From the moment you step into Spirit of the North, you are immediately enveloped by the beauty of its world. The landscapes are simply stunning, with snow-capped mountains, vibrant forests, rolling hills, and serene lakes that reflect the hues of an ever-changing sky.


At its core, Spirit of the North is an exploration game, with light puzzle elements and a focus on discovery. As you guide your fox companion through the expansive world, you'll uncover the secrets of an ancient, long-forgotten civilization. The game encourages curiosity, offering no hand-holding or intrusive tutorials, which fosters a sense of solitude and immersion. The puzzles you encounter are intuitive and often tied to the environment, requiring you to interact with natural elements such as light, wind, and nature spirits to unlock new paths.

The fox’s connection to the spirit world is central to the experience, as you harness its abilities to interact with ethereal forces and solve environmental puzzles. The interactions are simple but satisfying, adding a layer of mysticism to the adventure. The lack of combat is a welcome choice, as it shifts the focus entirely to the emotional and spiritual journey the fox undertakes, instead of mundane mechanics or stress-inducing challenges.


The auditory experience in Spirit of the North is one of its strongest assets. The soundtrack, composed by Alex Pfeffer, is a masterpiece of ambient music, blending sweeping orchestral scores with the natural sounds of the environment. The music gently ebbs and flows, rising and falling with the emotional beats of the story.


Spirit of the North is not a game for those seeking high-octane action or complex narratives. Instead, it is a meditative journey that invites players to explore a world where time slows down, and every step is an opportunity for introspection. The game’s stunning visuals, hauntingly beautiful soundtrack, and emotional storytelling create an experience that is both serene and profoundly moving. It is a celebration of nature, mythology, and the quiet beauty that surrounds us.

In the end, Spirit of the North is a reminder that sometimes, the most powerful stories are those that are told without words, and that the heart of a journey is not always in its destination, but in the path we take and the moments of stillness along the way.

10/10

I had been looking at this game for a while because I like foxes, so I grabbed it on sale. I'm glad I did - get it *on sale*, that is.

The good:

The fox is cute (because of course it is), and the music is pretty good. Some of the scenery is pretty. It's funny to watch your fox get launched by gyzers.

The bad:

Your fox's collider is a big circle around it, so it's easy to accidentally clip geometry despite visually being pretty far away. This is especially a problem with jumping puzzles, because hitting stuff while in air causes you to ricochet off rather than slide along like basically any other platforming game. The game is mostly jumping puzzles, but I use that term loosely: none of the puzzles exceeded the complexity of about the fifth room in Portal (I know that's kind of apples and oranges, but the point is, the puzzles aren't tricky to figure out most of the time). I once almost soft locked the game by "falling" for a while onto a bit of level geometry in Chapter 3 that you're not supposed to be able to stand on, but is well within reach. Invisible walls are absolutely everywhere. There are 28 hidden shamen who you're supposed to reunite with their staffs, most of which are just completely missable completion collectible type things, but the first one was presented as if finding them and returning their staffs was a core mechanic, which led me to scour every square inch of each map looking for them thinking they were important despite the fact that I didn't like how much that disrupted the flow of the game (I still missed 3). Sometimes, a place that looks like the kinds of places that will have a staff or a shaman would actually have an invisible wall, so you'll spend a lot of time jumping into nothing to find them. The fox's animation sometimes gets a bit weird, like when standing on a 60 degree slope or floating over a ledge because of its huge hitbox. I thought the mechanic of having to bark at the glowing blue flowers to keep recharging your spirit energy (or whatever it is) felt like a waste of time, because you just have to keep going back and forth between the flowers and puzzle elements, and the flowers take a second to actually charge you once you bark at them. It wasn't until the second to last chapter that the game really made an effort to make *not* having your energy charged sometimes into a meaningful mechanic.

The ugly:

I feel like the story was meant to be a big draw, but it's very simplistic. The puzzles are also simplistic. So, what's the deal? It didn't scratch either itch I expected from this game. I also kind of thought that the fox didn't seem very fox-like (foxes also don't normally bark in the wild like they do in this game. Rather they tend to make this whiny laughing sound, or scream like banshees). For playing as a fox, I also would appreciate some theft (which is such a well known behavior of foxes that there's even a word in English for a fox stealing something: "vulpeculation") though I understand that isn't really what this game is about.

Overall:

I cannot recommend this game for $20. I got it on sale for $2, and I don't regret that, but I definitely would have regretted paying full price for it. Unless it's known to be vastly improved, I'm not very excited about the sequel.

I really enjoyed the story and the fact that you get to play as a fox, plus the scenery was stunning. However, there are a few things to consider: there's a lot of backtracking, and the controls can feel floaty and frustrating, especially for a platformer. The constant interruptions can also disrupt the flow of gameplay. At times, the game can feel unclear. Overall, it's definitely worth it if it's on sale, but if not, I'd recommend waiting for a discount. Also, if you have a controller, it might provide a better experience than playing with a keyboard.