Genre: Management Simulation, Action Platformer
Year: 2020
Developed by: Thunder Lotus Games
Published by: Thunder Lotus Games
Platforms: PC, Switch, PS4, XBOX One, Linux, Mac
#91
Feeling Like: Hugging my parents
In the Top 10 for 2020 entry, I said Spiritfarer was “An astonishing game, a beautiful experience”
And I was right.
This is a delicate video game, and depending on your patience for the gameplay , it may not be for you. It also deals with heavy subject matter; depending on your own personal situation involving family or friends, it may touch too close to home.
What appears to be a pleasant, quirky sim management with cartoony graphics ends up being one of the most emotionally resonant, powerful pieces of fiction about death I can think of. Often this subject is tossed towards you with no real weight in video games. Enemies die by the hundreds – your goal is usually to defeat them, after all. Others have some shocking moments of main characters dying but it’s usually done in a way that feels exploitative and not in a way that inspires thought, grief or empathy. Spiritfarer succeeds in embracing the notion that one day we will all go, and that we will see others go. How do you deal with it? There’s no right answer. How can you possibly tell somebody how much they mean to you? What does it mean when they’re gone? There’s the blunt trauma of when they depart, but what about the times long after? A seemingly innocent item can suddenly yield a flood of memories and emotions.
Spiritfarer is one of the few games that mostly succeeds in tying gameplay to story. Your job as the Spiritfarer is to guide your friendly spirits in the afterlife, until they are ready to depart permanently. There isn’t any real challenge, so to speak. There aren’t incomprehensible puzzles or tough boss fights. It’s mostly talking to others, hearing about their past and relaxing. Fishing, growing vegetables, collecting moon-rocks and building little houses for your friends on your magical boat are the goals of the game, but not the reason for playing. Exploring towns or islands will eventually mean you’ll meet a spirit who knew Stella in life, or somebody who just wants to join you on your journey. See what’s out there. Maybe they’re about ready to go, maybe they’ll stay forever.
The contrast is what got to me. It’s such a bright, colorful world and most of the dialogue is filled with joy and light-hearted commentary about life’s little foibles. Then, one of your companions will drop a hint that maybe they’re getting too tired lately, or they’ll lament about a choice they made in life and are now realizing the consequences. There’s a reason the main character is silent; this is a game about listening and being there for somebody in their final hours.
Two characters in particular will remain with me for a long time. Alice is clearly a nice, little old lady. She’s also a hedgehog. She waddles around being very cute and pleasant. She talks about her family and how she misses taking care of children. It’s clear that she’s suffering from some kind of dementia…or did, when she wasn’t a spirit hedgehog.
The bit that really got to me was a task that popped up in the menu. Alice was getting old and wasn’t able to climb ladders anymore, and do you think you could place her house on the bottom floor of the boat?
Oof. I can’t help but remember my own Grandmother who passed away a few years ago. Near the end of her life, she was very slow when I picked her up for our movie dates, and had difficulty climbing stairs. She was 93 when she died and had led a good long life, but that doesn’t necessarily ease the mourning. When that task popped up, I knew Thunder Lotus Games had done their homework. They clearly respect and show emotional empathy towards a very difficult subject matter. Perhaps the most difficult.
I also can’t ever forget Atul – your paternal uncle Frog who is the most bombastic of the entire group. He’s a treat. He loves hugs. He’s overly optimistic. He’ll jump up and down from great heights just to give you a present. I loved Atul. Everybody does. Even his incomprehensible dialogue always seems so chipper. His sudden disappearance is confusing. Painful. No ceremony? I don’t get to properly say goodbye? That didn’t happen with any of the other characters. That isn’t fair.
Indeed.
The soundtrack is sublime. I can’t get enough of “Meteroids“. The main theme encapsulates what Spiritfarer is all about. It’s a mysterious, whimsical, uplifting and a truly heartfelt story. The minute to minute gameplay may not be worth the price of admission. There’s some jumping and collecting, but it’s mostly placing buildings and watering crops. It’s labelled as an “Action-Platformer” on Wikipedia when it’s anything but action packed. And that’s fine, I don’t need everything to get my blood rushing. But Spiritfarer hits differently, and in the big moments it hits hard. It’s hard not to get emotional when you’re taking the canoe trip with one of your animal companions to the final door and saying goodbye. We so rarely get a chance to do it in real life, at least we can do it here.
What an amazing little game.
The 500 