While one character's journey might be all about building the ultimate museum exhibit or pulling off one last job, others are simpler: revisiting painful memories, or even just clinging to the little joys in life as their memories start to fade away. But I liked his violin playing, and he always gave me odd little trinkets that I could sell for more Glims, the game's currency. Astrid is the strongest, sassiest, yet secretly most vulnerable character, but on a good day, I would often find her forging ingots in the Foundry. Summer, the elderly snake, was a constant source of warmth, whose music would lift the crops in my garden. Yet no matter how many I had on board, each character felt clearly defined and endearing. These quests often take place over long stretches of time, making Stella's boat feel like a rotating door through which spirits can come and go. Sometimes a quest is as easy as meditating on a cliff. Finding these spirits in need is only the first part each character will also ask to be taken to various locales, request certain tasks, or simply inquire about their favorite meal. Spiritfarer is set in a massive ocean dotted with islands, inhabited by cloaked denizens that only shed their robes and don an animal appearance once their time on Stella's boat has come. In a broader sense, each spirit has their own journey to complete. The happier they are, the more they contribute to your boat, completing menial tasks, or offering extra raw material. One part is basic upkeep: they need to be fed, housed, and every so often, hugged. Drawing inspiration from both Studio Ghibli and the paintings of Yoshida Hiroshi, Spiritfarer is consistently gorgeous, whether in just drifting through the waves, or exploring the tops of mountains replete with trees, tents, and geysers.Ĭaring for the spirits entails a number of things. It might sound morbid, but Spiritfarer masks this with a beautiful style. After acquiring a proper nautical vessel befitting the afterlife's ferry, Stella hosts a number of spirits and gives them comfort so they can conquer any lingering fears or wants before heading to what lies beyond. Armed with the Everlight, Stella becomes the new Spiritfarer-a guide for dying spirits from here to the hereafter. The story of Spiritfarer opens with Charon, the mythical boatman of the river Styx, handing the reins off to your character, Stella, and her cat Daffodil. It is a bittersweet, cozy game about dying. All those bountiful resources I've harvested for hours on end will result in a gift, one that will make someone smile and get them ever closer to acceptance of what's left in life's allotment for them. It's all beautifully masked by the simple nature of each related minigame, and the dreamlike world it imagines. Spiritfarer, from developer Thunder Lotus Games, is a management game at its core, and that entails a lot of resource gathering and juggling multiple branching production lines. No seafaring vessel should be as tall as my ridiculous boat. Every rock smashed, crop tended, sheet of metal, and hunk of ore curved and crafted became blocks for my next building. Over the course of only a few hours, I might hack a dozen trees down and turn them into two or three times as many planks. Some content, such as this article, has been migrated to VG247 for posterity after USgamer's closure - but it has not been edited or further vetted by the VG247 team.Īt some point, I lost track of the number of times I performed certain tasks in Spiritfarer. This article first appeared on USgamer, a partner publication of VG247. Also available onXbox One (Game Pass), PS4, Switch, PC via Epic/GOG, Google Stadia.
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