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"Hope is a flame, the light that never falters, the beacon of eternity."
Spiritfarer is a management sim and sandbox action game developed and published by Thunder Lotus Games.
Story
You play as Stella, who together with her pet cat Daffodil take over a role from mythological Charon of spiritfarer, a ferrymaster who sails the seas to find spirits, grant them their wishes and ultimately send them to afterlife through a gateway- Everdoor.
Gameplay
Spiritfarer is about spirits and ferring with exploration, management and few platformic bits added to the mix.
Discover areas and lost souls looking for your help, meet their needs and constantly improve your vessel along the way with different resources found from exploration or crafting.
Your ship will not only serve as a way to travel, but it will be a home to all spirits you find along the way, and Stella herself. While she and Daffodil nap in captain's cabin, any other characters will be temporary placed in guest house, though sooner or later a question of building a little cozy space for them will come.
Besides personal houses you will be able to make production buildings with all types of purposes. From places focused on utilizing different materials you collected to showing off your green thumb with gardens or orchards, all important to improving your vessel and to keep up with spirits needs.
Additionally you have a little fishing spot in the back, so while you travel to a location you can relax with little fishing minigame and catch some old shoes or glass bottles! Sea creatures every once in a while too.
Everything you collect, from sealife and resources to products can be sold for glims, games currency used to buy items from vendors or to fund crafting buildings.
As you progress throughout the game, your ship will need to expand and improve too. Upgrade crafting table to unlock new buildings, add accessories to reach new areas and simply make your vessel bigger so you can have extra space needed for whatever lies ahead.
All upgrades and buildings are useless if you have noone to use them for. So sail forth to find different spirits scattered across the game and bring them to your cozy ship so you can take care of them. Each spirit has a mood meter, which changes based on multiple instances. Main one, hunger. Everyone needs to have a meal every once in a while, and each spirit has their likes, favourites and dislikes. You will spend quiet a while in the kitchen, learning and experimenting with all ingredients you have to discover new recipes. Having their own house, improving it, completing their quests or just a specific company from other characters can also make them happy. Oh and don't forget to give them a nice hug! It's good to keep everyone satisfied as spirits with great mood will offer help with tasks on a ship or some sort of support in other way. On the other hand, keeping low morale will have unpleasant effects. Once you are done with character quests, there will be time to say goodbye.
Beside mentioned spirit requests serving as main quests and a tab to keep a look on what resources are needes for another ship upgrade, game offers "shenanigans" which are different type of quests from other characters you encounter during your travels.
Speaking of travelling, it's a key part of Spiritfarer. Each location you discover offers something, and game is seperated into differently themed regions. You will find mist covered forests with tress to cut down and berries to numb on, colorful villages with merchants or deep, deep mines with valuable ores. Each location has a little list near it so you can know what to find in and clears out a bit of fog on the map.
Additionally few places offer different minigames related to spirits.
Because map is quite massive and ship not a rocket type, there are bus stations spread across it used as a way to fast travel.
Finally, Stella does a bit of acrobatics in the game to help you travel. Double jumping, gliding, bouncing, though you will have to unlock them in shrines.
Some areas will be not accessible at the start due to your lack of specific move so there will be some backtracking one way or another.
If something is confusing or might feel like tad much, don't worry! Game offers great tutorial that slowly introduces you to all mechanics it contains.
Playtime, replayability and other modes
Oh you know how it is with those management games. Hard to point out how much time one will spend on it. My full 100% playthrough took me 35 hours but it was not my first, I assume average playtime should take 30-40 hours, even few hours extra if you want to do everything.
With lenghty playtime and all emotional pieces not having same impact second time around, you don't have to give game another go unless you have not played it after updates with new spirits rolled out, didn't finish it first time around or if you want to play it with someone special in coop. I would say it's more of a "return every once in a while to fish and enjoy peace" game after you beat it.
There is option of online coop through Remote Play where second player steps into the paws of our fluffy companion Daffodil!
Pros and cons
Spiritfarer is a fantastic title.
From gameplay perspective, it offers great management mechanics mixed with sandbox and few action platformic bits.
By any means it doesn't do anything new nor fresh. Craft materials, utilize them to build and expand your ship, focus on spirits and keeping them satisfied. You know, the usual. But it's nonetheless enjoyable, especially if you seek something slower paced.
It does have a lot of backtracking which might not tickle everyone in a good way, and certain tasks as time goes by can become repetitive once you mine ore or cook a meal for hundreth time. But it also offers fun platformic thanks to design of locations and abilities, fantastic artstyle with detailed animations and wonderful orchestral score accompanying you all the time.
And to level it up, you add whole emotional part regarding spirits, to create this mix of...colorful, wholesome, feels good game that at the same time covers topics of death, of people left behind and possible light of hope to achieve bittersweet balance. As you encounter new charismatic characters, discover their backstories and ultimately have to send them away in really emotional moments, before returning to cat petting, fishing, hugging whoever is left or trading with greedy raccoon. And in a weird way, even if not all characters have same impact, this difference between their personalities and your favourism is what makes it more..humane. That not everyone will affect you and won't be there for you forever, some people will come and go faster, will not be up your alley and you will have to deal with their flaws, yet all might teach you something and spark hope. It hits you even more if you know the feeling of losing your closed ones, of people who might have played an important part in your life and how those final moments felt, so game can be even more reletable.
As I've said before, gameplay at certain moments can become a bit repetitive if you play the game too often. Backtracking can be tiresome. Sometimes platformic sections are frustrating. It's best to take it in short sessions and when you have that feel for slow paced, emotional title. But when you do, there are very few, or maybe even no better games to scratch that itch than Spiritfarer. I adore this game.
Final words and conclusion
There is a playable demo on Steam if you want to check out gameplay side of the game before purchasing it!
Spiritfarer offers perfect balance between cozy, wholesome management gameplay and emotional narrative covering death, abandonment and hope. Cannot recommend it enough.
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