It's not exactly rare for a game to be about delivering folks to their deaths – usually via high-calibre ammunition – but it's certainly something new to see a game about ensuring a peaceful, fulfilling end of life. That's what Spiritfarer is, and it's certainly a unique thing; an instantly striking, benignly haunting little gem that's more subtle than you'd expect for a title with such big ideas.
You control Stella (and, in co-op, her cat Daffodil), the titular Spiritfarer, on her journey to ferry – you guess it – spirits to their final, dignified rest as they pass into the next world. This effectively means you'll be sailing the great seas of the afterlife, spirits in tow as passengers of your large floating vessel, gathering resources from the islands and inlets you happen across on your journey.
The first thing you'll notice is the animation – it's gorgeous. Everything and everyone just heaves with character, moves smoothly and convincingly, and is just generally charming to watch. The way Daffodil scurries around. The way Stella frowns at any particularly dubious dialogue. The spinning double jump you acquire. The way the passengers can embrace you in a warm, tight hug – it's all fantastic, visually, and honestly up there with the slickest graphics we've seen on the Switch.
The visual effects as you sail through purgatory are pretty spectacular, too – a mini-game where you catch bolts of lightning in a bottle (yes!) is downright ethereal, and sequences in which you sail rapidly through shoals of floating jellyfish are similarly beautiful. It's a striking, impressive game that manages to showcase a lot of superb character design and motion without feeling overdone or bloated.
As for the gameplay, it's quite piecemeal, but fits together well. Disparate genres come together cleverly, and a general lack of pressure – you can't die or really even fail, ultimately – means the whole experience is easygoing and eschews frustration.
There are elements of management sims; your boat can be expanded with a kitchen, a garden and so, which will allow you to produce food for your shipmates, some of whom ask for specific dishes that can only be acquired through fishing in certain spots, or heading to different locations for the right ingredients or construction material. As your ship expands you can rearrange its layout to your pleasing, which results in an environment that's very uniquely yours; it's a treat to hop and skip around your "base" as efficiently as possible, safe in the knowledge that it's your own genius design that's made things such a breeze.
Elsewhere, you'll find shops selling valuable resources for your hard-earned Glims, and encounter more traditional Metroidvania character upgrades such as the aforementioned double-jump, allowing you access to previously-inaccessible areas that may house new upgrades, collectables or even a lost spirit to recover. In the early game, you'll find there's a lot of waiting while you sail from island to island, but this is in keeping with the relaxed, reflective tone of Spiritfarer. Besides, you can always pass the time with a little fishing.
As your boat gets bigger and busier, your multitasking skills will have to improve significantly. Thankfully, this only really amounts to time; as we've mentioned, there doesn't seem to be any kind of fail state – it's just not that kind of game. That said, we thought the opening few hours were almost suffocating in their linearity; it's essentially a two-to-three-hour tutorial. It's certainly not that it isn't enjoyable, but we'd rather have been let off the leash, so to speak, a little faster. We're not talking Mario & Luigi levels of "go here, do this" condescension, but it made us a little antsy, wondering when the game was going to really get going.
Which leads to the only other problem we had with Spiritfarer, which we're not even sure is a problem, per se. Much has been made of the game's emotional impact – being, as it is, about death – but we were unmoved by it, in that sense. That's not to say we weren't drawn into the game, but it was with the warm, satisfying glow of success and camaraderie than the bittersweet send-offs we had been expecting.
We're not sure if this means we're emotionless monsters, or if pre-release impressions have been a little over-zealous with their promises of streams of salty tears, but we think Spiritfarer is such a resolutely positive look at the heavy, heavy subject of grief that we can't imagine it hitting any kind of painful note in its players. Certainly not by design, but of course personal circumstances will unavoidably feed into the experience.
Conclusion
A truly pleasant game, Spiritfarer balances undemanding platforming, gentle exploration and forgiving resource management with a beautifully-realised world with a cast full of charming, likeable, memorable characters. It's a pleasure to move around in with an evocative, endearing atmosphere and a succession of gameplay styles that gel superbly and never feel like padding. It's a long game, and you may find it becomes a little rote and repetitive before the end, but if it gets its hooks into you it's a game you'll want to go the distance with. Would it be distasteful to say it's dead good?
Comments (34)
I started it a few days ago and haven't been able to put it down. Beautiful game and super addictive.
Might pick this up for after I finish Bug Fables.
Thank you for this review. I have finished this game and absolutely loved it and most of the characters. However, I also did not feel much sadness when saying goodbye but most other people I have seen playing this have said about crying etc. when saying goodbye. Maybe I'm a just a Nobody without a heart but I like to think this game can be appreciated without the tears.
It's on my lost for when I have some extra currency to throw at beautiful indies.
@DuskformLycanroc I haven't really felt that sad when saying goodbye either. I think I just get too much satisfaction from making progress to feel particularly sad about it.
Not my cup of tea, glad to see people enjoying it though.
@Corbs I’m playing Bug Fables as well. Loving it! Super close to the end.
@DuskformLycanroc Glad to see a Kingdom Hearts reference. This was one of the gems of the indie direct, and I'll probably get it when I finish Bastion and Transitor
Not my cup of tea either, but I guess that the beauty of indies, always something for someone
Hypnospace Outlaw and Anti-RPG Moon reviews please!
