Spirittea

I have played several games that have been in early access, but I have never played one where I was left with a feeling that the game was catering to players who played it during early access rather than players discovering it for the first time after release. The game often feels like a collection of features and ideas added over time, without considering how a new player would experience the game as a whole. The progression is not well coordinated. Every time you level up, you are told that you will be able to see more spirits, but I never noticed any difference from one level to the next. Sometimes it would take several level-ups before I suddenly received a new quest on the board. Without any clear sense of progression, this felt more misleading than exciting. On the first or second day, you're forcefully introduced to a guy who sells riddles, and it blows my mind that the very first riddle is locked behind a mid-game area. If you are going to introduce a mechanic this early, the first example should be something the player can actually solve. It should show players what kind of experience they can expect rather than introducing a feature they cannot meaningfully engage with yet. There are many other examples of these design choices. For instance, there is a statue that you walk past frequently, and it even has an text prompt when you examine it. However, when you eventually unlock the quest related to this statue in the mid-game, the character who has been following you the entire time says, "I didn't know this was here." You are constantly left with the impression that certain things were added during early access with existing mid- and late-game players in mind, without considering how a fresh player would experience it after full release. The line about the statue would only make sense for players who had experienced an older version of the game before the statue was added. However, for a new player experiencing the full release, it feels completely out of place. The same problem appears with resource gathering. You learn how to fish, forage, catch bugs, and collect various resources long before you unlock any meaningful way to use or sell them. I had no idea whether these items would ever become useful or if I ever would unlock the ability to sell them, so I had no choice but to hoard a large amount of stuff that had no immediate purpose. The game also does a poor job of explaining why certain items matter or why you should bother collecting them. Once again, it was not until the mid-game that I was introduced to a special "shop" where I could finally spend these resources. This felt like another example of content that was added later and immediately made sense for players who had already followed the game's development, but not for someone starting fresh, not knowing whether there would ever be a store or any use for these items. To nitpick a bit, this highlights the issue of adding more content instead of fine-tuning the existing systems. You can befriend townsfolk through various activities, including a typical rhythm game. I assume the better your score, the more friendship points you earn. However, you can simply spam the corresponding button and the game will still register the inputs as successful hits. It does not matter whether you actually follow the rhythm or not. Beyond the design issues, I also encountered technical problems. I managed to get soft-locked on the second day and had to restart the entire day. I have also experienced crashes that forced me to replay a full day. There are additionally some texture and overlay issues where, in certain areas, the UI appears behind the environment. I have not even started talking about managing the bathhouse itself, but all I can say is that it is extremely slow. You spend most of your time waiting for a guest to enter or for someone to leave so you can free up space for another guest. There are some small tasks you can do to fill the downtime, but they mostly feel like tedious busywork rather than meaningful activities. The income is also laughable once you realize that you can make far more money by simply creating bath soap and selling it. This makes the actual management of the bathhouse feel unrewarding and undermines the entire premise of running one. I love the premise of running something (a bathhouse in this case) while solving puzzles, riddles, and quests outside and around a town. Sadly, this game doesn't do it well, and I hope someone takes this concept and expands on it.

Spirittea on surface level sounded like a really cool game. There's time management, retro pixel graphics, existentialist premise of a writer escaping the city to the countryside, cozy elements, life sim... This was often referred to as a Spirited Away and Stardew Valley crossover, both of which I love. I love playing indie games and supporting indie developers, but reluctantly I don't recommend this game. At least not the current version of it. The execution is the problem. After 8hrs of grinding through this, with frequent checks with online fan wiki's and walkthroughs and still finding myself extremely frustrated over a quest not progressing, of saving a handful of spirits and max friending 3 NPCs..... I found the UI frustrating to deal with, which kept taking me out of the immersion, and this is coming from a hardcore rpg nerd who doesn't struggle with intuitive gaming. For ex, when you are told to pair spirits in the bathhouse from certain seasons together to max their happiness, you can't find their season category anywhere in your archives and you don't even get told their season category when you're introduced to them. I end up having to look up charts created by other gamers to make what is supposed to be basic knowledge accessible to me. Story and content-wise, it's very surface level. The relationships feel shallow with very little backstory of the people in the town you live in. The 3 heart events are just a few sentences of dialogue and the first two present you with cute gifts. The minigames weren't fun. Despite loving rhythm games, I soon found the karaoke sessions torture and not having a visible timer aggravating as I prayed for each song to end. The bathhouse sessions get repetitive fast, despite the upgrade options, and the slow reward for grinding through these shifts make this more frustrating than relaxing. I also found the backstories of the spirits you save superficial and lacking in info too. Overall I think the developer was being real ambitious with this game, amount of characters and features, but the execution just isn't polished. Perhaps with more work and updates this can be a stronger game. I also agree with another reviewer that this felt more like an early release than a finished product.

Really difficult to play on PC without a controller. You're supposed to chase things all over while holding down shift, not toggle shift on/off, hold it down. ESC doesn't close menus, you have to use S to close it. It was tedious. Too bad, the general idea seems good.

This game is almost maliciously designed to be confusing and obtuse. In addition to an absolutely terrible map and NPC "locator" there's just so much of this experience that is just confusing. Add to that that a lot of the time tending the baths at least at the start is just waiting for guests to leave because no space. Yes, you have two other tasks that can be done, but they don't take much time. I refunded the moment I got a letter from Julio talking about wanting fish and all all that "you know how to fish, right" so I figured go talk to him to get that quest. No, you just magically meant to know one of the shops sells a fishing rod that you can just buy to learn fishing with no prompting or introduction. It was at that point (roughly) I saw my future playing this game basically with a guide in hand and I said "nope". There's things to like about this, but I can't recommend it. Certainly not for a 30+ hour game.

I really wanted to like this game, or at least finish playing it before I review it (as I have with all my other reviews), but unfortunately I couldn't do either. I should have listened to the other negative reviews. The gameplay feels repetitive and not that interesting. The UI is clumsy and honestly confusing and hard to manage. I often felt directionless and frustrated. I can enjoy repetition/management in games (Stardew Valley is one of my favorite games of all time), but the bathhouse portion of this game felt disconnected from the rest of the game and meaningless besides being an unfun time-suck. I also disliked the pixel art. I thought it would grow on me -- it did not; it just continues to feel soulless and unpolished. TL;DR I usually like games like this one, but I found it to be unpolished and unfun. I wish I liked it, but I don't. Maybe try the demo first. Sorry.

it's a cute concept, and I enjoyed running the bathhouse, but unfortunately the game is just...awkward. there's almost no guidance on systems and mechanics, the minigames are either obtuse or downright impossible, and the only reason to talk to the NPCs is to get them to come work at your bathhouse eventually...except it's almost impossible to get them friendly enough to do that. it needs so much polish that I'm glad it was a gift and not something I bought myself.

insanely mediocre cozy game. unpolished without lots of QOL. Map is hard to walk through sometimes, especially since there's never anything really going on. get on heavy sale if you have rock bottom expectations.

This game doesn't respect your time, really struggles with pulling you in, and just feels so pacified. The only edge appears to show up later through the yokai, which is far from original. Controls also suck.

Spirittea is a little rough around the edges but it's a perfectly good cosy game. If you have wanted to run a Spirited Away style bathhouse, this is the game for you. My only criticism of it is that the quests can be a bit obtuse; I'd probably recommend a guide if you're trying to unlock all the spirits. Cosy vibes, chill tunes and some fun writing.