Read well audience members, this was the best game of 2020, hands down, do not pass go, do not collect $200. “Spiritfarer,” title drop, is an indie management/death simulator.
Stella, who is essentially the new Charon, whisking the souls of the dead around and helping them fill out some of their final requests before they pass – but for real this time.

It’s honestly quite a simple premise, but in execution had a little bit of difficulty to it. Sleeping through the game wasn’t an option.
Balancing the mood of every soul aboard your vessel with great offerings, immense proportions to satisfy disproportionately Brobdingnagian appetites is quite the challenge. And it’s all in hopes that they will return your feeble attempts with mild favor. Or in simple terms, feed them food to make them happy and they do some small things to help you out.
Otherwise, the job is to go around and pick up odds and ends to make your crew happier and make everything easier, really nothing too crazy.

What’s really shining with the story (and I’m trying to stay out of spoiler territory here) is that “Spiritfarer” has its fair share of tear-jerking moments. It dealt with the serious topic of death. Learning and getting close to these people just to help them pass on is extremely touching.

Getting emotionally invested into games has become something that doesn’t happen anymore, at least not extremely often. Even though I play games to feel things, it typically will have a hard time breaching my brittle exterior.
The gameplay basically forces the player to become invested in the characters because they’ve got to hug them and pamper them so they’re happy.

Just to learn that they’re not at max happiness because they remembered their kids and wife who they left behind in life. It works oddly well considering pretty much all the characters in the game are fairly likeable. That is all except the mobster, who I ranked just above the kid on the playground who chased everyone around with a headless praying mantis corpse while in elementary school.

Also, the gameplay kind of got repetitive and has little replay value. Personally, I like story-based experiences to be shorter.
I spent a few days with Spiritfarer, and the gameplay really made me feel like I’m just doing tedious chores by the end of the game. While if it were a shorter, more concise experience, it would’ve been a better experience.
Three spirits didn’t add much to the game, two of them I just flat out didn’t like, which for a game that you’re supposed to get emotionally invested into is not a good mark.

With all that being said, the amount of times I’ve felt genuinely sorry for a character
versus still belongs with some of the greatest games of all time. To put it all in one straight to the point sentence: The vast majority of spirits led to an emotional experience that left no regrets, even though it was a bit long and felt mildly unresolved.