Im not crying, its just rainingSpiritfarer® is a cozy management game about dying. You play Stella, ferrymaster to the deceased, a Spiritfarer. Build a boat to explore the world, then befriend and care for spirits before finally releasing them into the afterlife. Farm, mine, fish, harvest, cook, and craft your way across mystical seas. Join the adventure as Daffodil the cat, in two-player cooperative play. Spend relaxing quality time with your spirit passengers, create lasting memories, and, ultimately, learn how to say goodbye to your cherished friends. What will you leave behind?
Death in video games is always been just a minor setback. What if you use videogame as platform to tell heavy subject matter stories like death & learning to let it go. This are questions that was asked by the developer who obssessed with death.
This game is what people considered as "art game" where it focus on visual, theme & soundtrack while not all people will able to enjoy it. Game is beautiful hand drawn just like 2 previous games from the developer, but on cozy / relaxing theme. Meeting all spirits combined with animal design which kinda represent each spirits personality, will bring you many emotionally engaging stories that crafted based on real person. Game also have unique take on resource gathering which combined with your ship building planning & platforming.
Playing this game made realized that Im unable to experience emotional stuff like many other people. For me, it need to be front loaded approach with music, cutscene, voices and i need to be in correct mindset. The game required you to take everything slow & read all conversations with all characters, which can feel annoying and made you want to skip the dialogue. Aside from couple of small gameplay moment, the game left with feeling that i wish the game are better designed from gameplay perspective.
Hard to say if you will able to experience emotional roller coaster like many other people. Im a person who emphasize on gameplay first, so the game made me grumpier on the road to 100% achievement. Perhaps if you willing to spend 30 hours ++ on this slow burner game, it will worth your time.