Review: Avenging Spirit – A amazing ghoulish charm-fest! Releasing July 29th.

Developer: City Connection
Publisher: Ratalaika Games
Release Date: July 29th, 2022 on Xbox, Switch, PS4/5
Where to buy: Switch (Add to wishlist!)

Without going into to much depth beyond a light write up here. Avenging Spirit is a game that has it in droves. With Avenging Spirit’s simplicity, it sprouts into a short, but sweet arcade drama of multi-able endings sort of game. If you do certain requirements, end you with a certain ending. Even with its goofy translations. You can possess several enemies of which that have their own powers. Think one part Kirby, one dose Haunting Starring Polterguy(will someone please get the rights to this game, and publish it on steam and every other platform, please?!), and a handful of tightly controlled classic platforming insanity.

Introductions are in order, as well as the basic plot:

During a walk with his lover, the player is attacked by operatives of a mystery crime syndicate, who kidnap and murder him. As a wandering spirit with the capacity to control most humans, he is summoned by his girlfriend’s father (who studies ghost energy) and assigned a task to free her from the mystery crime organization holding her prisoner, allowing the player to slumber in peace.

Completing the game while short, was one of those sort of experiences that due to the dip-switch being set to free-play, it was a quick burst. You are given several choices, of to enter t his game, find all of the secrets, with the best possible ending, or to just speed through the game with a not so grand conclusion. Which I thought was pretty clever. As it set up a sort of “hey I missed a few things, let me go get those in a new play-through”. Hence blowing through quarters. In this case luckily we have it here digitally, where you are not going broke on the twenty-five cent pieces. The assortment of enemies offered is a lot like Kirby. You start off with a brief introduction explaining how to play. Which is sort, sweet, and right to it. Which is lovely. Sometimes I just want to hop into the chaos and figure most of it out. Your choices of enemies mix between street fighting ladies, trench coat gangsters with weapons, monks whom do pugilist style combat. You got snow ball tossing mages, and Ewok looking mages all around the place.

A great example of the sorted enemies you can possess.

Your main goal is to rescue your girlfriend, while running through the game, uncovering all sorts of clues along the way. You ask “Clues, huh?” Yes, as you progress you have the option to figure out how to get the best ending, mentioned before, I will not tell you directly how, as that is for yourself to figure out. I settled with the ending that I have received and was fine with it for now. However a apart of my brain wanted to see it, so I replayed for that good ending. Which at the time you seldom got clever ways arcade game developer sneak these sort of things on to you. Which always made this and the Gameboy version stick out to me as really enjoyable experiences, while quick. I can say t hose who love to speedrun, this game is a must have in that regard. It is simple, the controls are tight with a Switch pro(well mine is third party, but the same thing haha) controller. Or even handheld the game feels and plays just fine. My absolute favorite part of the game was its music. Wow, is it so good! I found myself humming and jamming out as I went through my second play through, trying to solve the games hidden objectives.

Overall, I found the game outstanding, twice way through. Even though it is rather short. As expected with arcade games of course. The choice of video options, were a nice touch, and always a welcomed quality of life with classic games if done right. This time around it hit the right spot, not over doing it, and making it look colorful and pleasant to the eye.

Extra element: I will let the play through do the talking below. The experience showcases a play session. Enjoy!