Becoming one with nature. Enjoying moments of zen in beautiful surroundings. Running through vast environments, enjoying the thrill of exploration and discovery. Developer Infuse Studio has refined these experiences in the sequel to the acclaimed Spirit of the North. The sheer scale and opportunity of the new land you find yourself as a fox in is lovingly crafted at every peak, step, and turn. If you’re able to flow with the up and down nature of the relaxed vibe of the exploration parts of the game, and then the much more challenging “boss” sections at the end of each area, Spirit of the North 2 will be a special game that is buoyed by its beauty, and raised by its unique charm.
Fly, You Fox!
In SotN2, you play as a fox facing a world of archaic “tribes” that have been previously ravaged by a “bear” tribe. Each tribe has an animal guardian, like a ram, stag, wolves, etc that needs to be saved. This is the main goal of your fox and raven duo, as you try to return to your home by helping these corrupted beasts. Each one has a set of dungeon-like puzzle/platforming areas that must be traversed through before facing off with their guardian in battles. Before you can try to tackle each of these new guardians, however, you have to explore the open world spread out around you. To unlock certain areas, you have to collect and deposit “wisps”, which are glowing sprites that appear in the environment when accomplishing goals, completing various actions, or as a burst of sprites that dart around when you arrive at a new area occasionally. Along with wisps, you are also able to collect another currency, which is hidden in pots and as a reward. You can spend these points on various items, abilities, and customization options.
Discovering what secrets and landmarks are spread around the land is a big part of the game, and you’re joined the whole time by a raven, who provides extra abilities like gliding and extra jumping, along with just being a nice friendly presence as you drag heavy boxes onto buttons, slide through caves, and run across beautiful environments. With this amount of travel on foot, I did find myself wishing for an eventually easier way to traverse quickly to where I wanted to go. There are waypoints that you can find and then instantly travel between them, but finding these waypoints in the world is also a bit of a challenge in and of itself. I’d more often than not find myself aimlessly searching for these locations so as to not be stuck making a 15+ minute journey to my nearest portal. In some areas you’re able to use little gateways to fling yourself across the lands using your “spirit” form before passing through a dreamcatcher to reappear as your true foxy self, but even those are restricted to certain areas, and require a trek. To the game’s credit, it does make the journey worth the effort when you have to use your paws to run around, as the environment is gorgeous, with the highlights being its use of fog and lighting effects as it shines through and off of the various trees, rock formations, and cavernous underground portions. As you venture into each area, you’re able to enjoy all types of terrain, including frozen tundras, luscious forest, and rocky beaches, along with so much more. It’s a feast for your cozy side.
Fancy Furwork
Being a fox tasked with freeing the world from the clutches of the bear clan can’t be easy, so you better do it in style. The customization options allow you to find fur shades and eye colors for your fox. Some of these are based on real vulpine varieties, while others allow you to get a little wild. All of them look stunning, since the game has some of the best fur and movement physics and design I’ve ever seen in a game. The animals truly amaze with their true-to-life movements, mannerisms, and forms. Though there are less animals in the game than you would imaginee, the ones you do meet are truly wonderful. It’s like you could reach out and feel their fur and feathers. Moving the camera (or using camera mode) to grab some stunning screenshots was a breeze, and added to the relaxing parts of the game.
From Delight to Difficult
The platforming and puzzle solving within the game is, overall, a pleasant and merciful experience. Instead of always having to land your jumps manually when making shorter jumps, the game gives a visual marker on the ledge you’re aiming at, and if you press your jump button, you’ll perfectly land where the mark showed you would. However, if you have to glide between platforms or land further away and happen to miss the ledge and land in lava, or fall from a terribly great height and die, you’ll respawn at the last “respawn idol” you’ve passed. Luckily, these are -usually- pretty close by and hard to miss if you’re in the area. You do drop the points you’ve picked up so far near where you died, but you can easily go pick them back up. I did have the bag drop in some precarious places during my time in the game, but I could always still get to them and back to safety. There’s enough to search for in each area that it doesn't feel too tedious, but not so much to do that it’s overwhelming and hard to figure out what you’re supposed to do to make progress in the game. Which you’re able to do at your own pace. In fact, I discovered that trying to whisk through the main tribe guardian dungeons had me eventually needing to venture back outside of the boss area to go and acquire more skill points and ability runes to make the guardian fight I was having a lot of trouble with more forgiving.
Speaking of unforgiving, the corrupted animal guardians that need to be cleansed at the end of each unlocked dungeon area have their own arena-like boss fights (including phases) that must be defeated to bring them peace. These fights, at least most of them, are not for the faint of heart, and are a stark contrast to the skill required during the rest of the game. It’s not that I didn’t find them exhilarating and challenging, it’s that it was somewhat jarring to go from peaceful platforming and gliding through a scenic countryside to running for my life as a stag 10 times my size shot evil poisonous vines through the ground at me as I frantically figured out the mechanics of the encounter whilst being tethered to the center of the top of a tower. Still, the game isn’t marketed as being for kids, and in the end, it’s as rewarding as beating any difficult part of a more “hardcore” game. It would be convenient to be able to “respec” skill points allotted within the skill tree, as early on I didn’t realize what would turn out to be the most important skills to have upgraded, and finding ways to earn new skill points becomes more challenging as you finish more required story sections, which usually rewarded skill points during their completion.
Perk Up Your Ears
Throughout your adventures, your ears will be treated to an orchestral soundtrack, layered over the nature visuals swimmingly. The ground beneath your paws, the wind blowing around you, and the rustle of leaves all mix to create an environment-appropriate soundscape. Since there aren’t humans around (living ones, anyway) there isn’t any voice acting, so you can truly become lost in the world you’re exploring. Also, the fox noises and reactions that change depending on the situation you’re in are adorable, and the raven making little caws and replies is just wonderful. Whimsical audio cues, paired with plenty of visual deduction, are used well to help indicate when you’re expected to do something important, or when you’re doing something right.
In Conclusion
Spirit of the North 2 expands upon the first game’s gameplay foundation in epic fashion, giving players-turned-foxes a chance to uncover the secrets and history of a world marred by forgotten chaos. As long as you take a dose of patience and an expectation for heavy travel into the game, it’s easy to spend a lot of time in. Who wouldn’t want to step into the world of a fox again?
