I finished Spiritfarer, and I gotta say, I was underwhelmed. The game told me I was the new Charon and promised me an emotional experience of helping spirits come to terms with whatever was holding them back before disappearing forever.
What actually happened, is that I found myself in the company of very demanding (and, often enough, even quite rude) spirits who never actually bothered with interacting with me on anything more than a very superficial level, mostly just to ask for arbitrary and very specific things. “Stella, I want Fried Chicken” (which requires ingredients that you can only craft hours later). “Stella, I want expensive furniture for my house”. “Stella, go buy a rose bouquet and expensive-looking jewelry for my wife”.
There were too few interactions with them to form meaningful connections, and by the time they were gone, I felt like I didn’t really know most of them. They never interact with one another, either, and they are completely dependent on you to do even the most basic of things. One of them wanted to throw a party, and wanted me to ask other spirits what they wanted to eat, as if he couldn’t do it himself. One was gifting me food every day, and at the same time was asking me to feed him. By the time they were gone, I was relieved that they weren’t there anymore to bother me with their silly requests.
The first few spirits are probably the best (Deer, Frog, Porcupine), but most of the later ones are not as well written. Bull is just “generic cartoonish mob guy”, Parrot is “dnd guy”. Falcon wanted to build a museum and… That was it, that was his entire personality. I don’t even know what the deal was with Dog, she just acted like a self-righteous and abusive teacher for a while, and then asked me to set sails to the place where souls go. They don’t show any personality beyond their distinctive trait, feeling one dimensional, boring and, ultimately, fake. The fact that huge swathes of backstory for all spirits are hidden away in the artbook doesn’t really help.
And despite you trying to help, none of them really comes to terms with what was holding them back. Most just… Give up and accept to disappear. Which kind of makes sense, considering the actual story of the game (which you can piece together as you play), but it is underwhelming and the exact opposite of what I was promised when I first booted it up, and kind of a bleak statement by the developers.
And that’s the story. The gameplay is just a repetitive grindfest that stretches on twice as long as it should. At first it looks like a cozy, relaxing experience, but soon enough you find yourself working around the clock to grow crops, melt ore, feed herds, check on the spirits daily to give them food and keep them happy, and the situation grows worse and worse as the ship gets bigger, more tasks are added on top of the previous ones, and more spirits join you on your travels. It gets overwhelming.