Developer
Wanadoo Edition

Released: September 29, 2003
Genre: Action
Players: 1
ESRB: Everyone

4
7
7
6
6.0

Supported Features:

Created by Wanadoo Edition, a French developer known for working with DreamCatcher in the past on several PC projects, Spirits & Spells is a delightful little platform-action title targeted toward the smaller kids and made topical with a Halloween theme and an October release. That’s not to say Spirits & Spells won’t sell after October 31st, but somebody in the marketing department surely did their homework with this strategic release date. If Halloween had stockings, this would make the perfect stuffer.

Spirits & Spells follows the adventures of two kids, Alicia and Greg, and a group of their friends who all go out for a typical evening of trick-or-treating. Their exploits lead them into a dark and sinister forest where they Bogeyman turns the group into stone and steals their souls; everyone that is except for Greg and Alicia who must now rescue their chums.

Alicia can toss her witches hat like a boomerang and Greg can poke people with his pitchfork and they all have the normal range of platform gaming movements like running and jumping. It’s their special abilities that really separate the characters. Alicia can cast spells using magic pumpkins to shrink herself or freeze bodies of water to create a bridge. She is also immune to ice whereas Greg will turn into a giant ice cube if he falls into the water. Her witch costume also allows her to slip by some groups of enemies without attracting attention.

Greg has some nifty abilities of his own such as the ability to withstand heat and control fire to some extent. His costume allows him to mingle with certain types of enemies for brief moments without triggering a combat situation and his super-jump and rocket slam become quite useful in the later levels.

Learning when, where, and how to use each character is one of the key elements in Spirits & Spells and offers a challenge similar to the old Lost Vikings game, only on a much kid-friendlier scale. Most of the puzzles aren’t rocket science and are even color-coded in a subdued way to hint at which character you should be using, which is great for pre-teens but will likely bore older gamers.

The game control works well enough but is severely hampered by a fixed camera system. You have no control over the view, which seems to change at the whim of some virtual director. This can make some of the jumping puzzles and combat situations frustrating or downright impossible at times. Kids will likely tolerate these issues simply because they don’t know any better, but anyone who has played any of the dozens of other 3D platform games out there will be gnashing their teeth and tossing the controller.

To make matters worse Spirits & Spells suffers from some cryptic collision detection problems that making fighting a hit-and-miss affair (pun intended). Even though you clearly stabbed that imp with your pitchfork or threw your hat into that ghoul the game doesn’t always register the contact. They same goes with jumping attacks and puzzles where it looks like you landed on something but really didn’t. This unpredictable quirkiness will test the patience of even the most forgiving gamer.

Ultimately, the story and Halloween concept is pretty inventive and one that would likely appeal to just about every kid out there, but the camera and control issues make for some frustrating gameplay that will likely alienate the target audience. Even so, I forced myself through most of these issues and managed to glean a good time doing so.

There area all sorts of magical effects to liven up the combat and gameplay. Textures are a bit simple and even repetitive at times, but the game has that unmistakable GameCube “look” about it. There was a disturbing lack of original monsters to fight which made the combat encounters boring and repetitive after awhle.

Level design is fairly linear as dictated by the linear gameplay. You are generally led around on a predetermined path and the static camera doesn’t allow for too much exploration. At times the camera will swing out and create an almost 2D-like platform game. It’s almost as if the designers were trying so hard to make the game “kid-friendly” they took away too much freedom.

Sound effects are also pretty good but due to some mixing issues they are often drowned out by the music. Each monster has a signature sound effect that lets you identify it, often before you see it, which partially makes up for the twitchy camera system.

Spirits & Spells is more suited as a rental than a purchase. There is no real reason to replay the game, assuming you finish it the first time and the Halloween theme will certainly lose its appeal about the time you finish reading this review. The good news is this title will probably hit the bargain bins on November 1st in which case you may just want to pick it up.