Spirit Roots

When I saw that the developers of the new game Spirit Roots were inspired by the movie Coraline, I was intrigued. Not only was the Henry Selick film dripping with style and charm, but it also had an inventive story that took the viewers on a crazy and unique roller coaster ride. Sadly, Spirit Roots wasn't inspired by any of the truly unique or memorable parts of Coraline, because what we get is a fun but generic action/platformer that doesn't have much new to say. Oh well, at least it looks great.

This is the story of a war-torn star system who is forced to rebuild their planets after they've all been blown up. They did this by sewing the remnants of the destroyed planets together, which resulted in a treaty that allowed each race to live peacefully on their side of the border. But tragedy happens when a calamity splits the planet up and leaves our nameless hero stranded from his loving family. In an effort to return home, he'll need to run, jump and fight his way through five hostile parts of the planet that are all filled with dangerous enemies and bosses.

The good news is that our stitched-together hero isn't completely defenseless. The calamity may have been unexpected, but it seems that he was packing both a gun and a sword. He'll need to use these weapons to make it through all fifty stages, all while jumping on a bunch of platforms and avoiding spikes and other deadly obstacles. The trick is to shoot your gun at enemies and then hack and slash the larger foes that shield themselves from long-range attacks.

If any of this sounds familiar, it's because you've probably seen a lot of these ideas a thousand times before. The main difference is that Spirit Roots wants you to not only make it to the end of each level, but also kill all the bad guys and snag every last collectible. You get up to three gold coins depending on how many of these challenges you complete, so a lot of the game involves hunting down a couple hundred cute flame characters that don't seem to do much.

This is a lot of fun for the first few levels, thanks in large part to the variety of attacks and pleasant presentation. But the longer I spent trying to get our hero back to his family, the less interested I was to complete the story. There are a few reasons for this, but a lot of it comes down to the sheer amount of filler in Spirit Roots. Each section of the planet is split up into ten side-scrolling levels, most of which are nearly identical to the rest. You'll spend an hour or two playing what feels like the same level over and over until you get to one of the disappointing boss battles. The only reason we spend this much time in each section is to pad out the length, which makes the game feel incredibly repetitive almost from the get-go.

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Another problem is the loose gameplay that often prioritizes the animation over everything else. You'll constantly run into tight areas that are frustrating to navigate, something that is only made worse by the size of the hero. And when it's not a low ceiling getting in the way, it's usually something else, like a dark cave or ice that will send you slipping around the stage. And because you can't look around, you'll spend a lot of time leaping to what you hope is a floating platform. Even the climb animation will get in the way, because you'll often climb up on ledges by accident. Even after hours of getting used to the gameplay, I never actually felt in control of the game.

This isn't so bad early on, but the final batch of levels are just plain cruel. They are substantially longer and more dangerous, mostly filled with cheap hits that are hard to avoid. There are checkpoints, but they start getting further and further away, forcing you to replay the same stages dozens of times before you finally get it right. And the aggravating part is that most of the late-game problems could have been avoided with tighter handling and some sort of way of looking around the level. Spirit Roots is a game that gets a lot of the platforming basics wrong, which is disappointing.

While I was left cold by the stage designs and loose gameplay, I certainly wasn't disappointed by the presentation. This is a good-looking game with a unique hero and a colorful world to explore. I like that every new part of the planet is guarded by a different batch of enemies, even though they aren't that different from the types of bad guys in every other stage. There are some compelling ideas and visual flourishes here and there, but it's never as fresh or exciting as it should be. I was mostly bored, sad that Spirit Roots didn't take inspiration from the darker and more compelling parts of Coraline.