In a time when gaming is mostly about shooting this, blowing up that, or dying every two seconds, it is nice to play a game like Spirit of the North 2. It’s quietly beautiful, laid back, and about a fox and his raven companion, but is it good? Well, that’s why I’m here.
The return of the Fox
Spirit of the North 2 is a beautiful, Nordic-inspired, open-world, puzzle-centric game. It uses the power of Unreal Engine 5 to perfection. I found myself wandering through the different biomes, taking in the scenery. As I mentioned, this addition is an open-world game, unlike the original. This has more pros than cons. You can get very frustrated, aimlessly wandering, looking for the next prompt or clue from your raven friend.
The fox protagonist returns, but as mentioned above, this time partnered with a raven companion. Together, they glide across these landscapes, swimming, jumping, and running with what feels more natural this time around. This time, there is a clear enemy in an evil shaman called Grimnir, but with the minimalistic approach to storytelling, it is a bit hard to figure that out.
Worlds within worlds
The gameplay in Spirit of the North 2 largely revolves around exploring your environment and solving puzzles. You will be encouraged to roam the different areas to find and learn from runes. These will give you magical abilities like dash or glide that will help you with puzzles and to get to different areas to uncover more secrets and unlock skins for your fox and Raven.
The puzzles themselves vary from area to area. Some are easy enough to figure out, the “boss battles” do double as harder, multi-step puzzle trails that kick the game up a notch. The game itself should take around 8-10 hours to complete if you want to fly through it. If you are like me, you will want to stop and smell the roses and take in the amazing-looking valleys, ruins, and icy peaks.
You can’t teach an old Fox new tricks
Unfortunately, the Spirit of the North 2 still stumbles in the same areas that hurt the first. I found the controls and camera to be very clunky and not very precise, especially when it’s at a section where you need them to be. You will find yourself missing a jump because you have to nearly point and click at a ledge. This slows down the platformer aspect of the game and ruins the fluidity. There are a fair few bug issues at the time I was playing, which get you stuck in an area because something didn’t trigger.
While the game environments are beautiful and fun to explore at the same time, most feel empty. There are long periods where nothing happens, and sometimes this is filled with a small puzzle just to keep you a little interested before you hit something more important.
Spirit of the North 2 is worth a play if you need a palate cleanser. It’s quick enough to complete, or if you just want to distress and wander around with a cute fox.
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