Spiritfarer Round Table pt. 2
* WARNING! SPIRITFARER SPOILERS!*
The three of us sat down to talk about Spiritfarer, a cozy management game about dying. This is the second half of the transcript.
If you missed part one, you can find the transcript here!
Hokori
What are some things that you found weren't successful about the game that you didn't enjoy?
sunnydaze
I had bugs in my game where, especially during events where there's like a big swarm of things you have to catch, the game would judder. Sometimes it would do okay after being slow for a while. And other times it would just shut down. The nice thing about that is that it's not game breaking because you save automatically pretty often, but it's annoying.
happysquared
There was a section where I had a problem with a lot of crashes. I thought I might not be able to finish the game.
sunnydaze
There was one very annoying bug I had where I activated Stanley's ectoplasm event. And then I tried to save the game. And then once I did that, it crashed, and when I entered the game, his bug was buzzing in the ship for a very long time until one day it just disappeared. It was very annoying to hear the constant buzzing.
Hokori
That's crazy.
sunnydaze
Yeah. Another annoying thing is the dialogue recycling between NPCs and also spirits. So like, if it rains, the characters on the ship will go, “Rain really ruins a day, doesn't it?” At first I was like, “Oh, yes, that sounds like something Gwen would say or Alice”, but then Stanley says it and Buck and I was like, “No, why?”
happysquared
Alright, I keep going off topic on this, but it's something I want to bring up about the recycling dialogue. "I don't like this." You know, like, when you're in an eclipse area, and you talk to them, and they just say, "I don't like this" and "what's going on?" I was wondering what's gonna happen with that.
sunnydaze
How come none of them like it, it's beautiful.
happysquared
Exactly. I thought there's something cool about this, like a mystery about the world. And I was wondering, does it remind them of the Everdoor, of the fact that they have to move on because it's a circle in the sky? That was my theory, but nothing came of it.
sunnydaze
So the second recycling dialogue thing is when you talk to NPCs, and they say, "on my way to happier day" or "nice to see you" and so what I would do is I would talk to one NPC and they would say all this stuff — "on my way to happier day", "nice to see you", "Goodbye” — and none of the NPCs would say that anymore.
happysquared
I don't know whether you thought there were lore implications to the eclipse.
sunnydaze
No, I didn't. Well, maybe when I first saw that, I was like, “What? How come they don't like this?”
happysquared
Yeah, it's like really curious about that
sunnydaze
I realized they just didn't.
happysquared
What do you think about the music choices for the resource collection? Because the jellyfish are very beautiful but it plays this ominous music. What mood are they trying to elicit during those resource collecting sessions?
sunnydaze
I think that's totally fine because jellyfish are Gwen's phobia.
happysquared
Yeah, but they're not ours. I thought, “Oh, maybe now that Gwen has moved on, it might be happier.”
sunnydaze
I thought it was fine.
Hokori
That sounds interesting, though. I never thought of that. Like, if you help them move on, then the resource collection would change to be more happy or peaceful? I don't know. That's kind of curious.
sunnydaze
Yeah, that would be good. I think what's missing is more overarching world building. There's little bits of worldbuilding, which is really nice. Like, in one of the caverns you can find a secret room with a spirit who has built their own little study. I don't know if you found that. You can talk to them. And they say, "Don't tell anyone else I live here."
happysquared
That's cool!
sunnydaze
That kind of thing is really nice, but it’s tidbits, it misses the overarching world building.
happysquared
I thought they would talk more about the phobias. For example, you know, the dragons are obviously metaphorical; it's not like it’s about an actual dragon that she struggled with, right? So you kind of wonder what it was and how her father struggled against that, too. And it was about accepting it and loving it as well. You know, so you kind of wonder what this dragon could be, you know, I wonder what the jellyfish represented that in Gwen as well, but, and those resources collecting each represented something kind of special in their lives. But then as they went on, I felt it was less deep like Giovanni's was beautiful sparkly stars, you know, like, I don't know. It didn't follow the same theme that I thought it would
sunnydaze
Well, like I said, I thought the character being linked to resources is just kind of convenient from a game design point of view.
