Arietta of Spirits

Length is a curious thing. Some say that a good movie (or game) is never too long and a bad one is never short enough, but there’s also the kind that is almost there, almost reaching greatness, where we feel more time was needed because the end result is, for the lack of a better word, undercooked. Arietta of Spirits is such a game, full of potential, but needing more time in the oven.

Little Arietta is traveling with her parents to a faraway cabin on an island, a family tradition they’ve decided to uphold even after the death of her grandmother. During the day, Arietta goes into the woods to fetch apples for her mom, using a wooden sword to fend off nasty wasps, and at night, Arietta’s mom cries at dinner, clearly missing her own mom. There’s an empty chair now at their table, you see, and it will remain so forever.

When Arietta goes to sleep, she dreams of ghosts. She hears a voice urging her to wake up, and when she opens her eyes, she finds herself facing a spirit named Arco: he’s animal-shaped and friendly and tells her that creatures like him help people move on, being by their side as they pass through the veil between life and death. They’re spirit guides, in other words. And Arietta’s grandmother is right outside, near the pier, in need of assistance. Arietta has a chance to see her again, and even better, to help her one last time, and display her love.

Arco, however, tells Arietta this is a full-time job. She’s not there just to have a sweet moment with her grandmother, but to help other spirits, too. And so we go into the woods, exploring the island to find them and learn what their troubles are, what’s keeping them here. There’s this effective moment when Arietta gets near the charred ruins of a house, and Arco tells her that there’s a world hidden beneath ours, she just needs to learn how to see. And suddenly there it is: a lively hut, surrounded by strange vegetation and a weirdly glowing well. Inside, the spirit of an herbalist, Minerva, is trapped in time, fearing the actions of some miners who are long gone.

You may read my last paragraph and assume that there’s more to the story than Minerva, that we’re going to help many spirits and find out what their stories are…when in fact it’s just her. The game ends right after we deal with her story. This is the crux of the matter, the main problem that assails Arietta of Spirits’ narrative: it starts personal, with the grandmother, and then opens up without any intention of committing to the bit, ending on an anticlimactic note, as that herbalist means nothing to Arietta.

This story had many effective paths in front of it: we could have helped the herbalist first and then found Arietta’s grandmother – ending in a touching, climactic moment for the girl –; we could have helped the herbalist and many more spirits after her, creating a tale about loss through the conjunction of their individual stories; we could have helped the herbalist and found out that her story somehow traced back to a grandmother, and so still ending on a personal note for Arietta; or it could have doubled down on Minerva’s story and turned it into the main theme, discussing how, in times of hardship, prejudice runs rampant. The game, however, chooses the least interesting path, the one where Minerva is a side note, and there’s still nothing after it.

Arietta of Spirits is barely 4 hours long, and since we spend most of the runtime hitting random wasps, bats, and wayward spirits with a sword, there’s little time to properly develop the characters. The girl’s mom, for example, never gets to talk about her own mother and what the loss meant to her after the first day in the cabin, when she breaks down and cries at dinner. The girl’s father gets done even worse, never getting a single moment to shine. This is a story full of missed opportunities.

And it doesn’t help that the writing is quite bland, failing to give a proper voice to each character. Take Arco, the spirit: he speaks in exposition mode, as if dialogue were meant to convey information instead of personality, being a window to internal conflicts and contradictions. No, Arco says things like, “Just snap your fingers to give me a sign to act… and keep in mind that I can only manifest through the ring for a short period of time. Doing so will also drain my energy fast. When I run out, give me some time to gather it anew.” When he’s not speaking videogame-y stuff like a tutorial screen, Arco is either complaining of being called an animal or being very responsible, giving Arietta parent-like advice like, “Just don’t go biting off more than you can chew,” or chastising the girl for lying to her parents. Arco is not even a competent spirit guide, as he lets Arietta do something at the end of Minerva’s questline that is, well, not bound to end well.

Unfortunately, Arietta of Spirits’ gameplay is too simple to make up for the also barebones story. We travel around in an isometric perspective like 2D Zelda Games – the girl even has a very similar yaaaa to Link’s when she brandishes her sword – attacking or dodging the same couple of monsters (it’s either a flying enemy that rushes toward us, or a slowly moving blob). Eventually, we get a magic shield that fends off projectiles to spice things up, and the boss design can indeed get inventive by this time, but the lack of puzzles in the overworld and the single dungeon we explore (a dark mine) brings the experience down, limiting it.

But Arietta of Spirits certainly looks nice, with great sprite-work and character portraits that reminded me of Stardew Valley. The soundtrack is also appropriately melancholic, with even the combat themes being quite melodic, tinged with sadness – and a special shoutout to this beautiful track as well.

Arietta of Spirits is a small indie game about adventure and loss that drops the ball when it comes to character development and narrative structure, failing to live up to its potential.

January 09, 2025.