tree (not just anywhere around) to be able to shake it. Couple this with one puzzle where you have to slowly carry a transformed goon totem across the map as well as the fact that halfway through, the sweeper bot will break the ice in the middle of the level and cut off a route, forcing you to take a more circuitous path around the stage, and you have what is perhaps the most drawn-out and absolutely miserable level in the entire game. One misclick or failed pathing interaction here means that you’ll have to spend another attempt slowly inching your way through the snowy garden, ten seconds at a time.

I feel somewhat guilty that I have to be this harsh towards a beloved favorite of many, especially when considering how many interesting ideas were at play. The potential of Zack & Wiki shines through so crystal-clear; the cel-shaded graphics more than hold up, there’s tons of charm in both the main cast and side character interactions, and the difficulty, when presented with cool challenges like the potion puzzle in “Mad Science” or the controllable robots in "Relics of the Past," provides that fun and thrilling rush. Unfortunately, there’s just so much downtime and slogging throughout the whole game with not enough world-building or gripping storytelling to keep me constantly engaged during its weaker moments. Needless to say, I can’t see myself returning to the game to tackle optional end-game content or recommending this to anyone outside of those looking for a prime example of why vanilla Wii motion controls can go too far. Capcom went on record in 2008 as rather doubtful that a sequel would be announced in the near future, and as much as I hate to be pessimistic, that sadly may be for the best.

It's been almost 9 years since the last Donkey Kong Country game has been released, so I imagine that like all great classics, an indie market rose to meet the demand of nostalgic favorites that AAA developers have since neglected. Kaze and the Wild Masks definitely scratches that itch, especially if you liked playing as Dixie Kong in Donkey Kong Country 2, but as much fun as I had during its four hour runtime, I do find it to be rather generic and derivative. Derivative in fact, to the extent to where I can point to Kaze's levels and note the striking similarities to exact levels in the Donkey Kong Country franchise. Here are some examples:

- Ropes of Hope is basically Forest Frenzy; you jump and hang onto vertical ropes, sliding up and down to dodge aerial foes.

- Lights On Lights Off is the Kaze equivalent of Stop & Go Station; here, you activate light switches to temporarily disable otherwise invincible crab enemies that block the path.

- Toxic Lake can be thought of as the first part of Toxic Tower, where you have to quickly jump up platforms and hoops to avoid becoming engulfed by the rising green death water.

- Ride to Heaven is budget Trick Track Trek; it's the Kaze variant of the singular moving platform odyssey, dodging floating enemies along the way (though without the falling goons from the rafters like Trick Track Trek).

- Sprint of Spirits is essentially bastardized Haunted Hall; here, Dragon Mask Kaze automatically runs to the right while being chased by some evil ghostie vegetable, with red switches speeding up the possessed produce while blue switches will freeze it for a moment.

I do find it flattering of course, that Kaze is clearly influenced by Donkey Kong Country, but I also think it is a bit absurd that I can literally highlight specific elements as direct replicates of DKC level features. Slingshots in Kaze are the equivalents of barrel cannons, with some marked as automatically firing while others have to be timed. The masks can be thought of as animal buddies, with the shark mask essentially a better Engarde that can also swim up and down diagonally and the hawk mask as analogous to Squawks (tap A to flutter against gravity and X to launch an attack similar to Squawks' nut projectile). The exception is the lizard mask, though this also has a counterpart in DKC as the minecart, turning levels into an autorunner where you just have to jump (and occasionally dive) at the right time. Even the collectibles are reminiscent of the DKC games, down to the KAZE letters (like that of the golden KONG letters), though I do think that secrets are a lot easier to find in Kaze than the main games, with basically no incentive to revisit them since there are no external rewards to be found (while bonus rooms in DKC provide plenty of bananas, coins, and extra lives to give you that little rush).

As it stands, Kaze is fun enough for a first romp, but it lacks the depth that the DKC games really exemplify for me to justify going back for replays or speedrun/no-damage achievements. Enemy placement feels a bit more haphazard at times, and doesn't really provide me enough opportunities to build up momentum by spinning into clusters of enemies. For that matter, you also can't control your aerial height after bouncing off of enemies in Kaze (whereas in DKC you can either soft bounce by not holding down jump as you land on enemies, or boost off them by holding/tapping jump), which is a bit of a shame. There just aren't enough opportunities to really utilize any interesting speedrun tech outside of mashing spin with few lasting consequences (as compared to DKC's stagnation state if you come to the end of your roll animation). It also doesn't help that even within specific worlds, you'll find a ton of different environments that don't necessarily make sense (such as a desert sands level in the ice world) and thus gives off this sense of copy & pasted designs throughout the game, especially when you compare Kaze's lack of distinct theming in worlds and rather generic soundtrack to the immersive set design and environmental theming and level elements across the many wild landscapes of the series to the tunes of David Wise. There just aren't enough wrinkles to really shake up level approaches and difficulty, and the atmosphere can't hold a candle to the main series.

