Spiritfarer
Year: 2020
Rating: T
Time Played: 2,036 minutes / 33.94 hours
I remembered when I saw Spiritfarer on a Nintendo Direct (or other such showcase) and thought that it looked like a cute game with its hand-drawn art style. So I put it on my wishlist, picked it up on sale, and then never played it until recently. Once I finally found the time to play it, I was hooked. It provided that cozy vibe that I adored in Animal Crossing: New Horizons and had an exploration style similar to The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker that I also liked. That’s not to say it didn’t have its issues, but it was definitely worth my time and money.
There’s this nice niche of games between the hyper realistic AAA behemoths and the retro pixel art indie darlings that really appeal to me. The games that feel hand-drawn like Indivisible (or even Hollow Knight, to an extent) have this warmth to them that’s difficult to replicate in any other style. Spiritfarer has this in spades, especially with the litany of creatively designed characters (some of which might have been a tad too annoying). Everything has a cutesy vibe, even if the underlying plot is about death and moving on.
And while I loved the art in this game, a lot of the gameplay mechanic felt either repetitive or blocked off. There are barriers in the world that can only be unlocked with certain upgrades to your ship, which you can’t get the materials for unless you have a particular guest to trigger a mini-game. Eventually, travel becomes faster (you don’t have to wait through the night), but that’s after hours of tedium. Overall, though, there didn’t seem to be any significant consequences to doing the game at my pace and just enjoying the adventure for what it was.
A cozy management game with some touching moments, I give Spiritfarer 4.0 stars out of 5.