happysquared
Wouldn’t it be cool if they followed it up with more story? Summer went to quite a bit of detail for the dragon so it doesn't feel purely mechanical.
sunnydaze
The dragon made sense but like yeah, I guess. What do you think the dragon was? So when I played that I thought the dragon represented anger management. But then I read that it's probably cancer, which makes sense. I don't know if I read that in the art book or just an online discussion.
happysquared
I know that she had cancer, and she died from it. But I don't think it was cancer because she's talked about how you deal with your dragons is up to you whether you can hate it and fight against it, or like love it and embrace it or something. So did she say something about loving it and accepting right which doesn't sound like it’s about cancer.Perhaps it was a depression kind of thing? Like a mental health thing.
sunnydaze
Oh yeah like mental health, yeah maybe.
happysquared
But yeah, I mean, I guess it could be about self acceptance, that kind of thing.
sunnydaze
I think there is a deeper reason why Gwen hates the jellyfish. It's just that they never say what it is.
happysquared
That's what I kind of mean. I thought the resource collection would go deeper into how each resource is almost like a trauma. Something that's very characteristic of that person from the when they were alive.
Hokori
Well, let's talk about it from a mechanical point of view. How do you feel about this way of collecting resources? Do you think this is a nice unique take on resource collection, tying it to a character's emotions?
sunnydaze
Oh, well, I'm personally not too fond of tying it to a character's story because I think it's just too convenient. But the resource collection is what I was raving to you about in the discord because it felt very ghibli-like, like catching lightning in the bottle. Or catching jellyfish. I like that. Again, it's much better early game than late game. Yeah, it's just like a bunch of mini games.
happysquared
Early game, the mini games to collect resources, were fun. I can understand why they didn't automate it, because they don't want to create like min max factories, that kind of thing. But it definitely got kind of tedious after a while, even taking care of plants. But that was maybe my fault as I felt I always needed something growing. So I ended up having so much food at the end.I always had something growing and I just had to get up in water everything, you know?
sunnydaze
Yeah, I did have things growing all the time too.
happysquared
If they had spirits helping you out like every now and then like how Summer would sometimes play music? That might have been nice, but I feel like they didn't help as much as they should have.
sunnydaze
That means you didn't get them happy enough.
happysquared
No, they were, that's the thing. I checked their moods, they were really happy. And yet they just didn't do it that much. You know, they should have helped out more. I wish there was one that watered plants.
sunnydaze
Well, I really like the orchard, because you just grow it and then you can just collect the resources from there. You don't have to constantly maintain it.
happysquared
Yeah, I didn't like the constant maintenance. And then it's like, oh, what if I want more seeds, you know, I've got to go to this place to get more seeds. And I mean, it's the kind of stuff a lot of other resource management games do too. I just need the more advanced resources now, so I’ve just got to keep collecting it, and now I have them, so I’ve got to use them, you know, and I didn't really like that loop.
sunnydaze
I like the theming of the more advanced resources. So I was excited when you got fermentation.
happysquared
Fermentation was cool. I think the part I didn't like was when it was like now here’s a rose gold sheet, steel sheet and all this stuff. And the powders, you know, getting the silica powder and all that felt a bit more tedious to me at that point. And I wish I was focusing a little bit. It was the low part for me. I was more interested in knowing more about the world. But at the same time I do like the loop of being on a ship, traveling somewhere, what do you want to do on the ship now until you reach your destination?
sunnydaze
The great thing is that you're going from place to place. So you might as well just do things, and you always feel like you're productive when doing so.
happysquared
Yeah, I did like that feeling sometimes. I wouldn’t even use bus stops, because I like long journeys.
sunnydaze
Yeah, me too.
hapapysquared
But that's why I feel I wish there was more stuff to do on the ship, like more options that were less resource focused and more spirit focused, like, oh, let's throw a party for a spirit. Like why not? I want to see how spirits interact with each other, you know, that kind of thing.
sunnydaze
I mean, that would be much, much bigger scope than the game, which is already pretty big in scope.
happysquared
I mean, yeah, maybe not like what exactly I said, but you know, seeing the spirits interact with each other more, stuff like that.
sunnydaze
When I reached the misty area, I was going to cut an ash tree. I was waiting for a Daffodil to join me and Daffodil took so long to come, like 20 or 30 seconds.
happysquared
Yeah, it was the same for me. And then she came and she started like farting.
sunnydaze
Like a puffer fish. Yeah, I was like, where's Daffodil? Is this a glitch? But no, she’s just taking a long time to get to you because she doesn't have good vertical movement.
