Release Date: 18/08/2020
Played On: XBO
Available On: Lin / Mac / NS / PS4 / Stadia / Win / XBO
Time Played: 30h 21m
Progress: Completed
Developer: Thunder Lotus Games
Publisher: Thunder Lotus Games
I've never gone back to a game that I've already posted about before, but I also didn't think I'd be going back to Spiritfarer after the technical difficulties I faced last time around. In fact, it should be a testament to the game's success that I even went back at all, because after hitting a game-breaking bug ten hours in, I would usually uninstall with glee and never give it any more of my time.
However, once I'd cooled down from the frustration of the game bugging out and becoming unplayable, I decided to see if I could breeze through my previous ten hours in much less time. I had read that the specific issue that bugged out for me had been patched, but I had to start a new game to continue playing as my old save was completely bricked. This kind of thing is always annoying and even though I'm writing about Spiritfarer again, be warned that there are possible bugs that may prevent you from playing the actual game. Most of the technical stuff seems to have been ironed out at time of writing, but do not assume that everything is okay.
Having said that, I had enjoyed myself so much with the game before it broke, that I eventually decided to give it another chance and see if I could blaze ahead without too much bother. As it happened, I was able to get to the same point in the game in about half the time it took to get there originally. Obviously it helped that I could skip most of the dialogue and story parts, but it still took me another five hours before I was seeing new content again.
So this isn't going to be a post about the technical difficulties I had with Spiritfarer, as I've already had a good whine about that in my last post. Instead, this is going to be about the actual game, which I enjoyed immensely and would have easily been a contender for my GOTY, if it just hadn't screwed me on the first attempt. As I said back in the opening: the fact I'm even writing about it again says a lot about how much I eventually enjoyed Spiritfarer as an experience and a story.
Although, it wasn't until I looked up something on the game's wiki page that I realised what it's actually meant to be about. Such is the case with things like this - I often interpret stories in a way that's meaningful to me, but not always the "correct" way. So I'm not going to say much about that and just go with my own take on everything, which isn't too far off anyway.
We play as Stella, who has been given the job of Spiritfarer; the one responsible for ferrying lost souls to their final resting place. The basic idea is that we find a soul who's adrift in the world and they come to stay with us on our boat while we help them with any unfinished business. Once they're satisfied and ready, we take them to the spirit door and help them pass on. Basically we help people die, and it's just as emotionally wrenching as that sounds like it would be.
First of all though, let's talk mechanics. The game is essentially a 2D platformer and light resource management game, where we spend most of our time tending to resources and exploring different areas for more goodies. Our boat is the main hub of the game and is able to take us wherever we want to visit on the map. Each location is its own "level" for want of a better word, within which are spirits to talk to and do quests for, as well as different resources to farm and find.
Throughout the game we unlock the ability to upgrade our boat and build better buildings that will help us gather and work different resources. There's a farm for growing crops, there's a kitchen for cooking meals, there's a smelter for smelting ores... you get the idea. Everything has the ability to be processed and manufactured on your boat, which not only grows in size, but in ability as well. Other upgrades will let you access previously inaccessible areas of the map, and even make you travel faster from point to point.
Thus, the main loop involves figuring out what's needed to upgrade the boat and/or complete a quest, finding that resource, collecting it, and finally turning it into whatever form is required. As the game goes on, the requirements for upgrades an quests get more complex and diverse, so gathering resources can get quite difficult at times. However, I found that my own progression was such that I was unlocking the ability to gather resources easier, just as I needed those resources in greater numbers. It ended up being quite a satisfying treadmill to run, as there's a nice balance between upgrading your abilities, and making it easier to upgrade your abilities.
Although, abilities are their own thing in Spiritfarer that differs from the resource management systems in play. Stella collects tokens from each soul that she helps move on, and then can spend those tokens at shrines to unlock her own special abilities. One lets her jump higher and further, another lets her dash around, another let's her float in the air instead of falling. This is where the game dips its toes into a bit of metroidvania territory, as I often found myself discovering locations that I was unable to reach until I'd unlocked the appropriate ability. Thankfully there isn't a whole lot of backtracking because of this, but it ends up being a nice way to gate progress until it's actually necessary.
