Spirittea (Review)

These days a lot of games try to capture the adventure and relief of abandoning busy city life for roads less traveled and calm villages where players can rest, meet their neighbors, and explore nature. Spirittea is another one of these pastoral adventures – but this time with a supernatural twist.

As an author, Spirittea’s main character is ready to enjoy the clear air of the countryside and find inspiration for their newest novel. Things don’t go quite as planned however, when a warm cup of tea served out of an old teapot gives them the shocking ability to see spirits in the world around them. Guided by the sometimes-not-so-helpful guide Wonyan (clearly the best character in the game, by the way), they soon discover an old bathhouse hiding in the mountains – a perfect place to invite wandering spirits to come relax.

Devoloped by Cheesemaster Games and published by No More Robots, Spirittea may have been inspired by Stardew Valley, but it certainly stands out on its own as a lovely little mix between a life sim and magical adventure. Players will spend their days running the bathhouse, spending time with villagers, and exploring the town to help find and restore lost spirits.

In order to befriend the villagers, players will need to spend time with them on numerous minigames, including singing karaoke, cooking barbeque, and drinking. Some minigames will be familiar to players – you’ll have chances to fish, for example, or to dig for treasure. Others, like the barbeque minigame, are a little more unique. The minigames are a bit of a mixed bag, with some of them being buggier than others. Some are also surprisingly difficult, such as some of the levels of karaoke, which is essentially a rhythm game.

This is where I struggle a little with how to review Spirittea, because I do think that it could use some polish, some better accessibility, and either debugging of or clearer instructions in some of the minigames, as sometimes I had trouble telling if I was doing it wrong or if there might be a bug.

However, for me this wasn’t nearly enough to detract from the fact that Spirittea is just a really enjoyable experience. Running the bathhouse is a little slow at the start, but as you unlock more baths and towels it starts moving quickly. When the spirit tree stops growing for the day, the game encourages you to head out into town and get to know your neighbors. It really does feel like escaping into a small, fantastical little adventure.

One underrated detail I also love is that you can choose your sleep times. Like many life sim games, you do face exhaustion after being up too long, but unlike many entries in this genre, you aren’t limited by specific times. There is no rule to be back home by midnight, though of course it’s not as exciting in the middle of the night when everyone is asleep. Instead, Spirittea lets you be awake for a certain amount of hours before you start dropping your stamina at an increased rate. You can choose how long you want to sleep for, and sleeping for at least 7 hours lets you be up for 16. You can choose how many hours to sleep for, letting you decide if you’d rather start your day early or late – whatever works for your goals and your playstyle. It’s a really nice detail that addresses my least favourite feature of dashing home when I just want to enjoy my game.

Luckily, the game’s developers seem dedicated to making a good player experience and listening to feedback, so I definitely am looking forward to what might come in the future. On their discord you can keep track of new steam builds and console updates, ask for help, and report bugs.

Overall, I recommend the game if you enjoy life management sims and the whimsy of stories such as Spirited Away, but I do have to include the disclaimer that some aspects of the game are still a little rough. This is not a great fit for gamers who don’t like the feel of a work-in-progress – I think that as it is, Spirittea could still use some work and perhaps even a little additional content. However, I do love it and it’s a very cute game that should strike a chord with Ghibli lovers or anyone who wants to disappear into village life every once in awhile.

I look forward to seeing what Spirittea has to offer in the future, and Cheesemaster Games’ future titles as well.

Rating: 6/10