Hokori
Okay, let's actually let's continue on this line then. So in other management games, you have like a lot of things that are time gated. And in this game, it does too, for example, when you cook food you need to wait for it to finish cooking. In this game, there are a lot of resources, either collection or conversion where you have to do some kind of mini game. For example, the sawmill where you're taking the logs and you're turning them into planks. How did you feel about these mini games compared to time gated ones?
happysquared
Um, yeah, time gated definitely makes it way more automated right? When doing the mini games, at least they gave you a lot of the upgraded materials, like you could get a lot of planks from a log. So it didn't feel too grindy. The grindy part was more like oh no, I'm out of logs now I gotta go find some. All the mini games are quick except the furnace one. I did not like the furnace one, the furnace one sucks.
sunnydaze
Furnace depends which metal, I think iron is really bad. Iron takes a long time and aluminum takes really a short amount of time but I don't know could be totally opposite. But okay, I have to say like at first I really did not like the sawmill because it was so hard. At least it was really hard on switch.
happysquared
Oh, yeah? I like the sawmill one but maybe it was harder on Switch than what I was used to on PC.
sunnydaze
I mean, by the end, I did it a lot and I had gotten a lot better. But, that's so much more fun early game than in late game is like because you normally do it when you're traveling from place to place because it's something to do, but then you also get upgrades which make your ship faster, and you just get to the next island really quickly. And the way I've been playing the game is that I really like doing as much as I can, while traveling between places and feeling like I'm being very productive. Because I'm the kind of person who doesn’t want to go to the store unless I have a bunch of things I want to do. I don't want to go out of the house unless I have multiple things to do. So from mid to late game, I kind of had to change my mindset because the book was so fast, it was almost too hectic for me to calm down and be like, it's okay to dock at this place and just do things on the boat.
happysquared
I guess it's just because the late game didn't feel any different. Late game is basically a change of resources to more advanced resources rather than something else. Some other new management, they can add it in. The mechanics are pretty much the same from early game. And I think that's why late game kind of suffered for me. In Stardew you feel rewarded late game because you get better sprinklers, you know, you grind up for them. I get that Spiritfarer didn't want to do that, because they want it to be a chill game where you weren’t producing hundreds and hundreds of resources. So that makes it a bit more tedious.
sunnydaze
I had over 100 cherries.
happysquared
Yeah, I had so many. So if I was already hoarding so much stuff anyway, then I feel like it'd be nice to have a kind of reward rather than the reward being you got more new resources. You get another house that gives you this other kind of resource, but it doesn't feel like that much of an upgrade just feels like another resource to worry about. Stardew succeeds in this a lot more. When you get new things that you can do, it also feels rewarding because they come with tangible upgrades and benefits.
sunnydaze
I think once you get those new buildings and then you start grinding for resources again, that's when it gets a bit tiresome, but I love the feeling of getting the new buildings because each of them has a unique mini game. And they're themed in a particular way.
happysquared
Yeah. I guess I'm trying to understand why I felt Stardew gave me a bigger sense of reward as I progressed even though it is also a resource thing. Like you know, the Junimo packages, Hokori? The stuff it gives you makes the world bigger as you progress and it's not all resource focused. Like your farm is really bad looking and now your greenhouse gets fixed because you completed a certain bundle or this bridge that you've walked past that was broken this whole time is now fixed because you completed this bundle and that's where the reward comes in. Like I get that for Spiritfarer you upgrade your ship, but that's a ship it's unrelated to the resource thing. So the resources kind of didn't have that.
