Being compared to both Stardew Valley and Spirited Away, Spirittea immediately drew my eye. But those are big shoes to fill, so I was interested to see how Spirittea stacked up to this, or if it would stay in the shadow of these two greats.

One of the first things you’ll notice about Spirittea is its gorgeous pixel art. The town, which you name yourself, is beautiful to look at. There’s detail everywhere you look, with inspiration clearly taken from East Asian culture. The character sprites are significantly less detailed, but it’s the character profile that pops up when you speak to NPCs where the pixel artwork shines yet again.

Spirittea has been in the headlines for Mike Rose’s comments on paid content creators recently. This review began before Rose’s comments and has not been impacted by them. And, as ever, we were not paid for this coverage.

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In the classic farming/management sim way, you’re the newbie and move into a house on the edge of town. One of the NPCs gives you some tea leaves, and when you put them in your teapot and drink the tea, you’re granted the ability to see spirits. The first spirit you meet is Wonyan, a cat spirit with a personality that is Marmite personified. Or catified. I find the sly jabs and high-and-mighty personality funny in a cat character, but I can see how others wouldn’t think so.

Wonyan leads you to the bathhouse at the back of the town, and it’s now your responsibility to run it. Of course, it’s rundown, and there’s only one bath available to start. Running the bathhouse itself is a satisfying loop — making sure there are fresh logs on the fire, washing towels, drying towels, leading spirits to the baths. It’s very involved, though — I found myself spending the entire in-game day running the bathhouse with minimal time left to do anything else.

It’s not a case of watering your crops, feeding your animals, and then setting off for the rest of the day to do as you please — not if you want to make any money, anyway. If you close early and kick the spirits out before they’re finished, they’ll pay you less.

You can enlist the help of the townsfolk once you reach maximum friendship with them (yes, maximum friendship), but it felt restrictive in the early and even mid-game, which is when I wanted to venture out and explore the most. Still, it was a satisfying loop once I got over the fact it meant giving everything else up, and I was easily sucked into it once I opened the bathhouse for the day.

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The town feels alive as soon as you step into it, with each character having a distinct personality that you can easily bond with. You can get to know them in a variety of ways, such as eating at the local restaurant or even singing karaoke together.

While these activities do yield a significant amount of friendship points, doing so with 25 human NPCs is time-consuming. The minigames quickly became repetitive, and after a few rounds of karaoke and barbecue at the restaurant, I went for the less time-intensive options, like bug-catching together or simply talking.

Meanwhile, NPC quests involve solving their spirit-related problems, which, in turn, grants you more potential customers at the bathhouse. T​​​​​​​he connectivity of the​​​​​​​se elements and meeting each spirit to learn a little more about them brought more life to the town and the spirit world, as you gained an insight into both the characters' lives and who the spirits were.

Just like the human NPCs, the spirits have endearing personalities within the quest and great character designs, so I was always eager to meet a new one. From being a midnight carrot thief to breaking the fourth wall to demand noodles, no two spirits were the same.

However, I soon ran into a problem with one of the first spirit quests that became available. An NPC named Young usually rings the bell every morning and evening at the temple, but he’s stopped lately, and one of the NPCs is concerned. I headed down to the temple, where I believed the bell was, and there was no one there.

I checked the map, which shows where the NPCs are at any given time, and I couldn’t see Young on the map anywhere. The map also isn’t labelled, so I couldn’t be 100 percent sure I was even checking at the right temple.

It took a few in-game days for him to finally show up, in exactly the place where I had checked multiple times. I’m unsure whether this was a glitch, but I had difficulty using the unlabelled map in any case. Poor design or bugs, it can derail a game that relies on a simple and satisfying routine.

Similarly, the game tells you that every spirit is associated with one of the four seasons, and only likes to sit next to a spirit associated with the season on either side of it. So, spring spirits like summer and winter, but they don’t like autumn.

However, I couldn’t find anywhere that said which season each type of spirit was associated with. You can view which spirits you’ve encountered in the options menu, but it simply offers an image and name. Nothing about seasons at all. In the end, I ended up grouping the spirits based on type, as they seemed fine with that anyway.

I did appreciate​​​​​​​ being able to select how many hours my character slept, however — even for as little as one hour. I had complete control over when my character woke up — early, so I could do a day at the bathhouse and attempt to finish any spirit quest I had on the go before the NPC moved for the day — and could take naps to replenish energy if I needed to. It’s a small feature in the grand scheme of things, but definitely one I’ll now miss in other similar games.

Unfortunately, bugs like Young were common. On any given day, I would be unable to interact with at least one NPC. They could be standing, walking, or sitting, but had no reaction when I tried to talk to them. This regularly happened with the cat, to my dismay.

After I unlocked the hot springs, an NPC asked me to visit with them. When we arrived, another NPC was swimming in the doorway, blocking the entrance. So much for that bonding experience. The bugs aren’t game-breaking by any means, but it is frustrating to have to restart the game regularly to fix them.

On the whole, Spirittea is an enjoyable management sim with a strong concept and charming pixel art that’s ultimately let down by a lack of polish.

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Spirittea

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch.

Simulation RPG Adventure Systems 3.0/5 OpenCritic Reviews Top Critic Avg: 76/100 Critics Rec: 82% Released November 13, 2023 ESRB E10+ For Everyone 10+ // Crude Humor, Fantasy Violence, Mild Language, Tobacco Reference, Use of Alcohol Developer(s) Cheesemaster Games Publisher(s) No More Robots
Where to play Close

WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL
Platform(s) Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S Expand Collapse Pros & Cons
  • Beautiful pixel art
  • Spirits and townsfolk are charming
  • Varied spirit-related quests
  • Glitches and bugs are common
  • Running the bathhouse is too time-intensive
  • Repetitive minigames
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