{"id":112733,"date":"2020-05-10T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-10T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/spirit_of_the_north"},"modified":"2020-05-10T19:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-05-10T19:00:00","slug":"mini-review-spirit-of-the-north-minimalistic-mystery-mired-by-myriad-mistakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/05\/10\/mini-review-spirit-of-the-north-minimalistic-mystery-mired-by-myriad-mistakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini Review: Spirit of the North &#8211; Minimalistic Mystery Mired By Myriad Mistakes"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/spirit_of_the_north\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/spirit_of_the_north\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"picture embed pictures\" id=\"screenshots\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/104913\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/104913\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Spirit of the North Review - Screenshot 1 of 7\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Since the release of the hugely popular <strong><a class=\"external\" href=\"http:\/\/www.pushsquare.com\/games\/ps4\/journey\">Journey<\/a><\/strong>, many other games have gone down the route of minimal storytelling, focusing primarily on visuals and music to evoke emotions within the player. <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/spirit_of_the_north\">Spirit of the North<\/a><\/strong> leans heavily into this, tasking you with a very simple objective; explore the environment and solve puzzles. That\u2019s really it. By the dev\u2019s own admission, there\u2019s no specific narrative to guide you along, no secrets to uncover, and certainly no dialogue. Games like this can work very well if they\u2019re backed up by visually stunning graphics and clever gameplay, but unfortunately, Spirit of the North has neither.<\/p>\n<p>The game features an entirely ordinary fox as its protagonist. At least, it\u2019s ordinary at first; when you get to a certain point in the initial section of the game, the fox takes a bit of a tumble, eventually collapsing from exhaustion. A spirit then gifts the fox with its own energy, creating waves of magical light across the fox\u2019s body. After this point, you can then use this power to solve puzzles within the environment, opening doors and raising water levels to access new areas.<\/p>\n<p>You haven\u2019t got an unlimited supply of energy, however. Once you\u2019ve activated certain structures, you\u2019ll then need to draw energy from other sources in order to activate others. This is mainly via small clusters of glowing flowers scattered around the environment, but you can also draw energy from certain stones and statues lying around. Platforming is also a large part of the puzzle gameplay, and you\u2019ll often come across steep drops, moving platforms, and even water geysers as you make your way around. The simple task of navigating the world is perhaps one of Spirit of the North\u2019s most egregious failures; the fox simply doesn\u2019t react to your inputs quickly enough, and actions like jumping or swimming are infuriatingly sluggish.<\/p>\n<p>Visually, things aren\u2019t much of an improvement. On the Switch, Spirit of the North looks downright ugly, and it\u2019s clear that certain sacrifices have been made in bringing the title to Nintendo\u2019s system. It\u2019s a shame, because there\u2019s certainly a lot of ambition here; we imagine certain viewpoints would look great with a bit of a bump in resolution, and moving through the snow causes it to naturally compress. A lot of care has clearly been taken with the art design, but technically the game is a hot mess.<\/p>\n<p>Where the game really sings, however, is in its soundtrack. Taking inspiration from games like <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/ori_and_the_blind_forest_definitive_edition\">Ori and the Blind Forest<\/a><\/strong>, the tracks here can be genuinely emotional at times, and it really spurs you on, despite the game\u2019s numerous shortcomings. Ultimately though, regardless of its ambitions, Spirit of the North simply doesn\u2019t hold up well on the Switch, and with poor gameplay and visuals, its relatively short 3 to 4-hour length felt <em>much<\/em> longer as a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since the release of the hugely popular Journey, many other games have gone down the route of minimal storytelling, focusing primarily on visuals and music to evoke emotions within the player. Spirit of the North leans heavily into this, tasking you with a very simple objective; explore the environment and solve puzzles. That\u2019s really it. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}