The ferryman has come to collect Stella for her last journey, on a plane between the land of the living and the afterlife. As she sits in Charon’s boat, he gives her one final job – to help a few souls let go of the regrets that anchor them to life and allow them to pass on.
It sounds like a stately job. A cosy, tranquil journey. In reality however, Spiritfarer isn’t a journey across calm seas so much as a sprint. You’re given your own boat and set off to explore the spirit realm. In its towns and mountain villages you find spirits willing to join you, but before they can actually move on to the afterlife, you need to both build them a space on your boat to enjoy and coax out their story so they may eventually find closure.
Spiritfarer reviewDeveloper: Thunder LotusPublisher: Annapurna InteractivePlatform: Reviewed on PCAvailability: Out now on PC, PS4, Xbox One and Switch
Soon, an eclectic group of passengers settles in. Your first passenger, Dawn, for example, is a fawn with fur so plush it looks like she’s wearing a stola. She also has a penchant for smoking. Your uncle Atul, a rotund frog, used to be a handyman and loves sharing food with others. Making them feel at home begins with gathering the resources needed to build a personalised cabin for each passenger. Distinct from the in- and outside, these cabins ooze flair and showcase their owners’ personalities, but the best thing about them is how they sit on a boat. You stack them on top of each other like a game of management Tetris, and as your boat grows and you gain new buildings, you may have to move them around in order to find a good spot for each. Just watching the stack grow is an amazingly satisfying visual representation of progress. Stella navigates between these buildings like a character in a side-scrolling platformer, and she has similar abilities, too, which isn’t surprising given Thunder Lotus’ metroidvania roots.
Jumping passages and a skill system for Stella are essential to traversal, and it still astounds me how well these systems fit with the rest. In order to fully explore each island, you need new skills, such as Stella floating on gusts of wind using her giant hat, which you acquire by using the obols your passengers give you at certain shrines. Revisiting places with new abilities in tow doesn’t always yield exciting results – often it’s little more than a few new cooking recipes – but the delight I felt at finally being able to fully unveil a place I visited earlier is similar to unlocking a new path in a ‘real’ metroidvania.