Spirit of the North
Year: 2020
Rating: E
Time Played: 458 minutes / 7.63 hours
Spirit of the North is a game about death, rebirth, and the beauty of Iceland. Without knowing much about it, I selected this as the next game my daughter and I would play through since it had no dialogue and seemed to be fairly straightforward. And while I was worried that the random corpses littering the game’s levels might scare her, I don’t think she fully understood what they were as we played. I enjoyed the ambiance of the music and the beautiful scenery, but the game had some issues.
While the beautiful scenery was quite immersive, any time the fox interacted with any of it, the graphics felt dated, like PlayStation 2-era graphics. It was also difficult to control the fox at times, especially when requiring precise jumps to reach secret areas. I also found the portions in the caverns/caves were extremely dark, to the point of being unable to see where I was going or what I was doing in those areas. Added on top of all of this, there were at least two or three times when I got stuck and could not figure out how to progress, which made me resort to watching a few playthroughs just to progress.
It’s a little odd that such a linear game like this would provide any challenge. I understand the need to control how the levels progressed, but I almost feel a small open-world concept could have been more engaging. Still, some puzzles and platforming sections were clever in a way that evoked Metroidvania mechanics. I also appreciated the non-verbal narrative that explored topics of death and rebirth that I could then share with my daughter.
A beautiful game that was difficult to play, I give Spirit of the North 3.0 stars out of 5.
