Ever since I got hooked onto Final Fantasy XIV last year, it has been VERY difficult to find time for other games. I kinda reached a burnout point with the MMO though, mostly playing during the weekends so now I’ve had time to play other games. 

I started slowly chipping away at Persona 5 Royal and I think I’ve reached the halfway point. I need to restart Nier Replicant because I have no idea what’s going on. I needed to play something else though that wasn’t an RPG. I needed something relaxing. 

It originally began with me wanting to purchase House Flipper for the Switch (I secretly love real estate but it’s too much of a time commitment and I respect those who do that type of work) because it was $10 at the time. But Spiritfarer was on sale as well, and I remember hearing amazing things about the game when it first came out last year. People describe it as Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley meets Animal Crossing. It’s a sim type game but you can take your time without fear of the game hating you. 

As someone who is absolute garbage at those types of games, I felt like this would be a good entry point so I jumped right in. Surely a game about sending spirits to the afterlife would be happy, right?

Right?!?

Despite the premise of sending departed souls to the afterlife, I can confirm that it is both happy and sad. It’s a very feel-good game. You play as Stella and you take over as the new Spiritfarer (taking over Charon’s role) and you have a cat named Daffodil that you can hug and there’s a co-op mode where Player 2 can play as the cat. Anyway, you make your passengers food, make them a house and do quests for them and it doesn’t get boring unless you’re trying to 100% the game. The formula is very easy and there will be some passengers you do not like and some that you love. And once you’ve taken care of their needs then they tell you that you’re ready to go. Not going to delve too much into the storyline but it’s good. Trust me. 

The first passenger sent through the Everdoor crushed me and I figured it would be easy after that. I was very wrong. 

On top of fulfilling needs, you’re also adding more stuff to your ship and adding buildings, like a sawmill, smelter, etc. It slowly turns to Tetris as you make more buildings on the ship. You get resources from exploring the map and visiting different areas and sometimes finding crates in the middle of nowhere. You can also grow crops, get sheep and cows, though I didn’t really get into raising cows. The entire map is not accessible at first so you also have to upgrade your ship to get through rocks and icy areas. And it’s all done through a 2D perspective which I thought was really neat. 

I was planning on getting 100% complete but the Switch version kept crashing when I got 3/4s of the way through, bugs kept happening and I got a quest I couldn’t finish. So I’m proud of my 91% completion (and I clocked in right around 35 hours). There are talks of the game getting more characters so I’m not sure if I’ll revisit it at some point. 

My least favorite part of the game was some of the platform info sections late in the game, specifically with the bounce ability. It might have been the Switch controls but bouncing is hit or miss and you’ll get real close to the platform but end up over correcting and falling off. 

Regardless, this is a great game. You will laugh, you will cry and you will want to get specific passengers off your ship. The saddest part of the game for me was when 3 passengers gave me the quest to go to the Everdoor with them all at the same time. I highly recommend it, Spiritfarer is definitely worth the price.