If you're desperate for a taste of the old times and have five bucks to spare during a sale, then you could do a lot worse than Kaze. Otherwise, I'd recommend going back to the Donkey Kong Country games or playing a 2D platformer that's inspired enough by the formula but also manages to inject its own personality into the game while providing distinct theming and atmosphere, such as Rayman Legends. As fun of a little diversion as Kaze was, I cannot sincerely say that it manages to come out on its own as anything more than a clone without the underlying details that made the originals it was inspired by so great.

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit is a free demo set in the Life is Strange 2 Universe.

The game is about a son and a dad who live in small town in the US. During this demo, you'll know more about them but not enough to complete their story. You'll see them again in the second chapter of Life is Strange 2 and you will only see how their story ends there.

What you do in this free demo will change what will happen in the second chapter of Life is Strange 2. To be honest, it's not much, almost everything is for cosmetic purpose and to introduce the characters.

The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit fails in introduce the franchise to new players. I missed almost everything that makes Life is Strange one of my favorite franchises. I only recommend if you're planning to play Life is Strange 2.

Life is Strange 2 is that kind of game that let you decide how your character will interact in some dialogs and situations. Every choice you make will change the end of the story. There are really good games that are perfect on it like Detroit: Become Human and Heavy Rain.

The fisrt Life is Strange and Before the Storm are masterpieces. They teach us how to conect with the characters, something really important in this type of game. Life is Strange 2 does not do that. To be honest, I didn't like the brothers and thought the small one really annoying. This is really bad and the game fails in something really important.

That makes you don't care about some parts of the story that the developers tried to make you shocked. To be honest, threre are just two scenes that made me fell some emotion.

If you don't know how this game works, I can tell you is pretty simple. Like I said before, the game focus in how you will interact with world arround you. There's no action segments that let you control the character. You'll only decide how to answer some questions or how to react in a situation. Everything you decide will make the following events change. That's another problem here.

You won't have a different story if you play the game multiple times. Only the end will change. For me, it's pretty bad. If you compare with games like Detroit: Become Human and As Dusk Falls, almost everything changes with your decisions. That's a problem for me here.

It's not a bad game but it's not as good as the first two. Life is Strange 2 is the most forgettable game of the franchise and I'm saying this after True Colors that it's a just a cool game, nothing more than that.

Comix Zone is a classic. No one can argue otherwise. It was an amazing game, and it still is today.

I have to start this review by talking about its art. The game is beautiful. It could be an indie game released for modern consoles. It's really impressive to see this game on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. The fact that they decided to create a game that takes place in a comic book helped to prevent it from feeling dated.

Unfortunately, the combat is a problem. The enemies somehow know what you're going to do before you do it. Additionally, sometimes you have to destroy certain items to move forward, but doing so causes you to lose HP! That's why this game is really difficult, and if you die, you have to start from the beginning. There are no checkpoints!

That's why I would say it's almost impossible to finish this game today without save states. It's a short game, but it's nearly impossible to complete it on its original console.

I think you should give Comix Zone a chance if you have the game. You can play it on Nintendo Switch Online or another emulator. Don't let the difficulty be an issue for you, because if you use a save state, you won't have a problem finishing it.

To sum up my thoughts on this game. I liked the core gameplay a lot, but not much else.

The game sometimes looks nice, but most of the time looks bland and not too high of quality, a look I have experienced a lot on the switch. There were plenty of slowdowns, including a bug that would happen whenever you open a gate with a switch that would flood with particles and lag the game for a few seconds. The puzzles are boring, the story is simple and serves its purpose. I don't like the voice acting very much.

I like the choice of weapons and abilities for each character. They seem more creative than the previous entry. I also like that peach and bowser are playable. Despite not liking Edge as a character, I did like her in combat, with the focus on dashing. My favorite character was luigi, who I used on nearly every map. Once you get luigi's steely stare maxed out with some of the weapon upgrades, he's kind of overpowered. The sparks allow for a lot of customization and planning, which is fun. The ability to move freely and glide with the team jump really opens up the tactics of this game. The positioning can get very precise and strategic.

One last thing that I noticed was that the game kind of got easier and easier as the game went on. I think I needed a harder difficulty mode. Overall when I was in a battle, I was having a good time, but otherwise, I was bored and disappointed. Not a bad game.

What a game to start the new year with.

I’m not embarrassed to say I’m glad I skipped the first game and went straight to this one. From the short time I had with Pillars of Eternity, POE2 is much more tighter, fruitful experience. It only rivals my enjoyment I had with Tyranny, and giving me much more things to think about what it means to be a god, and what mortals are to them, or how mortal interact with them. Even if a god is artificial, they are still a god with powers mortal cannot understand. But does that give them the right to abuse mortals? To treat them as lesser because they “need” leadership when they did not wish for it in the first place? Or grew to the point they don’t need the gods intervention anymore? No doubt in my mind, I will be thinking of this game for a long while