Hello everyone,
I have been playing indie games lately, and almost all of them were action games, so I wanted to play something new this time, some relaxing and adventurous game, and I remembered my friend mentioning this game, he is the one who suggested me to play cult of the Lamb, hades, shovel knight, etc. so I was looking forward to playing this game. and it was amazing. the music and the art style were very soothing. It was truly relaxing to play this game and have a good storyline too, but I haven't played much to talk about how good the story is, but the setting was intriguing and adventurous too. Since I was playing Hades before this, this game is a lighthearted take on how souls reach heaven.
The Game starts with a cutscene where the main protagonist of the game Stella and her cute companion were asleep on a boat of an entity-like creature, when they wake up, the entity declares to them that he is a spiritfarer and that they are going to continue what he was doing as spiritfarer that is guiding the drifting souls to reach their destination, but I don't think the game explains how they come to be here and why was stella chose for this work. by this time I was already impressed by the artwork and I'm convinced to put so many hours into the game since I like games with good art style.
As soon as they woke up, the entity started to convey the situation they are in, that is they are going to take up as spiritfarer from now on. the name of the old spiritfarer was Charon, Charon is a character you'll keep thinking about for some time after the gameplay, he's the wise man in this game, and the things he talks about were really deep for this kind of game. but he'll soon leave after explaining what we have to do. he talks about how the lost souls have their regrets and as a spiritfarer, it is our job to understand and make a connection to them so that they can heal along the process before passing on to the afterlife. even if he looks like an evil mage, he's one of the most wonderful and sweet characters I met in a long time since I only played dark games last week, this game felt like a slice-of-life game.
after explaining the role of spiritfarer, he then gives Stella an everlight, he just said that she'll need it as a spiritfarer, and the companion dog with Stella just disappeared into the robe of Charon and brought back its own everlight is one of the cutest things I've seen after the follower's animation in the cult of the lamb. Then he said to find a boat of her own and the boat Charon has will disappear when he passes through the gate, after Charon passes through the gate, Stella and her companion will be left on their own to navigate through this mysterious land.
Now its time for Charon to leave and Stella to explore, as charon approaches his time, he gives a final speech about hope, which was exhilarating and it also shows how much he was content with his position and his responsibilities, he was very happy, you could say with how he explains the job he had, I'm sure he was very upset to leave this spiritual world, but it is what it is I guess.
Then Charon parted his ways with the young Stella and her companion with best wishes as he slowly drifted toward the gate, now it's all Stella, before parting ways, Charon mentioned a place where she can go first and he showed the way she has to row the boat. and Stella started the journey.
This game is all about art style, I mean every frame is like a wallpaper worthy in my opinion, mostly because of the color palette they used, it was very soothing to look at. after rowing the boat in the direction shown by Charon, Stella finally reached a town. after completing a small tutorial on how to jump and climb onto walls, there was a mysterious character on the rooftops, she's the first soul we have to guide to her destination.
When interacting with her, it seems she already knew Stella, and she seems to have been waiting for her arrival. She understood that the older spiritfarer passed on to the afterlife and the current spiritfarer is none other than Stella. the more conversation progressed, the more comfortable she became, and it seems she's been stuck on this island for a week and she's been trying to escape the island, after the arrival of Stella, she seems to have confidence in finally leaving the island.
She also seems to know the companion dog Daffodils too, the boat Charon mentioned was anchored on the island, and the mysterious soul happens to be Stella's best friend Gwen from the real world. she was trying to sail the boat by herself for a week, but she needed the everlight for that, now Stella has been named spiritfarer and inherited the everlight, now she can sail the ship.
Then Gwen revealed her true form since she found the spiritfarer. but the ship was really junky and there where trash everywhere. since gwen has been here for some time, she knows how things work in this realm and she is the guide for Stella, she knows a local shipwright Albert, who can help us repair, upgrade and clean this ship. but first, we have to move the ship from this island now, then we can set sail to the shipwright.
Gwen already had the key to the cabin, that's where we can set sail to our destination and explore this mysterious realm. with the help of everlight, Stella finally set sail for Albert's shipyard.
Finally, the ship started to move, and it may take some time to reach the destination depending on the distance of the destination. since there can be times when you have to wait on the ship while traveling on the ship, there are some activities you can do while waiting, the first activity unlocked was fishing. there was no lure, so you can just cast the line and wait for the fish to tease and eventually bite. but the fishing mechanic was not hard. and I think as the story progress, other activities will be unlocked.
after fishing some small fish, we finally reached the shipyard. Gwen did warn us that he has terrible humor and I think she is not wrong, but he seemed a cool guy and he even offered a free blueprint table where we can edit, build and destroy buildings on the boat.
After building the blueprint table, this game started to look more like a base building and base management game. I got some resources by salvaging the junk. then Gwen asked me to build a guest room so that when we take in a lost soul, it would be comforting to the soul to have a room and bed to rest and sleep. but I knew Gwen asked it for herself, normally I would have told her to just sleep on the floor but there were no options like that to choose from, so I had to build it for her. Then she asked me to cook for her, but there were no ingredients so I have to get something first. then she told me that there is an ingredient called bright jelly, but we have to set sail to a specific place where they can be caught.
So the next adventure is going to be catching the bright jelly and exploring the next island and meeting some souls, recruiting them. Actually, I was trying to make a gif for this post, I have made some GIFs before but they were not good quality. but I haven't found any way for me to convert a video to a gif file. I'll try to make a gif on the next post because I think this game looks best when looking at it as a video or a gif instead of photos. currently, I am uploading the video to youtube, I'll edit this post and add the video as soon as I upload it. I hope you enjoyed the post. if you have any thoughts let me know your comments.
THANK YOU AND GAME ON!