Spiritfarer is a relaxing management game. As Stella, the new spiritfarer, players need to build their boats, explore the world, and take care of the spirit friends aboard. The game caught my eyes with its clean artstyle. I was then captivated by the demo released earlier this year. The concept of hugging everyone to comfort or make them joyful really steals my heart, especially hugging humanoid animals. I am a hopeless furry. The charm does not end there. The vivid characters, the various mini games, and the exploration elevates the experience to be fruitful. I strongly recommend this game, especially to those who want to take a break from games of different genres.


1. Clean Artstyle
The first time I knew Thunder Lotus was through Sundered. The eldritch action roguelite game had a unique touch in terms of artstyle. Something in their background, character portrait, and enemy design stirs my sense. Smooth and surreal. Twisted, yet somehow ethereal. And now I see the same thing in Spiritfarer. Less twisted, smoother and more ethereal. The game itself, in comparison to the previous title, is quite peaceful. The developer uses simple lines and plain colors to enlighten the idea, presenting a cheerful journey in this vast, clean afterworld.

2. Lovely Characters
Probably the most important element in this game. The developer did a really good job polishing every character to be unique and lovable individual. It makes me feel like everyone aboard belong to my big family. A blasé yet caring deer big sister, a cheerful and resourceful toad uncle, and a knowledgeable, vegan snake grandma; an amiable yet forgetful hedgehog grandma who enjoys gardening, an innocent and wonderful mushroom little brother with a cute and straightforward mindset, and a little snooty yet charming falcon uncle with a keen artistic sense. Even the bully in the game is likeable. It`s easy to grow attach to these characters. Their intersesting dialogues and quests truly showcases their personality, not to mention their specialties which can aid the player for necessary materials for upgrades. I really wish I could see Gwen, Atul, Summer and Alice again. They are my favorite members during this wonderful trip. I miss them a lot.

3. All-In-One Features
The gameplay of Spiritfarer can be summed up as a series of mini games. Building management: as more passengers aboard, the player needs to maximize the vessel capacity and channel inner artistic integrity to form the wonderful combination comfortable for both function-wise and aesthetic-wise. Gardenig experience: there are three types of plantation that need you to water, with each soil suitable for certain kinds of seeds. Materials gathering: every resource has its own mechanic for the player to master, while most of them require precision and agility, some require a certain passenger on board to access. Cooking: with a magical oven, Stella can cook up a lot of delicious and exotic delicacy to satisfy everyone. The possible recipe is only limited by the player imagination. Finally, after a long day, why not sit back and simply fish? You never know what kind of thing can be pulled out from the vast, azure ocean.

4. You Can Hug Everyone Aboard, Even Your Lovely Cat.

5. The Ending Song Hits Hard.


1. Workshop Material Caps
I don`t know why the amount of materials you can put into the corresponding workshop differs. You can put as many silks as you want in the loom and weave as many as you want, but you can only put five ores in the foundry and produce five ingots at a time; you can put as many moods as you want in the sawmill and saw as many as your heart desire, but you can only smith one piece of metal sheet at a time in the smithy. For both situations, the latters probably make sense in real life, except this is a video game. I see no harm to remove the cap for those workshop item limits. Not only does it remove the tediousness of repeating the same process, but it also saves time for other more interesting and engaging activities.

2. A Little Change To Spice Up Small Islands
Most of the lesser islands only serve as materials-gathering location, mainly early game resources. Once you progress through mid-game, there is no reason to revisit these places due to player has already owned so much of those resources and the fact that they have no use for late game content. I suggest giving these islands some mini events once a while, giving the player some motivation to stop by. The rewards can be a little late-game material or a piece of information about the world around. I like revisiting big city for character development or some specific quests. It makes the experience fresh and interesting. I wish the smaller islands receive some love too.