Well, to say that there isn't any backtracking is a bit of a lie, as you'll be travelling all over the map and back again throughout the game. Each location tends to have a certain set of resources and once you've harvested them, it takes a little bit of time before they replenish themselves. I ended up travelling in a bit of a loop to hit all the locations I wanted to visit at just the right time when I could harvest more resources. So you do end up revisiting the same places again and again, but thankfully none of it felt like unnecessary backtracking simply for the sake of it.
Besides, most of my time was spent working on resources aboard my boat, as I eventually had a productive mix of resources that I was able to grow and harvest without any outside help at all. Even ores and metals that can't be grown on the boat, are eventually able to be planted at specific locations that you can revisit and harvest often.
Thus, most of Spiritfarer is spent running and jumping around your boat and at various locations to get things done. It's basic platforming 101, which I appreciated as I'm not a fan of platforming in the first place, so the fact that I barely noticed it at all is very welcome. Instead I got to spend more of my time getting to know characters and diving deeper into the stories that were being told.
After all, this is a game about dying, so you would hope that the writing is elegant and purposeful. You would hope that the characters have something to say and aren't just there to serve their purpose as dying characters without anything to say. Thankfully this is entirely the case, and it's what makes Spiritfarer a truly special game and on that's worth paying attention to.
The story loop essentially goes like this: Stella meets a lost soul somewhere on the map and talks to them. They might have a short quest to complete first, but they will end up joining you on the boat and living with you until they're ready to pass on. Once on the boat, they introduce themselves properly and we start to learn all about them in a number of different ways. Some might be Stella's relatives, others might not know her or trust her at all. Of the dozen or so souls that there are to save, each and every one of them has a unique personality and history, as well as their own needs and desires that need to be met.
For example, one of the earliest (and best) characters we meet is Stella's' uncle, who takes the form of a smiling and energetic frog-person. He's a loud and joyful fellow who loves to help out and eat just about anything you can cook up for him. Not only that, but he loves to go out in a storm and catch lightning in jars with Stella. When he's happy he'll play his flute and dance on deck, or work on sprucing up the buildings that make up your boat.
Just as a contrast, another character is a stuck up bitch of a woman who was once a school teacher. She treats Stella like a child and is a fussy eater. She complains when there's loud noises and can't stand useless conversations. As Stella you have the ability to hug the spirits that you end up living with, but the school teacher doesn't want anything to do with such nonsense. Basically she's a real cow.
So the happiness system for spirits who are living with you involves a number of different things to keep track of. They each have a preference for certain cuisine or specific dishes. They each have a story to tell, which only comes out as you progress through their personal quest line. Plus, each spirit will behave in different ways depending on what their happiness level is like. I never had anyone get really unhappy, so I only know that when they max out their happiness meter they will start giving you resources and helping you out around the boat.
That's all well and good and helps make the game more of a game, but what I really got a kick out of was meeting these characters and getting to know them all over time. Even the bitchy school teacher was interesting to get to know, as she had her own story to tell, which kind of explained why she was the way she was. I don't think there was single character on the boat that I didn't want to get to know as much as possible before saying goodbye to them... and the goodbyes were pretty tough.
I mean, after spending all this time with these characters, building them houses, making their favourite meals, helping them with their unfinished business; I had to eventually say goodbye to them and help them pass on. Remembering those moments now, I feel myself tearing up and feeling that sadness and loss all over again. Some characters in particular were especially hard to let go, but eventually they all have to leave and it's our job to help them make that transition.
I suppose part of the connection I felt with each character came from the content of their personal quest line that counts as their unfinished business. A couple of them were beautifully emotional and intimate stories about the important things in life - the kind of stuff that we'd think about when we're getting ready to die. It might sound morbid in a way, but having these characters share their most intimate thoughts and desires was actually incredibly moving. I'm not sure if they were based on real-life people and experiences, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were.
Perhaps that's the most successful achievement of Spiritfarer: that they managed to create two dimensional fictitious representations of characters that I was completely besotted with and genuinely cared for by the time they had to leave. I'm not ashamed to say that I wept hard for a few key characters when I eventually had to say goodbye. That speaks volumes.
