Spiritfarer

This is a tricky one to review; I gave it a good chance and got a fair way through it, but unfortunately it just didn't click for me. I'd heard so many good things about it, but it just didn't have the emotional resonance that I was looking for and the fundamental gameplay elements are just too repetitive and tedious. Tending to plants, cooking meals, keeping your passengers fed, searching for upgrade components (most of which then need at least one form of processing before they can be used).... The fishing mini-game quickly becomes tiresome and some fish take literal minutes of effort to catch (with no guarantee that you will). More than once I wasted around five minutes on a fish only for it to get away - combine that with the frustrating "can't sail at night" mechanic (which I understand might be overcome late-game) and how quickly plants need re-watering and you've wasted a good portion of a day just on one elusive fish. The game is also clearly unfinished in some areas, despite receiving multiple content updates post-release - in particular one game mechanic (meditating at certain trees) is introduced by a character and given a tutorial, but it can never be repeated although the specific design of tree is featured prominently in several other locations. The art style is nice, but the reliance on sprite-based graphics means that they are at a fixed resolution, which on modern screens makes a lot of the graphics fuzzy. The music is decent but not particularly memorable. ** SPOILERS FOLLOW ** [spoiler] Perhaps my biggest disappointment with the game was the presentation of the world/afterlife and the lack of character development. The afterlife has all the same problems as the real world - inequality, crime, the need for employment, hunger, mental illness, etc. The areas are well-designed and have an interesting aesthetic but if you actually look at what is being presented, this is a literal nightmare. It's hell. The only release from it comes from boarding Stella's ship and disappearing permanently through the Everdoor into eternal oblivion. it is functionally identical to the life/world that precedes it. This would be acceptable if the spirits developed or come to some kind of understanding or peace during their time in the afterlife, but the majority of them just don't. Giovanni was an adulterous playboy in life and remains completely unchanged and unrepentant in death; his wife finds out about him cheating and tells him to leave, so he just accepts that and opts for oblivion. Astrid falls for his lies (and has her heart broken) again in death; same as life. Alice continues to suffer from advancing memory loss in death, which is horrifying - if you subscribe to the idea of an eternal soul separate from the physical body, then the concept that your very soul is subject to deterioration is genuinely awful. Bruce is abrasive, demanding and bullying and doesn't change his behaviour either. Since he has a detrimental effect on the other spirits on board, from a gameplay perspective you are implicitly encouraged to get him off the ship as soon as possible. The list goes on - none of the characters change and nothing you say or do can affect them in meaningful ways; all you can do is *fail* to provide the things they're asking for, which makes them complain. Lastly, Stella as a character is baffling. She's in the afterlife, so she's clearly dead (and presumably so is the cat - did they die at the same time?) but she reacts to this new plane of existence (and the massive responsibility that she is immediately given by Charon, with no explanation) with nothing but blind acceptance and joyful enthusiasm. It's jarring because it's completely unnatural - no real person would act this way in the same position. She's a silent protagonist and that really hurts the game because it means that the player feels that they have no agency and Stella feels flat as a character. She doesn't challenge any of the spirits' awful behaviours or attitudes and that's frustrating because if this afterlife is not for reflection and growth, what purpose does it serve? It just seems to be a waiting room leading to the Everdoor and the only outcome is inevitable acceptance of that destination and all the mistakes that each spirit made in their prior life.[/spoiler] It's an interesting concept, but the characters failed to connect for me. Look past the colourful presentation and this is a dark, unsettling, fatalistic view of the afterlife with no hope.