Your fox can use his newly gained light power to blast this red mist away, which opens up more pathways to explore.Īs much as the game is about exploring your environment, it has puzzle elements that you need to work in order to move on to your next location. Unexpectedly, there is some element of a threat in the form of a mysterious red gas that causes your fox to sneeze (and on some occasions, to pass out). Your fox is imbued with the power of light, courtesy of a spirit fox, and it’s this power that enables your fox to interact with the aforementioned stones. Sometimes you’ll need to match up images on the stones in order for them to reveal your the next destination. You can interact with the dead corpses of past Shamen, awakening their spirits by finding and giving them their staffs, and can also interact with magical standing stones which light up and reveal new paths. While gameplay is mostly the fox walking around the environment and uncovering the world’s history, there is some interaction. The game contains no dialogue, text speech, or narrative, though hints are given as to what the story is about via murals and other fantastical imagery, and is inspired by the Nordic mythology “Tulikettu”. Wonky controls and a lack of polish prevent it from reaching the upper echelon of indie adventures, though.Spirit of the North is a whimsical adventure in which you take control of a fox, and experience its journey throughout a varied Icelandic-inspired world.
This is the perfect chillout game to get stuck into over a day or a weekend, especially if the idea of playing as fox gets you excited. The gorgeous, sprawling locations are packed with detail and feature some nice puzzles and exploration, and the whole journey is paced wonderfully. Spirit of the North is a lovely game with an adorable, furry protagonist. I had to reload my game quite a few times before it finally stopped happening – lucky, because I’d almost given up. I also experienced a near-game breaking bug in which the fox would fall through the scenery during the final sequence, resulting in my being stuck there. Used more sparingly to punctuate important moments, it would’ve been much more effective. The soundtrack, while hauntingly evocative and mournful in all the right ways, is played pretty much constantly throughout the entire game, meaning it’s repeated heavily.
It’s quite easy to get stuck in bits of the environment, especially when prodding boundaries while hunting down secrets, and the fox is sometimes pretty wonky to control. Spirit of the North looks great, but it’s not the most polished product.
Unfortunately, there are also times where it all falls apart. For the most part, your only real goal is to keep pushing forward, helped along by a glowing wisp and the borrowed powers of your ethereal fox friend to navigate all manner of environments and help them eventually ascend to the stars. There are hints in the environment and throughout the game at what might have been – a civilisation lost to a deadly red mist, a mythical fox with powers from the heavens themselves – but it’s all kept intentionally vague, as these types of meditative indie experiences are wont to do. Spirit of the North’s completely wordless tale follows a red fox, who finds a connection with an ancient ‘spirit’ fox that takes them on a journey through a vast land inspired by Iceland and Nordic folklore.
#SPIRIT OF THE NORTH CONTROLS FULL#
Spirit of the North, from developer Infuse Studio, might not have the polish and tightly-honed design of the indie greats, but it’s just as memorable and full of heart. Games like Journey, Inside and Vane have done it so well in the past.
There’s something about a game that can take you on a rousing, ever-moving and succinct journey in the space of a single day that makes it truly memorable.
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