‘Spiritfarer’ Deals with the Last Process of Life

Ghostride the Ship  Over the past decade, more games outside of so-called ‘triple-A’ development have embraced traditional animation. Why compete with the latest cutting-edge, realistic graphic-heavy spectacle when stylized visuals can be just as memorable? Canadian studio Thunder Lotus Games is a developer who seems to have taken this ethos to heart. Both their previous titles were lushly illustrated action games. Spiritfarer, Thunder Lotus’ latest release, bears their established 2D style. Where the game distinctly diverges from its predecessors, however, is how it deals with death. The dedicated ‘hug’ action says all you need to know about this game. Spiritfarer may not have a place in everyone’s media diet. To go beyond the conventional, superficial way that most games address death is an unexplored and uncomfortable space. To offset this, Thunder Lotus’ gameplay and story are deliberately paced. The visual result feels like Hayao Miyazaki by way of Don Bluth. Players take on in the role of Stella, an adorable brown-skinned girl starting a new job. That job is inheriting the duties of the legendary Charon, ferryman for the afterlife. Spirit World Tour  Accompanied by her cat Daffodil, Stella must collect the souls of the departed and sail each of them to their final rest. These dead are much more lively than legends would have you believe. For starters, almost all of Stella’s passengers are anthropomorphic. A debutante deer, a carpenter frog, a botanist snake, a…