Review: Spirittea

Available on: Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox

Cost: €20, £18 or $20 or FREE on Xbox GamePass

Genre: RPG, Life Sim, Management Sim

Developer: Cheesemaster Games

Publisher: No More Robots

Spirittea is a charming roleplaying game with elements of life and management simulation where you a writer that moves into a town plagued by mischievous spirits challenging the peaceful balance of the townsfolk. Luckily, with the help of Wonyan your spirit guide, you are the only person in the town who can see these spirits, so it is up to you to solve the spirits problems and restore the tranquility of the town. Restore the town’s bathhouse, upgrading to fill with as many spirits as you can manage to please the spirits and befriend and solve the townsfolk’s puzzles to create harmony with humans and spirits alike, as well as complete your book!

Story

The core aim of the game is to restore the spirit bath house to tend to the spirits that have become lost, as the humans have stopped worshipping, leaving gifts or even remembering them. The disgruntled spirits are then wreaking havok on the town, from stealing carrots, to smashing photos and even stopping the temple’s bell from ringing.

Chat and befriend the towns people who will explain their individual problems, and it’s up to you with the help of Wonyan and your spirit view to find the spirits in question and solve their disputes. The spirits will then visit you in your bath house, where you can scrub and feed them to their happiness levels and increase your moolag to be able to buy upgrades for the bathhouse, expanding, adding features, buying furniture for your home or even to buy offerings for shrines.

The story is delightful and unique, with witty dialogue. The story carries you quite well through the gameplay however when it comes to catching the spirits it doesn’t necessarily hand hold you, and the characters don’t offer a great deal in suggestions to solve the puzzles. While not impossible with a little extra thought, a little more direction may have been helpful to find some of the spirits.

Gameplay

There are a variety of activities, minigames and puzzles to keep you busy in Spirittea. Firstly, in the bathhouse, you’ll need to wash, dry and lay out towels, assign spirits specifically to places in the baths that will make them most happy, and keep the fire burning to ensure the most enjoyable experience for your guests. The management sim style of this works very well, you’ll always have towels to stock up, a floor to sweep and a guest to welcome, and if you do it well you’ll be rewarded with a good amount of cash at the end of your shift. You’ll also have the opportunity to unlock your ability to view more spirits around the town the more guests you serve in the bathhouse! As time goes on and you get to know your neighbours better, you’ll also be able to hire them as help to scrub your guests, wash the towels and chop wood giving you the time to serve your guests quicker as well as cook them food to enhance their enjoyment.

The map is filled with various shops to buy ingredients, recipes and even coffees, as well as the neighbours homes. The map helpfully shows where each townsperson is situated at that moment, which allows you to find and chat with exactly who you need to easily. There’s also some activity buildings where you can go for dinner, have a drink or even sing kareoke.

As well as solving the townspeoples spirit dilemmas, you’ll also be able to hang out with them in unique (although quite challenging) mini games, such as fishing, cooking, drinking, karaoke, digging and bug catching. These activities will increase your friendship level with each member of the town, and offer some fun side challenges. The fishing minigame is a unique mechanic I’ve personally not seen before and I enjoyed the challenge. The Kareoke rhythm game is good fun and gets increasingly more difficult with each level. However the cooking mini game still has me quite puzzled on how to complete successfully.

I didn’t have any difficulty with the controls and it was very easy to navigate between the map, notebook and guide when needed. Time does move when you are in the notebook/guide however so be wary of that. I would say that the minigames are a little challenging especially the kareoke and cooking. A better explanation of the mechanics for this may help, as well as a simplification of the mechanic, but for a game that is mostly quite simple to play the challenge may be enjoyable for some.

Graphics and Visuals

Spirittea has a charmingly simple and atmospheric design, often being described as themed by Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away. It achieves this quite successfully, with some beautiful areas within the game, but some areas can look a little sparse. The map does change with the seasons with different fish and bugs to collect and a seasonal theme every 30 days.

The character customisation is a little limited although you can choose from different skin tones and outfit colours, albeit not many to choose from. The townsfolk are a little more creative in design but nothing overly exciting. However the real treat is unveiling a new spirit, which all have unique, interesting and fun designs you won’t have seen before. The shops and homes are quite well filled, not much is interactable but there is the odd object you can pick up (and steal…. but nobody has questioned me about it yet!) and add to your home.

The options to decorate your home are quite minimal too, other than a few wallpapers, rugs and tables, along with sculptures and artwork your neighbours give you, there’s not much to fill your home with. You can cook in your home, and write your book, but other than that there’s not much else to do in there.

The feel of the game is very atmospheric and you feel the changes in the seasons and different weather styles. This is done very well in the game and helps to get immersed into the cozy gameplay. The music is fun and changes with the setting, time of day and season, which really helps to focus the mood of each activity.

Longevity

The game runs by day and over multiple seasons, and like most life sims you have to complete your tasks within a day and keep an eye on your energy bar, making sure you have enough time to get to bed to rest. However I would say this game gives you a lot more time in the day than the average life sim. For example, for myself I played 10 hours before getting into the next season.

There are 10 bugs and 10 fish to collect each season, as well as 50 treasures to find, 6 kareoke songs to complete and 4 shrines to fill with gifts. There’s plenty to collect and fill over the in game year, and 40 spirits to find which could easily span into the second year of gameplay.

There’s extra areas to unlock, including a mountainous area with a hiking trail and bath you can visit with your townsfolk, as well as an area you can reach via the bus stop once you complete your book.

The main story takes around 40 hours to complete, and for completionists around 60 hours to collect all fish, bugs, spirits and complete all tasks. This is great value for a €20 game, and it does look like there’s possibility for DLC in the future.

Conclusion

Overall, Spirittea is a delightfully original, spiritual and charming role playing game. The story is strong, collecting spirits is a fun and sometimes challenging experience. The bathhouse renovation element is an enjoyable management mechanic and a great way to earn money throughout the game. The minigames are a little on the challenging side, and a little more explanation in some of the puzzles would help along the way. It has a wonderfully cozy feel, and it’s very easy to get submerged into the Spirited Away style world. But the game could be improved with better character customisation, more furniture and decorations for your home and the ability to romance your neighbours. It could also be improved with less repetitive and more helpful dialogue from the townsfolk, especially with some of the more challenging spirit clues. It’s very reasonably priced and good value for the content, so it would be a definite recommend from me if you enjoy a cozy, RPG management life sim.