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Gamertell Review: Spirited Heart for PC
Title: Spirited Heart
Price: $19.95
System(s): PC (also available for Mac and Linux)
Release Date: April 23, 2009
Publisher (Developer): Winter Wolves Studio (Winter Wolves Studio)
ESRB Rating: N/A, I’d say probably ages 12 and up, since there is occasional swearing.
Pros: Lots of character customization options. Many jobs to perform. Can take classes to boost skills. Six different suitors. Three different characters. Simple, mouse-based controls.
Cons: Somewhat difficult - don’t expect to marry a character off on the first playthrough. Taxes can be annoying. Can be difficult to boost attributes.
Overall Score: Two thumbs up, 90/100, A-, * * * * out of 5
While the Princess Maker series has been a roaring success in Japan, it tends to remain under the radar in the rest of the world. The character building life simulation genre hasn’t really been attempted by mainstream companies.
Thankfully, independent developers like Winter Wolves are willing to take a chance. It’s latest game, Spirited Heart is a life sim game where players choose to be a human, elf or demon girl and then go through ten years of her life. The goal is to help her find a good job or a special someone, if you want to make her a success. It’s a challenging adventure with adorable illustrations and interesting characters.
Welcome to Aravorn!
It’s difficult to describe a typical Spirited Heart scenario, since the many character and job options allow for so much individuality.
Basically, the game begins in the realm of Aravorn. Players are immediately asked to pick a race to represent themselves: human, elf or demon. Then, one of four adoptive families is chosen. Finally, there’s a brief growing up/character creation phase which helps further customize your character’s initial stats.
After that, you’re on your own. Your 18 year old character is sent off into the city alone, to find her own path. (Really, you’re finding her path for her, but play along.)
Challenging, but ultimately rewarding.
There are only two changes I would even consider making to Spirited Heart. To be honest, they aren’t even necessary changes. I just became a bit irked my first two playthroughs when I couldn’t marry off my characters, and decided that it was the attribute acquisition system and advanced jobs’ faults and not my own.
Typically, you need to get an attribute to at least 40 to unlock the higher level job. The problem is, it’s difficult to gain and maintain attribute points. Maybe the characters I choose were just rebelling against the futures I decided for them. Maybe it was a quirk in the system. But something doesn’t seem right when a character only has average results when both her Health and Morale stats are above average.
Then, there are the men. The men can be found in two areas in Random Events, one basic job and one advanced job. The problem is, the basic job the guy visits often doesn’t boost the attribute needed to take the advanced job. (Ramas is an exception.) For example, Janimee the elf bard. He visits the Tavern (Waitress basic job) and the Night Club (Sexy Girl advanced job). Waitressing builds Dexterity, but Sexy Girl requires 60 Charisma and 40 Stamina. To make matters worse, the basic jobs tend to contradict each other, so just when you’ve earned 60 Charisma points as a dancer, you’ll bump it down to 55 getting Stamina up to 40 as a farmer.
Never lose the spirit that drives you forward.
I’m going to level with you, Spirited Heart takes some getting used to. Thankfully, it’s addictive. After you fail to marry off your character once or twice, you’ll find a drive to succeed that you didn’t know you had.
When I first began playing, I was frustrated by the difficulty level and wondering how on Earth any progress would be possible. It wasn’t until my third playthrough, when I got my human gardener to marry Thofte, that it all clicked.
After that, I came to appreciate the challenge required to master Spirited Heart and welcomed the difficulty level, as it made the game more interesting. It’s a fun game with lots of replay value that men and women can enjoy.
Site [Spirited Heart]
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I’m finding it really difficult at the moment, I’m trying to get my character to meet her suitor, but random encounters are very rare for me, once I didn’t see Ramos for 2 years(game play) extremely fustrating! When you said:
on January 1, 2010 at 07:15 AM - LINK“It wasn’t until my third playthrough, when I got my human gardener to marry Thofte, that it all clicked”
what did you mean? could you elaborate? I would really appreciate it. :)
You just really have to stay at the two areas the guy shows up at. He’ll usually show up at the first, beginner job spot twice, then the advanced job spot twice. Then, you’ll get the option to date him. That’s what I found though.
A deluxe version was just released, which is supposed to be more refined, and is free to all owners of Spirited Heart. If you still have the email you received when you purchased the game, redownload it from that link and you’ll own Spirited Heart Deluxe.
on January 1, 2010 at 01:32 PM - LINK