Not long after, I gave up on tracking down the staffs or skeletons. This meant dropping the staff, standing on the right part of the flower, barking until it activated, moving until you absorb the spirit charge and then trying to pick up the staff again. I foolishly spent time running around with one of the staffs while doing the rune activations. Sometimes you have to return to the same flowers so you can get another charge which just feels unintuitive. It’s a slow process, involving backtracking to the nearest flowers a few too many times as you can only hold one charge at a time. It is as clunky to experience as it is explaining it to you. ![]() The spirit will then open up the main flower to charge you up with spiritual energy, which then needs to be used on the aforementioned runes. Next, you need to stand on the right spot and bark. First, you have to locate a small patch of blue flowers. This allows you to activate runes in the environment, to open up the way and clear corrupted growth. Not that far into this 4-5 hour adventure, the red fox appears to be imbued with the spirit of the mystical fox spirit you’ve been following. None of this is helped by the fox’s walking being just a little too slow, and running is limited by stamina. The open aimlessness at times can wear thin. In wide-open areas, this means a lot of aimless wandering, combined with the wandering you’re already doing to make sure you’re not missing anything tucked away. Finding the staff means that you now have to scour the area to locate where it needs to go. Then there’s finding staff in the wild that you need to take to the skeletons to guide their spirits onwards (the game isn’t very clear on this). The game is unforgiving when it decides if you’ve landed enough on the edge of a surface to stay standing or to fall back down. Turns out that controlling a fox moving around on all fours isn’t as agile as a more human character. Precision jumping is a struggle, as missing a jump usually leads to some annoying backtracking to take your chances again. While you can take in the world around you, jumping around and overcoming environmental puzzles drag it down. Then the whole experience struggles once you actually have to play it as a game. ![]() Even though I felt lost initially, it was a delight to roam around in. I really enjoyed soaking in all the views, especially the opening area. This is all accompanied by music fitting to this spiritual journey in the frozen North. While the Switch’s resolution and power aren’t equal to the other platforms this was released on, it still manages to capture the beauty in the environments. It’s not all snow and wide-open spaces, but it always feels peaceful. ![]() The further along you go, the more different areas you’ll find. Spirit of the North is all about the atmosphere and there is a lot of beautiful nature to absorb along the way. Your journey is scenic, especially the vast snowy region you start in. It can get slightly frustrating when it’s unclear where you need to go next when you encounter the light puzzle areas. This approach adds to the serene exploration of the areas you’re traversing. When relevant a button prompt will show up when you need to grab a stick, bark, or use spirit power on a mystic rune. The game doesn’t give anything away, there is no dialogue or text. ![]() You follow a fox spirit across the land, getting ever closer to the source of the ominous smoke. Your Adventure is that of a red fox walking across a snow-covered landscape, following a plume of mysterious red smoke. Rug up because it’s time to head North and have a spiritual journey. Spirit of the North is a game that flirts with both sides of the line, a narrative game with light puzzle and platforming. Narrative games have to walk a fine line does the player just roam and experience the story, or do you have to include more traditional game elements like combat or platforming.
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