Spirit of the North - Enhanced Edition offers up a majestic, yet melancholy narrative that will bring some peace to a weary mind, or at least try to lull you to relax. Sadly, that lull can often be disrupted by the controls, as their inaccuracy might take you out of the moment and create frustration. The game does still manage to be more entertaining than not, especially with its visuals and music.
What a fascinating game Spirit of the North turned out to be. I thought maybe I would be getting a fox-based adventure that had me armed with magic and mystery, but it turned out more to be a melancholy game with a Journey-like adventure.
Let’s get this going.
Foxy Spirit
The story follows the path of a fox that lives in a world that is devoid of living humans and covered with nature. The lonely fox’s journey through the world finds it reviving perished humans by finding magical staff that will release their souls from their cursed dead bodies, an important piece of the storytelling that comes up now and then. Along its journey to free said souls, the fox accidentally gets injured in its icy plight as it falls through thin ice. A wandering fox spirit bonds with the creature to save its life and tasks the fox with helping out the dead and releasing the land from evil, which apparently was the downfall of all humans.
The story is one of the good driving points for the game, as it relaxes you, much like Journey, while gently pressing you to keep moving forward in hopes that you will extinguish the evil from the land. There is no dialogue, no text, rather the game uses your visual understanding of the story as it unfolds.
The color schemes of the story are divided into blue and red. There are blue statues that you have to light up, which means you can proceed through whatever obstacle you come across. Opposite of the blue, there are red statues that you can’t approach for whatever reason. If approached, the fox will get sick, developing a cough, and if it stays around the red it will eventually die. The story shows you that turning those reds into blues is pretty much the goal of the game, which can be assumed as driving the evil from the land.
Anyway, the story is there to peacefully push you through the game, almost like a pleasant tour through a magically messed up land that you have to correct. It’s certainly one of the bright spots for the entire game, which is solid because you want stories to be a centerpiece.
Spirited gameplay with a sprinkle of issues
The majority of the gameplay has you navigating the hippity-hoppity fox through puzzle-laden lands. The game divides its large landscape, from snowy mountains to gorgeous green backdrops, into a series of different puzzles. For example, The second series of puzzles in this game is made up of large concrete columns that you have to figure out how to navigate. The concrete columns are wreck-able, can open up, or they can simply spill out water — this all depends on the puzzle you’re trying to solve. You have to figure out, depending on the map you’re on, how to unleash these things. The landscape gives you statues that activate and open the concrete columns. To activate the statues, the fox has to find blue flowers that magically give the fox powers to transfer to said statues. Once those statues are fed and turn blue (as mentioned above in the story section), it opens the concrete columns and allows the fox to go into the next section of the landscape. The game does a good job of providing a challenging difficulty arc as you progress through each puzzle by hiding these statues everywhere. Some require one dose of blue flower, while others might require you to activate multiple statues, which activate one big statue. Sometimes the puzzle solutions are obvious, sometimes they are frustratingly hidden. Regardless, the game doesn’t give you enough reason to be mad it too long for giving you a tough time. It does a balanced difficulty of statue activating and puzzle-solving.
While the puzzles are very well designed and truly give you a similar experience that you would find in an award-winning game like Journey, the puzzle-solving can be a pain mainly because of controls. The biggest issue I have with this game is getting the darn fox to jump properly in the direction that I want it to jump. While trying to solve puzzles, the inaccuracy of the jumping fox has driven me bonkers. This inaccuracy mainly includes the fox jumping from distances, hitting the wrong angle, regardless of the angle that was aimed in the right direction. I can’t tell you how many times I have worked so hard trying to land a jump, only to see the camera shift, the fox shift with it, and the landing spot missed. It’s so defeating to see this, especially when it’s a multiple jump spot that leads to a very important piece of solving a puzzle. There were times during this review period where I had to put the controller down because curse words kept spilling out. It really was frustrating.
Anyway, outside of the above, the game doesn’t offer really anything deeper. Is that enough? I think so for what Spirit of the North is by the end of the experience. It wants you to use your brain to develop the story yourself, fight your way through puzzles that gradually get harder, and it encourages you to explore a bit of its beautiful environment to help trapped souls find peace. It’s a good game on the surface and one that would be worth your time.
Enhanced
The Enhanced Edition for Spirit of the North delivers in visuals and music. The graphics are endearing and meaningful, as the fox looks and moves gracefully as a fox would. The environments are detailed and lively, though nothing over-the-top. While the PS5 version does enhance the experience visually, it doesn’t stray away from the art of the original release or the story it’s trying to tell. Too much realism and you’ll lose the majestic nature of the narrative. It does enough to enhance, but not too much to drown out the experience.
As for the music, it’s mystical, magical, and a bright spot in the game. It will lull you through the adventure and turn up the emotion when it sees fit. It’s a nice part of the entire experience.
Conclusion
Spirit of the North – Enhanced Edition offers up a majestic, yet melancholy narrative that will bring some peace to a weary mind, or at least try to lull you to relax. Sadly, that lull can often be disrupted by the controls, as their inaccuracy might take you out of the moment and create frustration. The game does still manage to be more entertaining than not, especially with its visuals and music.