Hokori
There's an element in Stardew where as you upgrade your stuff, previous things that you had to do before become easier. You get more efficient but also you break rules, like the greenhouse for example. Normally you can only plant things in that specific season but the greenhouse allows you to break those rules and you get more efficient like with more sprinklers you can spend less time watering and you can spend time doing other things instead. Do you feel like this game was lacking things like that?
happysquared
Yeah, exactly.
sunnydaze
Didn't it have a bit of that where you could upgrade each building to give you like twice as much?
happysquared
Yeah, but that's resource focused. It doesn't add anything else except that it's more efficient at doing the same thing. But Stardew you added something else as in like it is like what Lee said about breaking rules. It makes you feel like you're opening the world up more because the same way that the boat gets upgraded opens the world up more that is tied to Stardew's resource collection. For example, I was so excited to add a lounge because I didn't realize it's just going to be Giovanni's home. I thought, oh a lounge maybe the spirits would use this lounge it would be kind of cool to see them use it, you know?
sunnydaze
I thought it was criminally underused. Especially because it had its own music.
happysquared
Yeah, I thought it would be cool you know you're making a hangout place for the spirits increasing their mood. So maybe there should be houses that are very much less resource focused and more spirit focused. I want to add in like a game room or something. I want to see what spirits go in there. Then I can get new dialogue from this house that I decided to build? The boat did obviously feel like a home in Spiritfarer but they could have made it more of a home by making each building they added not just like a resource building, you know?
Hokori
So you would have liked a lot more unique building types?
happysquared
Yeah, like so many of them are very resource focused, like I loved making new spirit houses and upgrading the houses to see what kind of stuff they would consider upgrades. You know what I mean?
sunnydaze
Yeah, I think I think the central thing you're saying is that there aren't enough interactions between spirits.
happysquared
Yeah, that too. But also, the resource thing was a little bit too much. Like, it's not my favorite part of the game. And it kind of got old mid to late game. I knew what to expect when I upgraded a building, I'm going to get more efficient at doing this manual task. But I didn't like doing the manual task in the first place. So I guess efficiency is meant to be the reward. Now I can keep doing this manual task more I guess.
sunnydaze
I realized that, from this conversation, I didn't mention one of my favorite things about the game, which is designing your own ship.
happysquared
Yeah. Well, I like that. I moved things around a lot.
Hokori
Let’s discuss that now. You have a big area on your ship that's dedicated to just building different types of buildings. How did you find the functionality of actually building up this tiny community? Was it easy to move things around and organize things? And what was your approach to how you designed the layout? Were you more interested in making things feel thematic? Or what looked best aesthetically? What was your approach?
happysquared
I love the edit mode actually, I thought it worked really well for something that I thought would be quite complicated. I was quite thematic about what I was doing. For example, I was like, I don't think that this character who seems to like peace and quiet would like to be near the crusher. So I will actually put them far away from each other. I also actually put Alice's house pretty close to the bow of the ship, like pretty early on even before she started walking there because maybe she would like this, that kind of stuff. Or like, does that make sense for a farm to be on top? I don't think so farms make more sense to be on the ground level.
sunnydaze
I mean, if the farm is on top and there's a lot of light.
happysquared
That's true. I did put the windmill on the top. I thought that looked cool.
sunnydaze
Wait, okay, so I was looking through the Spiritfarer Reddit. So many people put the windmill at the top middle as a divider. I did that too.
happysquared
Yeah, that’s what I did as well. I also created a massive slide just so I could slide up and down the ship. I did that a lot. Actually, in between my journeys, was I being productive? Naw, I was just doing parkour on the roof.
sunnydaze
Oh, interesting.
happysquared
Yeah, so I had a lot of fun doing that. Obviously didn't work out until later in the game but I did some of these cool moves. Did you add a lot of movement stuff on your ship? Like I know they had the fan and wires.
sunnydaze
I did a lot of movement things. The least useful is the bouncy one.
happysquared
Yeah, I actually put the fan on the top of the ship. Just because I wanted to go super high.
