Spirits of Xanadu

I did some work for this game, but not too much. I should still be allowed to have an opinion on it: It's good! Highly interactive, and with an original story with great writing and acting. If you enjoy being blown up by the malfunctioning butler bots, those are the ones I made.

I give the team credit for creating such an atmospheric title with such stark and bold visuals and technical/artistic design. A game where practically every enemy is just a different colour can shooting lasers at you has no business being at times creepy, unsettling, and/or otherwordly. Also tremendous praise to the script and voice actors. Phenomenal job at creating very human and grounded takes and performances which make it all the more unsettling when things go crazy in story. So what's the bad news? Well, frankly, the game is incredibly short and if I'm honest after you find about half the documents you sort of know what happened and getting them all/seeing the game to completion (spoiler alert) doesn't really add much more understanding, content, or context. What I'm trying to say is I got bored halfway through and didn't care enough to figure out the poorly explained and cryptic mechanics (on purpose, I know) to "fix" the ship, especially since on top of being confused I had a feeling the payoff wouldn't be there, and I was right. There's nothing inherently bad or wrong with the game. It ran well and has a neat vibe. I was into the setup and characters. But then it just feels like the game itself stops trying, and frankly, it just doesn't have enough mechanically, artistically, or narratively going on to keep you engaged and pushing to the end (imho). Still tho, I could see people into this if they are the kind of player who likes a game that shuts up and just lets you explore and figure ♥♥♥♥ out but also isn't 100 hours long. If you read this and are still curious grab it on sale and see what you think. But if not don't sweat it, you're not missing a lot more than the surface here,

4.4 It's an okay game, it has a fair amount of neat little interactables and it certainly doesn't overstay it's welcome. The 'best' ending is a little obtuse to get along with some of the achievements being secrets and also things nobody would likely do. The narratively (along with the game as a whole) is very small and rather limited. It's fine if you want to spend maybe an hour on a short little sci-fi im-sim super-lite.

Simple, short and open game. Wouldn't say it's horror, more just spooky. Can be replayed for 3. Easy to get all archievments.

Eerie cosmic horror that meshes well with the retro/minimalist aesthetic.

I really enjoyed playing this game. I spent most of my time aboard the Xanadu in peaceful mode, exploring every room, reading every e-mail, eating donuts, and playing an arcade game. The story is simple and unfolds at a good pace. The graphics and music won't win any awards, but they get the job done. Full disclosure: I am not a FPS fan and I rarely play those games. I got killed a lot in easy mode. If you're an experienced FPS player, you'll probably survive longer than I did.

It good. It short.