Spiritfarer
Mar. 3rd, 2022 07:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI have the worst cold. I'm not sure if it's Covid or what, but I can't breathe. Not being able to breathe means that I can't sleep for more than an hour at a time without choking, and I can't eat anything more solid than tea or juice. It's been like this for six days now. It turns out that I don't mind not eating, but the sleep deprivation is getting intense.
If you ever find yourself in a situation like this, Spiritfarer is the perfect game. The colors and music are soothing and gentle, and the gameplay is simultaneously relaxing and addictive. Most of the photos and videos published with professional reviews of this game make it seem complicated, but it's actually very chill. It took me somewhere between 35 and 40 hours to get 100% completion, and while I was playing I didn't notice the passage of time at all.
Spiritfarer has an excellent balance of exploration and crafting, as well as optional bits of Metroidvania-lite platforming. There's no combat, and most of the challenge comes from effective in-game time management (although there are no time limits or negative consequences for just futzing around). The beginning of the story isn't particularly compelling, but it gets way more interesting as you go along. There's a lot of text, but it never interferes with the gameplay. There are also a lot of sidequests, but their purpose is to nudge you in the direction of exploring new areas of the map organically. Spiritfarer is a perfectly designed game, and it's exactly the sort of game I might recommend to adults who aren't into gaming but are interested in how the medium can tell a complex story in an interesting and unique way.
It might seem weird that a cute game about sailing and talking animals has a "Teen" rating, and I'm not sure if I can explain this properly without spoiling the story, but I'll try. As the Spiritfarer, it's your job to ferry souls to the great beyond, and some of these souls are carrying a lot of baggage. This isn't "it all works out okay in the end" melodrama, but real and complicated misbehavior, delusions, and regrets. To give an example, one of the souls is suffering from dementia. She's kind and curious when she's lucid, but she's incredibly mean during her foggy periods, and she gradually gets worse instead of better.
There's no graphic depiction of sex or violence, but some of the stories are incredibly dark and specific, like, "I can't believe they went there." You don't understand what's going on until late in the game, but the way these stories are connected is beautiful, and Spiritfarer is ultimately about the sweetness and gentleness of death. But also it has a solid sense of humor, and you can raise sheep.
If you ever find yourself in a situation like this, Spiritfarer is the perfect game. The colors and music are soothing and gentle, and the gameplay is simultaneously relaxing and addictive. Most of the photos and videos published with professional reviews of this game make it seem complicated, but it's actually very chill. It took me somewhere between 35 and 40 hours to get 100% completion, and while I was playing I didn't notice the passage of time at all.
Spiritfarer has an excellent balance of exploration and crafting, as well as optional bits of Metroidvania-lite platforming. There's no combat, and most of the challenge comes from effective in-game time management (although there are no time limits or negative consequences for just futzing around). The beginning of the story isn't particularly compelling, but it gets way more interesting as you go along. There's a lot of text, but it never interferes with the gameplay. There are also a lot of sidequests, but their purpose is to nudge you in the direction of exploring new areas of the map organically. Spiritfarer is a perfectly designed game, and it's exactly the sort of game I might recommend to adults who aren't into gaming but are interested in how the medium can tell a complex story in an interesting and unique way.
It might seem weird that a cute game about sailing and talking animals has a "Teen" rating, and I'm not sure if I can explain this properly without spoiling the story, but I'll try. As the Spiritfarer, it's your job to ferry souls to the great beyond, and some of these souls are carrying a lot of baggage. This isn't "it all works out okay in the end" melodrama, but real and complicated misbehavior, delusions, and regrets. To give an example, one of the souls is suffering from dementia. She's kind and curious when she's lucid, but she's incredibly mean during her foggy periods, and she gradually gets worse instead of better.
There's no graphic depiction of sex or violence, but some of the stories are incredibly dark and specific, like, "I can't believe they went there." You don't understand what's going on until late in the game, but the way these stories are connected is beautiful, and Spiritfarer is ultimately about the sweetness and gentleness of death. But also it has a solid sense of humor, and you can raise sheep.
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Date: 2022-03-03 02:58 pm (UTC)Also love your insights, as always, with your other posts regarding the essay you found 💕 thank you for sharing!
Now off to listen to the OST again and cry whenever Last Voyage plays.
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Date: 2022-03-04 06:57 pm (UTC)I'm given to understand that Stardew Valley is somewhere in the middle. I'm looking forward to playing it one day, but I dread the set of circumstances that will lead me to start. If Spiritfarer is the UN peace talks of me dealing with my life, Stardew Valley is the nuclear option.
(Following this analogy, Animal Crossing was like building giant robots to fight in space. That period of my life was unreal, and still I never managed to grow the damn blue roses.)
Which is all to say you have excellent taste and give fantastic recommendations, thank you always.
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Date: 2022-03-08 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-08 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-10 03:14 am (UTC)