Super fun game, maybe my favorite this year. My only problem with the design is the lack of interaction between characters. They're very strong in their interactions with the main character, but that'll be all you get.
Unfortunately it's buggy as crap right now. I experienced multiple game breaking, soft-locking, progress-halting bugs on PC. And I've heard it's only worse on Switch.
I'm a huge fan of the experience they want to provide with this game, but to get it you want to wait for patches first.
Thanks for the review.
On my wishlist to download later as the price is over £20, but I might just go ahead and get it now.
Contextually, the cons listed are negligible if you think of what the game is about and trying to convey.
@BLD I'm getting towards the end and haven't encountered too many issues. The game randomly crashed once but it'd saved everything I'd done so that was no issue and I had one bug where I could no longer buy or sell anything at shops but a restart of my Switch fixed that. Nothing game-breaking thankfully.
Great review, I agree with everything said, except for one. I don't know if I am particularly emotional or too easily attached to fictional characters, but I was bawling my eyes out for every one of the goodbyes. Even for some of the later, not that sympathetic characters. Just... seeing them accept their fates in their last journey to the Everdoor and the final hug they share with Stella. That was always enough to want them to stay just a little bit longer.
And @BenAV, you are totally right. My game closed four separate times and when I wanted to start one of the minigames, the character responsible for it just started falling through the boat and reappearing above it in an endless cycle. Also, as I was accompanying one of the characters to the little boat, it just said "<spirit>_LastVoyage_Fallback1" which really took me out of the moment xD
But overall, with the gorgeous Animation, Music, Story and Gameplay Loops, this is by far my top game for this year so far.
@Aninok Those are some touching last words.
@Aninok It really broke me to see hints of how each character died. The most unsympathetic pair of characters, for instance, have a super tragic story that only becomes fully understandable when you're talking while ferrying them to the Everdoor.
Between the addictive gameplay loop, the exploration, and the writing, this game really is something special.
@DuskformLycanroc a slong as you just didnt kick them over the side its fine.
One of the games I'm most looking forward to, whenever I clear my backlog enough to justify buying it.
Sounds great, I appreciate all the impressions in the comments too. Maybe going to wait for a patch though based on the issues, have plenty to play on Switch right now after recently picking up a bunch of indies.
@StuartGipp Thanks for the review. Are you (or any readers here) able to say how the multiplayer holds up? Is it a Sonic and Tails, New Horizons kind of a situation? If Stella is fishing, what can Daffodil do other than sit and wait?
This game is a 9 for me so far. I'm probably about 10 hours in. The writing is beautiful and I really care about and am interested in the characters. I haven't seen any of these glitches that people are mentioning, either. Still much to see, however.
I might have to get this game sometime, it looks really lovely.
Damn, I'd like to play this but the backlog! Curse the backlog.
This sounds like a unique experience. I will pick it up eventually, the backlog is quite ample already.
Been playing this the past few days via Game Pass with my son. It's such a wonderful game definitely one of my top picks for GOTY.
@Panopticon I'd say it's a little better than that. While you can't do the same thing at the same time. (you cannot both fish for instance) you can do different things.
One can cook up foods, plot a course, smelt some metal or water plants while the other fishes or talks to everyone.
There is one catch. Daffodil can not talk to other characters (because it's a cat). You can hug and give items tho but no dialogue for player 2. Other than that you can do the same thing.
It's slow in the beginning but after 5 hours you'll beg player 2 to help out because there is something to manage all the time. Daffodil can even rearrage the buildings.
And you have a shared inventory and money so it really encourages you to plan this boat ride together.
The problem i've had so far is because of how slow and tranquil it is, i constantly fall asleep after a long days graft. Everytime I boot up the game I can't remember what I most recently did because during the previous session I was in a trance!
@LEGEND_MARIOID it's only a fiver on the russian eshop.
@Zimon Thanks for the explanation! I would hate to drop $30 on a co-op game where the 2nd player stood there being bored half the time.
I am about 20 hours into this and it is a goty contender but I have to say is getting bit repetitive and find that I have done each island about 3 times. I think I’m stuck now but will play more to Nite! Beautiful visuals and audio! Xxx
The games these guys make are always bueatiful, so I might give it a shot, even if I was hoping for a more dynamic experience than seems to be the case. :3
@Scottwood101
Oh my...THIS!! Except this ‘nighttime drowsiness’ occurs with 90% of my games (I guess I’m too chill?!). Can’t tell you how many times back in the day I would hit the open seas (ACIV) only to wake up, like, 6 minutes later to hear my crew yelling, “we’re under ATTACK!! Man the Cannons!! Aaaahhhhh!” And I’d be like, wait, what...WTF, weren’t we just singing shanties about how ugly our wives are, but, like, we still miss ‘em and everything, er..?
Ah, Good times...Good crew!
first half of the game was better than the second. The city/towns are all very alike, could use more variety. However the game is one of my favorites and I love it. If there were a DLC with additional spirits, i'd die of happiness.
“wOuLd iT bE diStAsTeFuL tO sAy It’S dEaD gOoD?”
Good review, cringeworthy stumble over the finish line.
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