sunnydaze
Okay, so the thing is that when those things were first unlocked, I didn't know that they were for movement on the ship so I put the fan on top. I thought I was supposed to reach the stars or something, and I realized it was for moving around the ship.
happysquared
I like the zip line, the zip line was fun to use.
sunnydaze
Yeah, the zip line is great. Another thing I noticed on reddit was a lot of people put the zipline in an X shape, which I also did. Okay, so my approach was there's an industrial part in the top right, where all the noisy things are. And then I try to move all the residential things on the opposite side far from the industrial part.
happysquared
Yeah! I did that too!
sunnydaze
Except for Astrid because her thing was so big and like everyone else needs to be on the other side and since she's used to living in an industrial place I just put her there.
happysquared
Mickey and Bruce's house were obnoxiously hard to place.
sunnydaze
I put them on the top left away from everyone.
happysquared
That's what I tried to do too. I was like no one likes them. I tried to put them as far away as I could.
sunnydaze
Gustav I put right at the top because he's a bird.
happysquared
Yeah, same. I did the same for Gustav. And I did the same for Buck until later on. I think I moved him later. But I tried to keep Gwen's house close to her weaving thing too, because I thought, oh, she likes doing this, you know?
sunnydaze
Yeah. So what I did was even when Alice left, I kept her house on the ground floor, because it's also my dresser. Then I tried to put each spirits house adjacent to their resource because they like that resource. So they want to go out and play with it. All the plants, I put it surrounding Summer's house. And then of course, you tried to pack it in this Tetris. I quite like my final product. And then I put all the plants together. And then like when Gwen left, I moved, I could move all her things to the industrial part because no one's living there. So it doesn't matter that it's so noisy. So the empty houses I also put in the industrial park next to their resources.
happysquared
I didn't upgrade my ship fully.
sunnydaze
I upgraded my ship fully, but I didn't even use the extra space because the build was so optimal already.
happysquared
Well, it's kind of nice to spread things out more on the bottom, I guess. I didn't upgrade as fully as I could just because I was just thinking that late game was really wearing me down. I just wanted to finish it up. And I was thinking the finale would be so cool, I just want to find out what's going to happen in the story. I really wanted to finish it up really quickly.
sunnydaze
I was upgrading and stuff because I got stuck at two parts. I got stuck at the silicon powder, because I kept waiting to find silica ore. The second part, I got stuck was waiting for Buck to tell you he wanted to leave.
happysquared
Yeah, I kind of wonder about that. Like, I only knew about Buck because I ended up looking it up. I wonder whether there's some other indicator that will eventually tell you?
sunnydaze
I don't think so. Buck actually has dialogue telling you he’s gone through the Everdoor before after you send Elena to the Everdoor. I wanted to send Elena and Buck to the Everdoor at the same time, which is why I didn’t get the dialogue first.
Hokori
So for the ship upgrades, like did you find the progression made sense? Or was it touch too grindy?
happysquared
It was okay.
sunnydaze
I thought it was fine. I liked it. Because those are like the overarching gates you have to pass so it felt like a nice milestone when I could go back to the shark and upgrade my ship.
Hokori
Okay, let's talk about the exploration of the game. So how much do you feel like you were told where to go versus exploring at your own pace and discovering the world for yourself?
sunnydaze
I was exploring at my own pace the whole time. It was great. It's also good because there are so many spirits and like so many things to do, but it's all kept in the handy quest tracker. I really appreciated that because I had a lot of things I could do at once and this way I could keep track of all of it and so it means I didn't have to stick on one thing. I did things by geography mainly and I slowly progressed from one end of the map to the other.
happysquared
Definitely a lot of my motivations are just like oh, cool new island. I wonder what's there? I was really eager to find out. On one of the Japanese styled islands you have to do a dash to talk to the spirit wearing black.
sunnydaze
Which guy?
happysquared
It's one of the early Japanese islands you land on if you keep going to the left. You can jump off and then you can keep swimming left and then you see like an island over there. And then the spirit looking off into the distance with a bench and chest.
sunnydaze
Oh, yeah.
happysquared
Yeah, so like those kinds of things. I was really excited to go back and check out things. I kind of wish there was more payoff to that one though.
sunnydaze
Yeah, I mean, there were lots of hidden things to do and there were multiple islands where there's like something off in the distance you can glide or dash or whatever to, but the payoff normally was just like a nice line from a spirit, which is fine.