Death's Door is an isometric action RPG. As a soul-reaping crow, your assignment is to reap a giant soul, yet things never go easy for our little protagonist. Someone steals your work, and you must venture through different wastelands to track down it down. Beware, these lands are full of powerful creatures forgotten by Death. From the developers of Titan Souls, Acid Nerve brings us this brilliantly-crafted gem filled with the beauty of desolation, rewarding exploration, delightful characters, and hauntingly beautiful music. I love this game. Not only does it contain a world full of surprises and secrets, but also unusually jovial considering its theme surrounding around death. So many little details make me crave for more of this game. I definitely recommend this game to those who enjoy a good, jolly adventure.


1. Rewarding Exploration
A desolate world brimmed with hidden secrets only for the keenest eyes. Death's Door rewards you to be observant of your surroundings, and I love it. Walkable hedges among the fences? Breakable walls? Hookable crosses? The more you remember where these places are the married you can be when you revisit with the right abilities. It is always a pleasure to come back to previously-visited areas with new abilities to unlock more rooms to explore, more things to collect. Some may say the isometric aspect of the game may be a problem when it comes to camera angle for some secrets. I have to agree. Very few secrets are hidden off camera, accessible only when our crow walks through a certain point. For Me this is not a big deal for the fact that I enjoy every nooks and crannies of these Forgotten lands.

2. Artstyle And Music
Eyes and ears are vital senses to please when it comes to satisfaction. For me, Death's Door does a superb job in both art and music departments, dare I say second only to Hollow Knight and Hades. The bleak artstyle really showcases the theme of death. It is dark, yet vibrant in a way that won't make you feel depressed. The first area of the game is literally a cemetery full of unnamed grave stones. Sadness easily shrouds this place, but the vibe it builds up says otherwise: an adventure awaits and a duty to fulfill. Music also plays an important part in terms of shaping up the world. It is however, contrary to the artstyle. The music at first feels brisk and lively. The more you listen, the more apparent a certain sad tone revealed itself. Take the background music for Ceramic Manor for example. A music suitable for dancing, yet a sense of loneliness slowly slips in.

3. Delightful Characters
Death's Door is full of delightful characters. They are the icings on the cake to this already joyful game. These NPCs not only offer you insights and some lore to their corresponding location, but they also resemble characters from the game's inspiration. Pothead is strongly similar to Siegmeyer of Catarina from Dark Souls, and Barb the bard is a reference to Kass from Breath Of The Wild. My favorite among these jolly companions, is Jefferson in the Stranded Sailor, who is definitely not a corpse puppeteered by a squid and is definitely a fellow bipeded. He offers you a tasty meal and hints to secret around the wastelands(where can I find a Jefferson like this in my life...).

4. Visible Progression
Shiny things you collect throughout the game can be seen scattered around the table on the main menu. This is just one of the little details I love about this game. The more you progress, more things happen in the Agency.

5. Forest Spirits Are So Cute!!

6. Minor Compliments
→Interesting stories.
→Unique healing method.
→That Titan Souls reference though.


1. Simplified Combat
It is a major flaw for me. The combat in Death's Door is very simple and beginner-friendly: button-mashing. Every encounter is just press your attack button over and over. To be fair the devs do try to alleviate this dullness by adding spells and different weapons with different combo count. Nonetheless, none of the above solve the problem. Veterans of action RPG can easily find this combat system unsatisfying. I suggest implement some mechanics like equipping two weapon at a time for swapping combo, or instantly charge the spell attack after performing certain combo.

2. Simplified Puzzles
Another beginner-friendly part of the game. To disclaim, I like the puzzles. Each dungeon provides a unique mechanic to solve, and gradually adding depth to it, which the devs do it lightly. Yes, the difficulty of puzzles evolve, just not on a drastic and challenging scale. To put it bluntly, none of the puzzles require skillful execution or careful timing. The only real challenging puzzle throughout the game is the timed obstacle course in Frost Canyon. I suggest the devs can put some more puzzles outside of the main areas, and add more depth in them.

3. Minor Complaints
→Screen stutters when visiting certain areas.
→Sometimes, turning your camera while walking will make the screen pitch black. Move your character solve the problem, though.