TLDR:
This game is just a giant list of chores, where the tedium of doing the same unfun activities over and over again gets in the way of what apparently is a beautiful story.
Review:
Not being a fan in general of farm-sims or inventory-management games, I gave this gave a shot because of all the positive reviews.
If you like farm-sims and inventory-management games, then ITLDR:
This game is just a giant list of chores, where the tedium of doing the same unfun activities over and over again gets in the way of what apparently is a beautiful story.
Review:
Not being a fan in general of farm-sims or inventory-management games, I gave this gave a shot because of all the positive reviews.
If you like farm-sims and inventory-management games, then I would say this game is for you because there is so much stuff to build and do and manage that you will be busy for hours.
Why am I giving this game 3/10?
This game is literally the most tedious game I have ever played. I oscillates between doing chores that are not fun to being too hard to figure out and some touching story moments. There is far too much of the former and not enough of the latter.
I'm giving the game 2 points are for the art style and the music. I loved them. But I can listen to the soundtrack on YouTube and I can look at the art any time I want without buying the game.
The other point is for the goodbyes to the characters, which are emotional and tug at the heart-strings. The one with Alice was particularly touching for me.
What's wrong with this game?
- There is no tutorial on how to make any of the high-end stuff. Yes, there are guides out there online, but having a community does not make up for this unforgivable shortcoming. So when you get later on in the game, you don't know how to craft anything. It's maddening.
- The same thing that plagues the lack of crafting tutorials also holds up the game. I got about 30 hours in and wasn't even close to being done because I could not figure out how to make e.g. glass sheet, or copper sheet.
- Another issue is that you do not know where to find things. After 30 hours and watching two guides, I still have no idea how I am ever going to get e.g. ectoplasm.
- While I like some of the exploration, it's maddening that you're constantly being told to go to places you can't get to because you don't e.g. the lantern for the fog, or the rock breaker.
- The amount of tedious BS that you need to do to advance the plot is simply unacceptable in a "relaxing" game.
- I was able to catch lots of old boots in the early stages of the game, but later in the game fishing was so tedious and so hard that I gave it up all together.
- The minigames are fun once or twice, but after the third or fourth time I just wanted it to be over. Instead I farmed resources where I could, but some minigames are unavoidable, which is just a silly design choice.
- I was able to catch lots of old boots and small fish in the early stages of the game, but later in the game fishing was so tedious and so hard that I gave it up all together.
- This game is supposed to be about optimization, and yet you are continuously throttled in what can be optimized.
- There is one quest where you need to pay a guy 450,000 Glims (money) for something. After grinding and harvesting for like 15 hours, I had 350,000 Glims. Then when I looked up online how to do this quest more efficiently, I found out you can just talk this guy's girlfriend and you don't have to pay anything. What a colossal waste of time.
- There is no payoff for anything you do - excepting the goodbyes to the characters. You get new abilities so you can explore new areas, which contain chests that give you... wait for it... just more dumb stuff for your ship that you won't use or that's completely uninteresting.
- The tedium even shows up in the dialogue of the characters that you cannot skip. Sometimes I would accidentally talk to a character and then be stuck for a minute just skipping their inane dialogue, which is a shame because you're supposed to connect with these characters.
- In that way Spiritfarer managed to ruin it's own best feature - love, life and death and how it brings us all together. The stories and hugs we share. Spiritfarer made me hate the best part of it.
- 30 hours in - I could not tell when it would end. So I uninstalled the game.
When are grinding or chores fun?
I have put like 4 weeks of my life into e.g. Destiny (and Destiny 2). I don't mind some good old-fashioned grind. I don't mind it because it's FUN. I did about 150 hours of Diablo III - that's a fun and dynamic grind (if you like that kind of looter / dungeon crawler). I even put about 150-200 hours into Anthem which has it's own brand of fun - at least it's such a pretty game to look at.
Spiritfarer is the grind without the fun. That's what ruins this game for me.
I think that's the worst thing I could say about the game is that I find actual chores like cooking, cleaning, getting groceries and doing dishes, to be more fun than playing Spiritfarer.
I might have persevered through the throttling of progression, the lack of direction, the lack of tutorials, the lack of being able to make progress when you want, if this game's core gameplay loop was FUN. But it's not.… Expand
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