Hokori
Well, there's a lot of different locations in the game. Were there any that stood out to you?
happysquared
The Japanese one was cool when I first went on there. Oh, it was nice.
sunnydaze
I think the worst ones are the industrial ones.
happysquared
That's true. The one that stands out the most in the industrial one is the Sandwich Island.
sunnydaze
Yeah, Sandwich Island is so cool.
happysquared
Yeah, when I saw it I was like “woah”.
sunnydaze
No, I thought all the locations were really well done. Actually, when I went from the later locations like from the Mist islands back to the early ones to get the berries, I was struck by how beautiful and verdant and luscious the first islands were like when you go to those islands at first, you might think like, oh, what generic green islands but when you go back, it's like, really nice and peaceful.
happysquared
The islands were kind of samey though they could have I think had a bit more variety.
sunnydaze
I think it's fine. I like that in the Japanese one when you go into the forest, it turns really dark and atmospheric.
happysquared
Yeah, some..
sunnydaze
Okay, one thing that annoyed me about the islands is that one of the early islands is an NPC who says she's forgotten her axe and her axe is everything. And I wish I could just give her an axe there were also axes in the tool shed on the island.
happysquared
I wonder if you could give her an axe somehow.
sunnydaze
Um, how? Like I just keep talking to her.
Hokori
What about the map system itself? Did you find it functional?
sunnydaze
I thought it was really good. Except when you fast travel, you should be able to mouse over things and see what they are. Which you can't do. I like that the map has coordinates on it. That way you could navigate to the treasure spots on your own.
happysquared
Yeah, that was cool. When you get a location, you can go and check it out. But they definitely could have added a lot more world building secrets and with how much exploration foundation they had.
sunnydaze
What? I thought there were lots of secrets.
happysquared
World building secrets, like discovering things that explained more of the world and story.
sunnydaze
Right. Yeah, that's true. I agree. I guess they didn't do that because they intended it to be in Stella's mind.
happysquared
Yeah, but even stuff more in the line of, even those like mysterious platforming sections with the Owl and all that.
sunnydaze
Yeah, because if it's Stella's mind that would have her psyche in it, right?
happysquared
Yeah, doesn't have to be like the afterlife itself. But yeah, more like that thing.
Hokori
So the game itself is listed as a management sim and sandbox game. Do you think it also qualifies as a metroidvania?
happysquared
Yeah. It definitely feels like it. Obviously, it's not like one of the more classic ones, but it has a lot of the stuff that I like about metroidvanias. Well, you can explore and backtrack and gain abilities to unlock new parts of the world.
sunnydaze
Now while I think it's a Metroidvania, I understand why they didn't tag it as one because it's only like a quarter or third Metroidvania and there are lots of other things to do in the game.
Hokori
Well, what about the platforming? How did you feel about the actual mechanics of it? Did you like the jump and the controls?
happysquared
Yeah, the movement felt so good in the game.
sunnydaze
Okay, so I think I've said that the animations are really beautiful but I think that interrupts the movement. I wasn't sure sometimes if I could climb onto something or not. Some jumps I thought she could make but I didn't make it.
happysquared
I didn't have that feeling. I actually thought it was one of the most fluid games that I've played. I thought the whole movement felt good.
sunnydaze
That's only what I thought at the beginning of the game, and at the end of it I guess I was used to it and it was fine.
happysquared
Yeah, I know for me, I really like the movement of the game. I was kind of impressed that even with all the very detailed animations, it didn't feel stiff.
Hokori
One of the cornerstones of Metroidvanias are unlockable abilities, especially ones that deal with movement. You also unlocked abilities in this game. What did you think of the process of unlocking them? Did you like them? Did you find them interesting and fun to use? What do you think they added to the game?
sunnydaze
Yeah, I thought all the abilities were great.
happysquared
The dash was my favorite. I wish you got it earlier, because that’s how much I like the dash.
sunnydaze
The dash is cool, but it takes so long to recharge.
