Developer: Infuse Studio
Publisher: Merge Games, Silver Lining Interactive
Platform: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Tested on: PC
Spirit of the North 2 – Review
When the original Spirit of the North debuted back in 2020, it slipped under our review radar. That may have been a mistake, seeing as how that original game boasts an impressive 84% audience score on Steam even now. So, when we were given the chance to take a look at its sequel, we eagerly agreed. Could developer Infuse Studio repeat the success of the first game, or did they capture lightning in a bottle? And how well does Spirit of the North 2 stand on its own four paws?
Story
Fortunately, it’s not necessary to have played the first game to understand the story of Spirit of the North 2. You do need to go out of your way to figure out what is going on, as the narrative is delivered in bits and pieces, through collectible scrolls and books. There is no dialogue, as the game’s protagonists are all animals. This does mean that it’s easy to miss out on a lot of the story, unless you put effort into it. The gist of it is that a long time ago, the spirit animal guardians of various tribes were corrupted by Grimnir, the guardian of the Bear tribe. In the present day, our hero, a fox, accidentally sets Grimnir free again. It’s now up to the fox and his raven companion to undo this mistake.
Graphics
While the animal models that make up the cast of Spirit of the North 2 look decent enough, it’s the game’s different environments that are the true visual stars of the show. There is a huge variety when it comes to the open world, from snow-covered mountains to lush forests. Being an open world game, you can go anywhere you can see, and we found ourselves simply wanting to look around the biomes and admire the vistas. Now, the animal models feel admittedly a bit dated, with fur textures in particular looking rough, but this did lead to a surprisingly efficient performance overall, even when there were a lot of things happening on-screen at once.
Sound
The feeling of awe that springs forth from Spirit of the North 2’s environments is enhanced by a subtle, haunting soundtrack. For the most part, it’s deliberately subdued and understated, although this changes during action scenes. There is no voice acting, but the ambient sounds of nature and the calls of animals more than make up for this.
Gameplay
At its core, Spirit of the North 2’s gameplay is deceptively simple, especially for the open-world title it purports to be. This is a game that is mostly about exploring your surroundings, and in this regard, it is surprisingly similar to the recently reviewed The End of the Sun. Spirit of the North 2 then combines that exploration with platforming and puzzle-solving. There is no set path for the fox to follow, and very little in the way of outright guidance on where to go next. That doesn’t mean that you’ll end up feeling lost, as exploration feels intuitive and organic. You’ll gradually unlock new abilities for both the fox and the raven, and this allows you to deal with obstacles in different ways. The fox is even able to glide across gaps or can be lifted up into the sky, with the raven picking it up. This might not be something that would happen in the real world, but it’s a neat little feature, and we’re still looking at a game where a magical, glowing fox is trying to save the world.
A good chunk of your time will be spent simply wandering the gorgeous environments, while looking for Spirit Wisps. These need to be collected to progress to the different areas that make up the vast world. There is quite a bit of variety when it comes to finding these Wisps. Some are easy enough to track down, but others require the solving of environmental puzzles, precision platforming, or the aid of your feathered friend. While there is no set order in which you unlock stuff with Wisps, each progressive unlock requires a greater number of Wisps. While finding these is the main driving force for the story, the world hides plenty of other secrets, from lore to currency, which can be spent on goodies from raccoon merchants.
There is no actual combat in Spirit of the North 2. Instead, when you’re facing one of the opposing guardian spirits in a boss battle, the encounter plays out like a fast-paced puzzle instead. You’ll need to dodge attacks and traps, and figure out a way to deal with powerful foes like an angry stag or a pair of wolves, one of whom can breathe fire. The encounters are never cakewalks, although they don’t feel unfair either.
Unfortunately, Spirit of the North 2 doesn’t quite nail those platforming aspects, mostly owing to awkward controls and inconsistency within its own mechanics. Sometimes you can jump at will, and at other times you can only do so where a blue marker indicates you can, for example. This would be fine if the game wasn’t so insistent on getting those jumps exactly right. Combined with the size of the map and the relatively low number of checkpoints, there were a few instances where this became frustrating, as there were parts of the game that we had to redo multiple times because of an unexpected death. Sometimes these deaths were unfair too, such as when a glitch caused us to get stuck in the terrain.
Yes, as much as it pains us to say, our experience with Spirit of the North 2 wasn’t glitch-free. Apart from getting stuck in the environment, there were a few instances where assets didn’t load, and one instance where a guardian spirit didn’t do anything at all during an encounter. We understand that Spirit of the North 2, despite being a sequel, is still an indie project by a fairly small team, so there is some leeway here. Hopefully, a patch or two will be deployed in the near future. None of the glitches were egregious enough that we didn’t enjoy the game. We’d definitely understand it if people were on the fence because of these though.
Conclusion
As a whole, there is a lot more to like than to dislike about Spirit of the North 2, although the game doesn’t stick the landing in its current state. Most of our gripes with it are tied to glitches, although the platforming can be somewhat iffy too. Still, the world itself is a joy to explore, the vistas are beautiful, and the boss encounters can really put on the pressure. We wouldn’t outright recommend Spirit of the North 2 in its current state, but if a patch or two arrive soon, then this might just be a title you’d want to add to your library.
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