#39
Change YoY: -2 My Rating: 9.1 / 10
Spiritfarer is a beautiful game, in every sense of the word. Obviously the visuals are gorgeous and the music is wonderful, but the story, characters, the setting, and everything else is just beautiful. I genuinely can't think of a better word to describe this game. Touching, emotional, bittersweet, relaxing, they all apply, as do so many other descriptors, but after all other words are used, the one that I always go back to is beautiful. While the game's basic premise is that you're the new person in charge of ferrying the spirits of the dead to the afterlife, the real core of the experience are the characters that you spend time with on your ship.
Spiritfarer can be an absolutely heartbreaking experience at times, which all stems from you spending time and learning new things about the characters that join you on your journey. As they learn to accept their deaths, you must accompany them on their final journey onward, and it's never easy to let go of these characters you've learned so much about and become attached to. It's an experience that will stay with me for a long time. Of course, the game has so much more to offer than that, like upgrading your ship, traveling around the game's world discovering new fantastic locations, completing quests for various characters you meet along the way, and then sometimes just sitting down to watch the sunset on the deck of your vessel.
There are very few games that have made me genuinely tear up, and Spiritfarer belongs into that group. Playing through it was an experience I will likely never forget, moreso for the fact that I played it through with my wife. I'm not sure if I will ever go back and replay it because much of the power of the experience came from doing all those things for the very first time and finding out the stories of the many characters that come along for the journey on your ship and then eventually move on to the next phase of their existence. It was, as mentioned, a beautiful experience, and I can't wait to see what the people behind it do next.