Hokori
What about the unlocking process?
happysquared
I thought it was cool.
sunnydaze
I like it. I like finding the shrines. Knowing I can have a new ability.
happysquared
This is not super related. I really like Bucky's resource collection game, the DND thing.
sunnydaze
Sure, yeah. Yeah, I like that. You can use the light ability in other mini games to get even more resources.
happysquared
I don't know. That's the only way I could pass Elena's thing I needed to use it like the light one for her pulsar ore.
sunnydaze
What wait, I passed Elena's stuff so easily,
happysquared
Really? Without the light thing?
sunnydaze
Yeah, I used dash.
happysquared
Okay. Yeah, but the pulsar ore one I've always found kind of hard, you know, Mickey and Bruce's one?
sunnydaze
Yeah, that one is really hard. But with the dash It was fine. The trick is just to like, run randomly. (Everyone: Laughing) Go to the top and then just drop to the bottom.
Hokori
Okay, let's go back to the story. How did you feel about the ending? Did you find it satisfying? Or do you think the game overstayed its welcome?
happysquared
I'd thought so.
sunnydaze
I thought it did drag long, but I wasn't sure if it was just because I got stuck.
happysquared
Like we kind of mentioned the earliest spirits are kind of our favorites. Most of the interesting stuff happens early on after that there aren't really any surprises at the end.
sunnydaze
Yeah, it kind of slows. Well, I liked discovering the mist islands at the end.
happysquared
Yeah, though no cool new stuff happens like a spirit mysteriously disappearing or a mansion appearing somewhere, you know, all the all the coolest paths are all in the beginning. And at the end, it was kind of eh.
sunnydaze
Yeah I agree, but it's not necessarily the endings fault.
happysquared
Yeah. I kind of thought I would get some closure for Stella. But we didn't right, it just ended. And I was like, Oh, is it because I need 100% completion? But there wasn't anything more, you know, so it was kind of anti climatic for me.
sunnydaze
I mean, I like that you have to row yourself at the end and then you hug Daffodil.
happysquared
Yeah. Also, what about Charon? What happened? What's going on? It was so cool. Like, the thing is that, I'm fine with the game being set in Stella's head. But the beginning does not make you think that it is because of Charon. He's a big part of why you think it's a real world but it's not, you know?
sunnydaze
Yeah. Like you said, even if it's in Stella's head you can have lots of world building because it's her psyche.
happysquared
Yeah, but you don't see Stella change throughout. I feel like this is supposed to be about Stella coming to terms with people leaving and stuff as a nurse and you know as a nurse who's dealt with dying patients.
sunnydaze
Yeah, but you're right. She doesn't change.
happysquared
Yeah, she's just smiley the whole game. And when the Owl comes, it doesn’t look like it affects her, it's just like something that happens you know? Maybe if they had effects similar to other games where the screen goes glitchy, or you see hallucinations and stuff as you go through the game. I thought that'd be more to the Owl with how ominous he was. Like, “we'll see each other soon”. Okay, we've seen each other but now what?
Hokori
Would you recommend the game to other people?
happysquared
I still would, but I warn them that I played over 20 hours of it.
sunnydaze
Yeah, I would still recommend the game to people, because it's a beautiful game.
happysquared
I wouldn't say I would overwhelmingly, positively recommend it. No, but I'd say it's very good.
sunnydaze
Yeah, it's beautiful. When you first play it, you will get that sense of awe, but it gets kind of slow near the end.
happysquared
I can't recommend that they finish it. I almost feel like you kind of have the full experience by the 10 hour mark. You don't have to play the full game. That would be my biggest thing. You don't get a ton more new things as it goes on. I wouldn't say it's overwhelmingly positive.
Hokori
Okay, okay, so we talked about a lot of stuff. But is there anything that we missed that you were like that you wanted to talk about that we could add into the other spots or like something that we didn't really touch on?
sunnydaze
Well, I think actually, now I think I want to talk about Giovanni and Astrid.