At the same time though, one of the most wonderful aspects of Spiritfarer is also one of the most frustrating, but not because of anything in the game itself. One spirit that you end up helping is an old lady in the form of a hedgehog (I think). She's a lovely old woman who slowly loses her mind over the course of the game. It's clear that she has Alzheimer's disease and ends up forgetting who everyone is and where she is. However, the way that this is dealt with in the game is simply beautiful and done with a delicate and caring hand. I often think that mental illness is one of the hardest characteristics to portray, so I applaud Spiritfarer's developers for doing it as well as I have seen in a game for a long time.
The most frustrating slant on this same theme, is that the game was also released with a character who was disabled and in a wheelchair. Now, I have no problem with that at all, but the internet took issue with the character because when they finally pass on, they said something along the lines of "I can't wait to be rid of that horrible chair". I mean, the dude's moving on to heaven, or whatever comes next, so I suppose he would have the choice whether to be disabled or not, and it stands to reason that he would chose to not.
Unfortunately though, the extremism of social media and the internet didn't agree with this notion and labelled it "ableist" and started a campaign to have that part removed from the game. It was even "reported" on in the gaming media, so it got a lot more attention than any of this kind of outrage actually deserves. Meanwhile, there were heaps of actually disabled people on social media responding with sentiments of "I would be happy to get out of this chair as well", and the like. Eventually though, the developers had to release a statement apologising for being "ableist" and then following it up by removing this content from the game.
There are a couple of points that I'd like to make about this, but the first is that the game suffered as a result. Not only because it could have been an example of sensitively dealing with physical disability, much like the way they dealt with mental illness, but because it was a rushed job to appease a bunch of extreme voices online. The character no longer had their wheelchair in the game, which I didn't even notice until I reached the very end of their story and they mentioned something about being disabled. Up to that point I had no idea that they were the one everyone had complained about, but there was still a line left in that referred to their disability. It made the game seem inconsistent and the whole concept of disability to be out of place and out of nowhere. I put that down to it being a rush job though, as I feel like the developers quickly changed things out of fear of more bad press, which I would argue is the wrong thing to do.
The problem with internet outcry is that there's never any room for nuance. If you make a disabled character who is happy to be rid of their disability when they die, the precious over-reactors will interpret that as a statement saying that disabled people should hate being disabled. Apparently that's wrong because disabled people should feel equal to everyone else and just as capable. To even suggest that someone would dislike being disabled is to say that there's something wrong with being disabled.
Not only should it be okay for a fictional character to dislike their disability, it should be okay for them to feel however they want about their disability. I guarantee that there are disabled people in the world who would be very happy to get rid of their disability, no matter what it is or how severe. By saying that, am I saying that those people have any less value or equity because they are disabled? Of course not. I still think that we should assist disabled people to live their best lives in any way we can, but I'm not stupid enough to think that being a paraplegic in a wheelchair is fucking awesome and something that everyone should aspire to. It shouldn't hold anyone back from being a contributing member of society, but it still sucks no matter how you look at it.
Anyway, without going into too much of a tangent, I suppose I would have preferred it if the developers stuck to their guns and backed their own story. After all, this is the story they wanted to tell and if it's not the one you wanted to be told, then go ahead and tell your own version with your own nuances. I can't imagine how horrible a story would be if it tried to cater for every single perspective in the world and avoided anything that could possibly be seen as controversial. It's especially disappointing that this particular development team buckled and changed their game to appease the vocal masses, because they had already shown me that they were capable of some beautiful writing and storytelling.
Putting all of that aside though, this is definitely a unique an special game that I connected with on a visceral and deep level. I can see how Spiritfarer might not be everyone's cup of tea, as it's not very challenging and it relies heavily on the strength of its storytelling above everything else. It just so happens that I love me some good storytelling and this hit me in just the right way.
I'm glad I gave it another shot after being let down by game-breaking bugs, which unfortunately can't be ignored. If my experience with Spiritfarer had been seamless and beautifully smooth, this would have been the best game I've played all year. For now though, this will just have to be one of the best games I've played in recent times.
You got lucky Spiritfarer... kudos to your excellent writing and character development. I look forward to whatever comes next.