4.5/5 ★ – benhmedia's review of Spiritfarer.

After 50 hours over the course of a month on my Switch, I can definitively say that this is one of the most special games I’ve ever played - and I don’t think I would ever play it again. At least for me, it feels like the kind of thing that’s only meant to be experience once. And that’s okay. I’m not usually a farming sim/life sim guy, but this was a big exception. Three things made the gameplay work as well as it did for me: the beautiful art direction/music, the story/characters, and the fact that it’s a finite story where all your farming and management will eventually come to an end. I do think the gameplay loses a bit of steam towards the end, and I wasn’t quite compelled to 100% it given how tedious some of the late-game side quests are, but the writing and beautiful music makes it all worth it. Even with the less likable characters, empathy is such a major theme of this game that you can at least see why these characters are the way that they are. I also appreciated the platforming elements that the game is based around. It’s mostly pretty simple, but the movement upgrades you get like bouncing and zip-lining are so much fun! Kind of makes me wish there were a metroidvania with a zip line feature because that mechanic was just such a joy. Friends had been telling me to play this one for some time, and I’m so glad I finally did. There’s nothing else quite like it, and it’s one of the very few video games I’ve ever played to make me tear up a little.