Hokori
Okay, we can add that into the character section.
sunnydaze
It's interesting that Giovanni talks about the war. So he's clearly pretty old.
happysquared
They're both her grandparents.
sunnydaze
Oh, really? At the end, the lesson of the story is that he loves her. But he cheats on her. She forgives him, though.
happysquared
She doesn't actually because she kicks him out.
sunnydaze
She does kick him out.
happysquared
Yeah, I was telling Hokori actually, that I kind of appreciate that some of the spirits aren't going to be likable. I mean, it's kind of weird, we can still hug him and have a great relationship with him, even though I really didn't like him, but I appreciated that. Not every story is tied up nicely. There still might be someone that's hurt at the end. And it's not about fixing the hurt at all. A lot of stories are about acceptance, these are things that have happened, you know, and it tells you in a very non judgmental way. Like Mickey and Bruce, no one on your ship likes them. They're very abrasive. Giovanni's, not a good person. These are things that happen. These are the people and it doesn't try to fix things in a moral way. It's just more like, this is just what happened. And I like that not everything has to be a happy ending for everyone. Apparently, all these spirits are based on the developers' deceased relatives. Which is kind of interesting. Like apparently Giovanni and Astrid's story was actually based on real people.
sunnydaze
Really?
happysquared
Yeah, I only knew this from the art book, but yeah, Giovanni would always cheat on Astrid and never really regretted it and Astrid just accepted it at the end. I mean Stella’s grandparents, not the developer’s family.
Hokori
What did you think about Stanley?
sunnydaze
I love Stanley. He's so cute. His hug is the best hug. I like the part where you help him put on a play. Who did you invite? I invited Gustav, because you know, he likes the arts and I invited Buck because *?
happysquared
I didn't have a lot of choices at the end because I was turning in spirits pretty quick. Oh. Yes, Astrid's entry says she was tormented by her husband's unfaithfulness. She finally accepts she has to sever her bond with him as he betrayed her one final time and she passed away at a very old age with Stella by her side. They were substitute grandparents to Stella who never knew her own.
Hokori
So they weren't her biological grandparents?
happysquared
No, but she hid Jewish children in her mother's restaurants basement during World War Two. See it's like they don't mention that at all.
sunnydaze
I think they did.
happysquared
I guess it did a little bit but she talked about it but very very vaguely. How is Elena related to Stella?
sunnydaze
Not certain, we should look that up. It doesn't say.
Hokori
How did you feel about the game being more vague and maybe even a little too subtle about the characters' backstories? It doesn’t have a payoff in the end because it’s all in the art book, right? It's not spelled out in the game.
happysquared
Like Buck especially because you don't turn him so you don't know much right?
Hokori
Yeah, so how did you feel about Buck's story?
happysquared
Yeah, according to Buck’s art book story it says in a strange way Buck had already passed on when Stella meets him.
sunnydaze
She had only ever heard about him.
happysquared
Yeah Buck was Stella’s sister Lily's friend who died in his teenage years so Stella just never knew about him. So she only remembers Lilly recounting lots of things about Buck and his story fascinated her as well as his geeky personality. It also made her fall in love with role playing games idealizing Buck in the process.
sunnydaze
I never realized that Stella liked role playing games.
happysquared
Yeah, I didn't either.
sunnydaze
When Buck mentions them, she makes a face.
happysquared
Yeah, she does.
sunnydaze
Yeah, so I would say it's disappointing that all that wasn't included. Like I think it's fine to allude to things like Astrid hiding the children in one line of dialogue because you have to like pay attention and it's always rewarding when the spirits talk about their lives and about themselves but I think it's mainly about the relationship with Stella.
happysquared
Yeah, one of the big moments for me actually happened early game when Alice to Stella “has anyone told you you are so overbearing” I was like Excuse me? (Everyone: laughs) Like I don't know how you felt about that.
Hokori
[laughs] You took it so personally. (Yeah.)
Thank you for joining us on this journey!