Spirit Mancer Review (Switch eShop)

Spirit Mancer, the inaugural release from Sunny Syrup Studio, is an ambitious game that flies a little too close to the sun. It’s a hack ‘n’ slash, an action platformer, an RPG, a monster catcher, and a deckbuilder, all rolled into one. If that sounds like too many ideas to cram into one game… well, it totally is, though Spirit Mancer still comes across as a modestly enjoyable and interesting game.

Spirit Mancer follows the story of two military-trained demon hunters, Sebastian and Mary, who are suddenly transported away from the human world to Inferno, where a wicked demon queen has stolen away their friends. Armed with the titular Spirit Mancer, which gives them limited control over demons, the two set out to free their friends, defeat the queen, and save the world.

It’s a relatively thin plot, but Spirit Mancer manages to strike that perfect balance between goofiness and sincerity as it slowly introduces more of its cast. Couple this with some exceptionally well-produced animated cutscenes that play out at regular intervals, and you’re left with a narrative that feels a cut above what you’d expect to find in a typical 2D action game.

Gameplay in Spirit Mancer could be best described as a much more complicated approach to Mega Man Zero, with a dash of Pokémon for good measure. Equipped with a trusty green plasma saber, a ranged weapon of some kind, and a small selection of summonable allies sealed in a deck of cards (more on this in a bit), you set out on missions through linear 2D levels littered with enemy packs and a few treasures, usually with a tough boss fight to overcome at the end. Then, armed with the spoils you’ve gathered from your victories, you return to a base where you can build up your character, partake in side activities, and pick another mission to start the cycle over again.

Level designs are generally quite plain, so combat usually takes the spotlight in most stages. Every enemy health bar can be protected by up to three kinds of coloured shields—corresponding to your sword, gun, and cards—which makes combat an exercise in efficiency as you rapidly swap between tools to shred your enemies down. The sword and gun work as you’d expect, while the cards in your deck each correspond to the trapped ‘soul’ of an enemy—play a card and a version of that enemy will spawn in for a quick attack or action of some kind. If you manage to eliminate an enemy’s shield gauge before you erase all their health, you then have a brief chance to seal that enemy, which turns them into a one-use card added to your deck that can help take down other foes.

It takes a while to get to grips with how it all fits together, but you soon fall into a nice rhythm with enemy encounters as you learn how to read tells, prioritise which shields to take down first, and learn how all your tools can be chained together most effectively. However, extended play sessions reveal a sort of busy-ness to this combat design which ultimately works against it. Enemies often drop a meagre amount of rewards compared to the effort required to take them down effectively, and once the novelty of combat wears off, it simply doesn’t feel worthwhile to engage most foes. After a couple of hours, we found ourselves rushing past most packs of enemies because we simply couldn’t be bothered.

Back in the base, you can invest the resources you gather into various character and base-building activities that reminded us a bit of a Monster Hunter game. You can play a brief fishing minigame, seed a few plots of farmable land, and send out a couple of convoys of adorable pig creatures to do side work while you’re out, with the rewards all coming the next time you roll into town. You can also edit your base card deck, fill out a few upgrade trees that bolster your stats, and unlock new moves and abilities to diversify the combat a little more. We appreciated the sort of distractions that the base offers, although the rewards and unlocks for which it primarily exists start to lose their lustre right around the time when the gameplay loop starts to wear thin.

This gets to the problem at the heart of Spirit Mancer. It collapses under the weight of repetition, never stopping to ask the fundamental question: Is any of this fun? The diverse locales you visit are all beautiful and feature some of the best pixel art modern gaming can deliver, yet the actual level designs are consistently boring and unimaginative. This means that the combat system has to do a lot of heavy lifting to save the fun factor, but the low enemy variety and poor rewards really hold it back.

You ultimately spend a couple of minutes dismantling a small group of enemies, collect the few pennies they drop, and then walk another 10 feet to fight almost the exact same group the exact same way. Do this for 15-20 minutes to reach the (usually pretty good) end-of-level boss fight, and then it’s back to base to start over. Given how much it has going for it, it's tough to pinpoint exactly when Spirit Mancer truly fumbles the ball with its gameplay loop, but we’d suggest it begins once you recognise how plodding it all is.

Still, for those with a higher tolerance for the kind of repetitive game design on display, there’s lots to love. That feedback loop of beating missions, levelling up a bit, then running back out to do harder missions has its addictive charms, and there are flashes of brilliance to be found in the combat system when you happen to encounter a new foe. There’s a much better game buried in here somewhere and it reveals itself every now and again; those with a penchant for ‘flawed gems’ will likely find Spirit Mancer right up your alley.

One aspect of this release which is decidedly not flawed is the visual presentation, which manages to astound and delight at nearly every turn. Whether you’re battling foes in an open-air cosmic arena beneath a sea of stars, planting seeds in a scenic sun-kissed river valley, or swimming between coral reefs near an ocean floor littered with Atlantean ruins, the hi-bit art style here consistently manages to impress with the excellent attention to detail. Games like Spirit Mancer stand as a strong reminder of why pixel art will never go out of style, with lots of great scenery and animations to behold.