Spiritual Journey

Arietta of Spirits is a top down action / adventure game with a strong focus on storytelling from developer Third Spirit Games and published by Red Art Games.

It’s been a while since a game has come along and put me on a magical quest straight out of a 90’s children animation, but here I am writing this with a giant smile on my face and a faint tear in my eye. From the emotional set up about losing a loved one, to helping the numerous spirits of the island, to the pulse pounding final moments I felt as if I was playing what could have been a classic Ghibli film in pixel form!

The animations and pixel work in Arietta of Spirits is as smooth as butter and there is so much detail injected into even some of the most trivial areas. These come in the form of various woodland creatures scurrying around as you pass, butterflies and fireflies illuminating patches of wild flowers, and these tiny little birdhouses spread across the island. At first I didn’t know what I was looking at, but as the story unfolded not only did I understand what they were, they were actually significant! Couple this with a very vibrant and pleasing color scheme, awesome character and enemy design, and a steady FPS on Switch (Docked) you have one gorgeous game.

Story wise, Arietta of Spirits follow the titular young girl Arietta as she and her family visit their recently deceased grandmother’s cabin on a secluded island. What used to be a yearly family gathering has now become a trip of healing trying to deal with the loss of the beloved matriarch. Ever curious and adventurous Arietta sets off to explore and help complete chores around the cabin until the night she awoke from a strange dream and meets Arco, her spirit guide. From here the game keeps a constant pace of helping the local spirits find peace and trying to thwart an evil threat to the island and possibly the world itself. It’s a cohesive tale full of real emotion with wonderfully written characters and tragic backstories. With multiple twists and revelations, and an ending chapter that will test the strength of many hearts, I was thoroughly entertained and personally LOVE the story.

Gameplay was much simpler than I was originally hoping, with only a standard attack and later on a shield, but still felt good in the end. The word that came up a lot while playing was ‘deliberate’. Each attack puts Arietta in a locked state until you finish the animation (Combat animations are some of the BEST in this game by the way). This created scenarios where you had to be, as I stated, deliberate in how you approach enemies, especially in groups. Swing, take a step back, swing, and take a step back. It was almost like a dance the way I had to maneuver around dodging charging bats and flying slime while trying to land that one meaty hit. Boss fights broke this up a bit, usually requiring a certain pattern of attack or a new ability that was just learned to defeat them. While most are rinse and repeat there were a few that stood out as excellent. (My favorite being the ‘predator’ Roamer) Although I was hoping for flashy spirit abilities, what was present created a highly focused gameplay experience.

Arietta of Spirits has solidified itself as a classic game in my collection that I will come back to throughout the years. It’s beautiful, emotional, and most importantly fun to play. If you get a chance to try this game out, please do as I highly recommend it to any gamer.

Arietta of Spirits is available on Nintendo Swith, PS4, XBOX, and Windows.