LogFAQs > #966795022

#27: Spiritfarer

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/1/4/AAA-H0AADfMm.jpg

When looking for new games to play that I hope will go on this list, nowadays, I'm looking for two things: either a really good gameplay hook that'll keep me addicted, or just really, really good vibes. The former is what I'm looking for to waste a solid 300 hours of time while watching Youtube videos or whatever; the latter is what I'm looking for when I'm taking chances on trying to find that next big game that'll truly win my heart. (I did find that game, but it's #1 on the list, obviously.)

Spiritfarer looked like a game that could be both at once; a little cozy-sim game featuring cute characters and beautiful hand-drawn graphics. Since I was looking to build a profile of 2020 games to have played (as I talked about in The Pedestrian's writeup), It was pretty much a must-own the moment I saw it - it has very 'me' vibes. I was also sort of scared to play this game, because I knew this game was going to make me sad, and sad games are always kind of hard for me to steel myself and pick up. So I ended up buying this in late 2020 and kicking the can down the road until 2022 since, for obvious reasons, 2020 didn't really feel like a good time for sad games. Certainly not ones about death.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/1/5/AAA-H0AADfMn.jpg

There's really two sides of talking about Spiritfarer; the gameplay experience and the emotional experience. Spiritfarer is hard to talk about, because talking about it as a game doesn't really do a lot of good as far as recommending the game is concerned, and doesn't do a lot of justice towards the fact that this is a very vibes-based game that has a really specific mood and set of ideas it wants to convey, and the gameplay is just a vehicle to get there. But I guess I'll start with the game itself.

You are the newest Spiritfarer, leading the souls of the dead to the afterlife on a boat sailing a metaphorical river Styx (actually a big ocean with some islands in it but nevermind). Along the way, you have to build homes for them, feed them, and do a bunch of quests to help put their souls at rest. I'd call it a management game, but typically management games imply some level of urgency, that the skill of your management actually matters. Nope! Spiritfarer is entirely a vibes-based game, and there is absolutely no urgency here. Your guests' needs can be met at your leisure, there's nothing that needs to be watched over carefully or done promptly, and even if you let your guests go so hungry that they're banging down your door for a plate of onion rings (shut the fuck up, Atul, I KNOW you want fried chicken, I have to break open a fucking glacier to find a town that will sell me flour so chill the fuck out), them getting upset with you is entirely flavor, and there are no consequences for letting things go to shit. For better or worse, this is along the lines of Animal Crossing; challenging you is not the point. Good vibes only.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/1/6/AAA-H0AADfMo.jpg

What this game actually is is what I like to call a Crafting Extravaganza, a genre of game I did not put in the list, even though this isn't the only one on the list. It's a game about collecting some wood and copper and shit, getting a high enough number of them so that you can build something that will help you get more and better materials, so that you can use those BETTER materials to craft something that will give you EVEN MORE AND BETTER materials, so on and so on down the line until you have the BEST materials, and then at that point I guess you craft a giant diamond dildo and fuck yourself with it because there's nothing left in the game to do. It's sort of stupid but it draws me in every time anyway because, look, just five more wool and I can craft a fucking windmill or whatever! I'm always in a state of simultaneously totally being over crafting systems and also having them sucker me back into this repetitive gameplay loop.

So Spiritfarer is an extremely low-maintenance management game about collecting stuff, mostly, and I can't recommend it on that front. As far as the collecting stuff goes, it's mostly just sailing to an island, picking stuff up (there's no combat or anything), then going to your ship and doing a basic task to refine it, so that you can build more rooms onto your ship. Not a lot more to the game. There's NPCs to talk to who give you fetch quests, but an NPC Quest this is not, because this game has the world's most annoying NPCs. The actual characters you bring onto your boat, oh, they're absolute darlings, all of them, even the assholes. But the faceless NPCs in this game are all of the worst people alive, doing nothing but rambling on about nothing and wasting your time, then giving you some stupid fetch quest to go on, which sometimes leads to a good reward, and sometimes leads to no reward at all for no apparent reason. Maybe there's some sort of thematic point to this, like, oh sometimes caring for people is a really thankless task that wastes your time? Great, cool.