Spirittea

Spirittea is a truly enchanting blend of life sim, management sim, and RPG, with a vibe reminiscent of Spirited Away and Stardew Valley combined. With its charming world, engaging gameplay loop, and celebration of East Asian culture, it’s hard not to fall in love with this slice of rural heaven, flaws and all.

Spirittea is a great game with the potential to be one of my favorites in the genre, but it needs some updates and fixes on Switch. I still recommend it, and enjoyed the mini-games, characters, and gameplay loop a lot. The aesthetic might not work for some, but I like it a lot and recommend trying the demo if you are interested. I’ll be grabbing the physical copy for this for sure whenever it gets announced.

Spirittea serves up a creative and addictive (after)life-sim loop of attending to bathhouse spirits and helping townsfolk. The tools and menus don’t offer the most fluid experience, and the minigames are often overwhelmingly complicated, but there’s enough to do here that means you can dip in and out of things when you don't like them. Anything you do like, you can soak in for hours.

On the whole, Spirittea is a sweet game with just enough charm and whimsy to make up for its flaws. While I certainly don’t see myself sinking anywhere close to as many hours as I’ve put into games like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing, I’m enjoying the chance to take a deep breath and settle into a slower way of life, if only for a few hours a night.

Spirittea is the farming sim with Miyazaki vibes I’ve wanted for a hot minute. It doesn’t onboard the player in the most intuitive fashion, so it’s a smidge hard to pick up to get into the groove. But, once you’ve managed to parse through the disparate tea leaves that make up its multiple activities and mechanics, it’s worth a try. I’m looking forward to seeing how Spirittea evolves in the future while I enjoy its coziness this holiday season.