I believe a chill game is in order for today. BACKGROUND:
Nope, never heard of this one, either. PLOT: Spirit of the North has zero dialogue, and there is no explicit story told. The gist (at least from what I can gather) is that the aurora borealis has seemingly been corrupted, leading to a lot of red and black goop to cover the land. This led to the demise of a whole civilization living nearby (the only exposition in the entire game shows this part of the story via drawings etched in stone). Now, a regular fox connects with a magical spirit, and the two journey up to the top of a mountain in hopes of bringing the Northern Lights back. While the mystery of the fallen civilization, the origins of the spirit, and the question of why the aurora is cursed all seem intriguing, there's honestly not a lot going on with the story. I really wish all these mysteries were explored even a little bit, and I can understand some players not finding anything engaging with regards to the plot. The story is said to take inspiration from Nordic folklore, so I went and looked up myths and legends surrounding the aurora borealis. It appears that the myth Spirit of the North is based on is a Finnish one, which tells of a fox that ran so fast, sparks lit up the night sky. It's certainly one of the coolest "explaining a natural phenomenon" myths I've ever heard. PRESENTATION: The game's visuals stand out immediately, with a beautiful art style that feels like a painting come to life. Everything from the lush forests, the rocky cliffs, and the snowy mountains looks stunning, and I found a lot of enjoyment in simply taking in the scenery. The lights (both the aurora and the various spirits you encounter) look dazzling in particular. The music is equally beautiful, with most of the tracks being melodic instrumental pieces that feature a lot of piano and violin. This combined with the visuals come together to deliver quite the serene experience. GAMEPLAY: Primarily, Spirit of the North is a 3D platformer adventure. As the fox, you'll be running and jumping around the wilderness and solving puzzles as you make your way up the mountain. The controls don't feel as smooth as they should be, primarily with the inconsistent behavior of the jumping. This is compounded by the fact that the platforms are uneven, so sometimes you have to jump from a specific spot to a specific spot to actually get across. This, along with other oddities (including weird slope interactions, tiny corners you can get stuck in, and sections where slow movement is forced, like swimming) led to its fair share of frustrations, especially in timing-based areas. If it's any consolation, you can't die in this game, but I think wasting time getting back somewhere after messing up a jump is equally vexing. The main mechanic involves the use of spirit energy, which the fox can absorb. You'll mainly be transferring this energy to the numerous stones scattered throughout the levels, and this will activate all sorts of things that open up the forward path. Spirit energy is primarily absorbed from the many flowers you'll find in the world, usually conveniently close to the thing that will require it. It's pretty straightforward (find the flowers, find the switch, move on), though many sections will have nothing else to them except this. Interestingly, you can take spirit energy back from stones you have empowered, but often, you deactivate the thing they activate in exchange. There's mostly no point to doing this at all, since you're just blocking yourself off from the forward path. However, there are certain sections where the activated barrier remains active even if you take back the energy (allowing you to keep it for a further section), and there is one section near the end of the game that actually takes advantage of the fact that you can transfer spirit energy to and from different stones. The latter is a cool idea on paper, and it's a shame that a) it wasn't utilized a lot overall, and b) the execution of the one time it's actually done in the game felt tedious. You'll also acquire a few other spirit-based abilities throughout the campaign. First is the Spirit Bark, which channels spirit energy to purify corrupted areas. It's pretty much just a glorified key and sees no other use. Next, you can do something akin to astral projection, where you leave your corporeal fox body and control a spirit fox for a short time. This is easily the most interesting mechanic in the entire game, and there are both timing-based challenges and neat puzzles that take advantage of this (the most engaging one to me is using the physical fox to weigh a switch down while you have the spirit fox do something else). Lastly, there's a Spirit Dash, and it's your straightforward horizontal dash. The world has a number of platforming and puzzle mechanics you can interact with, from seesaw platforms, geysers that launch you upwards (they're awful at getting you to where you need to go, which is annoying), barriers that only your spirit form can pass through, pressure plates, and gates that launch you into the air. These are all pretty easy to understand and nothing you haven't seen before in other games, and the most struggle you may find dealing with them may be with the actual platforming. Though the game features some vast landscapes, the entirety of the game is linear. While there is stuff to find off the beaten path, the areas being as large as they are makes progressing forward a bit of a pain, since there's often no indication where you're supposed to be going (and that is taking into account the wisp occasionally guiding you towards important areas) and there is no map. I didn't really have trouble finding my way around for a lot of the game, but in the chapters where the area was unnecessarily massive, I easily got lost (or couldn't see what I needed to interact with, or worse, what platforms I needed to jump on) and it increasingly became frustrating to play as I kept running in circles. Speaking of things to find off the beaten path, the game has two collectibles. The first comes in the form of various murals that can be infused with spirit energy like the stones you interact with. The murals don't serve purpose other than esoterically depict the history of the fallen civilization in the game, but they do look nice. The second, more significant one has you pick up staffs/crooks and return them to the corpses of shamans throughout the game. There are 28 of these across the game (some of which are well-hidden), and they're helpfully tracked as you find them. The implementation of the shamans is probably one of the biggest sticking points I have with the game. The first one you find is mandatory, as delivering the staff to this guy opens the path forward. This made me think, "oh, this is something I have to do throughout the game." Then, I ended up getting to the next chapter completely missing one shaman (as indicated by the game's tracker), leading me to believe that they are, indeed, optional collectibles (which is bizarre since there's a whole song and dance about freeing their souls or whatever). But then I find that later in the game, there are sections where returning the shaman staffs is required to move forward, just like at the beginning of the game. I really did not like the mixed signals this game sent out regarding this mechanic, since I was left guessing for most of it whether or not it was worth the trouble carrying the staff all the way through a level. Carrying the shaman staff itself is its own little bit of hassle, by the way. While holding it, you can't grab spirit energy, interact with certain switches, or go into spirit mode, so you have to set it down somewhere (preferably somewhere you won't forget), do your thing, then pick it back up. Having to do this repeatedly made me not bother to even find the shamans because the flow of the game keeps getting interrupted. Thankfully, you can easily replay chapters to deal with the collectible situation. The staffs are really the only bits you have to worry about locating, as you'll have to really explore to find some of them. Once you have them on you, they'll glow if you're close to a shaman. VERDICT: For the most part, Spirit of the North is a pleasant, casual romp where I got to run around as a fox, take in some pretty scenery and music, and solve the occasional puzzle. However, some aspects of the game prevented me from fully enjoying it (and even caused me frustration), and I'm afraid that the story wasn't fleshed out enough for me to really get into. There are elements of the gameplay that I did enjoy, but they're only implemented sparingly, and I felt like that's a missed opportunity. I had an OK time all things considered, but I have no interest in playing it again, let alone a 100% run. If you're looking for a chill game that even casuals can get into and enjoy your fair share of lovely graphics and music, this game honestly isn't a bad choice. However, if you're looking for something more in terms of gameplay or story, you may be left wanting more than the game can give. Spirit of the North is available on these platforms on PC: - end -
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Categories
All
Archives
June 2024
Derryck
|