Spirit Mancer Review (PS5) – Seb The Skiver

Spirit Mancer is the debut game from Thailand-based studio Sunny Syrup Studio. As someone from the outside looking in at the process of making games, there’s seemingly been a regular occurrence for releases — especially debuts — to cram as many mechanics into it as possible. This has gone down well a few times, namely Dave the Diver, a game that is a borderline feature creature but somehow blends its vast range of mechanics with simplicity and finesse.

In Spirit Mancer’s case, however, not so much. After watching the trailer, I already knew I would be hacking and slashing across 2D retro-inspired levels as well as using my deck of demon cards to summon for battle. But what’s not so forthcoming is the abundance of minigames, management-type modes, fishing and even farming that the game will have you do.

Not to mention you can also play most of the game in co-op as you go out on your main and side missions, so there is a lot to unpack with this review. If that long list of busy work and different gameplay styles at all interests you, then you may have found your next big indie. There’s some Metal Slug influence in there, of course, some Stardew Valley and maybe even some Pokémon too with the card-collecting element. Spirit Mancer sounds diverse, and it is, but does that come at a cost? Let’s get into it.

Devil Will Cry

You can play as either Sebastian or Mary. By default it’s the former. Sebastian has a troubled past due to losing his family in a demon attack, and since then has become an avowed demon hunter. He’s not alone in his hunting ventures as he has a badass crew with him to fight the forces of bad. After a mission goes awry, Sebastian and the crew are teleported into the demon’s realm known as Inferno. This is where the queen of the underworld resides as she attempts to gain enough power to take over the human world and be the ruler of both realms.

At least that’s the gist of it, the story uses very generic archetypes for the characters in question. Everyone’s dialogue is an attempt at a one-liner, Sebastian is often the butt of jokes and there’s some weird disdain for the demons? Don’t get me wrong, fictionally demons are bad in pretty much every instance, but when they’re written like they’re just a different species also trying to get by in their world, I was starting to feel a bit weird about the humans’ motivations.

It’s not substantive as a narrative but Spirit Mancer is a colorful hack-and-slash that has that Saturday morning cartoon vibe to it, so I wasn’t expecting anything too groundbreaking either. At the very least there are some cool side characters and villains that have a decent design and shake up the gameplay/setting a little to build out the world of Inferno.

Aluminium Slug

The core of the gameplay for Spirit Mancer is the 2D hack-and-slash, card-summoning mish-mash I’ve already mentioned. However, there’s no strict fashion on what the levels will be when you go out on your missions. The introductory level is a very simple 10-minute jaunt from left to right learning the mechanics of the game — which I’ll get into. Right after that though, you’re put to the test in a 30-minute platforming demon-hunting gauntlet with a boss at the end, and then after that, it’s just a simple boss stage.

The game has zero consistent pace or function. It’s a scattershot of ideas that probably sounded cool on paper but discombobulating in practice. Also doesn’t help that there’s no manual save so you better hope you’ve had it autosave or you’ll be doing the same 35-minute level again, but I digress. At the start of the game, a demon gives you a cool-looking demon weapon as your arm, kind of like Nero from Devil May Cry. This is signified as green on the HUD and is your melee attack.

You also have a firearm which is blue that deals long-range damage, this and the melee can be switched between with ‘L1’. Then you have your summoning deck of cards which is purple. You don’t have a set of cards just yet but the enemies out on the level will all have their health bar alongside a shield bar. The shield bar will consist of one of the three colours I’ve mentioned and the corresponding damage output will take a significant chunk off that bar. A depleted shield bar will make the enemy vulnerable to being sealed. The gameplay at this point has a subtle latency with its attacks but the platforming is decent enough.

Gotta Catch ‘Em All

To seal an enemy is to essentially catch them for a one-time use in your summoning deck that you can trigger the ‘triangle’ or ‘circle’ button to cast. The variety of enemies is quite impressive and they all have their unique attacks which you can do to the enemies if you have the card. This doesn’t only create ample variety in your own gameplay but it feeds into this engaging loop of recognising the weaknesses of the enemy and reacting accordingly, forcing you to utilise all the weapons.

This would be the case in the ideal world anyway but Sunny Syrup Studio have insisted on applying challenges to each mission that harm your rewards if you don’t complete them. Some are innocuous like ‘No death’, ‘Seal only’, ‘No damage’ etc. but there isn’t one level that will have at least one, most of the time two, that betray the cool mechanics they did the groundwork for.

Not being able to use your firearm/card summoning or only killing the enemies just goes against the fun of what the gameplay is and if you don’t play by those challenges, you’re penalised for it. Couple this with my previous gripe of levels not being consistent and you’ve got these slightly oppressive parameters on what is otherwise a pretty good foundation.

If the challenges were arbitrary and didn’t feed into the copious amount of currencies the game has to use outside of the levels, I’d probably care less but alas Spirit Mancer has out mechanic’d itself here. Not to mention I’ve faced a couple of game-breaking bugs that have resulted in me turning off my game and playing through whole levels again, a separate issue to the autosave but one that works in tandem with each other.

Playing 52-Card Pick-Up

As you progress through the game there’ll be various means of garnering permanent Spirit Cards. Some enemies drop them, you may pick some up from the fishing minigame in the hub world (more on that later) or some can even be crafted. They work exactly the same as the ones you ‘seal’ in the levels but instead of using and losing you can replenish the use at the cost of some gold coin.

You can do this by approaching the checkpoints in the level where you can not only replenish your cards and health but also change your weapon too. It feels cheap to charge the player for simply wanting to use the very mechanic that highlights the distinct quality of Spirit Mancer, but at the point of this review, you already know I’m left with so many questions rather than answers after my playtime with it.

The cards themselves have a numeric quantity to them, the higher that value the better the attack usually is. Your overall deck of cards has a numeric cap, forcing you to only take so many cards out with you to battle. It’s a decent way of bringing some strategy to the game as you’ll want to diversify to play at your strengths. I didn’t use them so often so I went with high damage dealing cards with one healing card, just in case I needed it in a pinch.

With over 100+ cards out there to collect there is some dilution of the actual necessity of some of the cards. They’ll roughly do the same thing but others at least look flashier than others. It’s a neat time sink for those who like to tinker, but simple enough to leave alone if you’re not inclined to dabble like me.

Home Away From Home

Where do I begin with the extracurricular activities? You’ve got the fishing that I mentioned earlier, a very standard affair. Farming elements where you plant seeds and wait for them to grow as you go out on missions. Incredibly basic in execution that helps you garner materials to build cards. Building cards use multiple materials you’ll find out on the levels or again grown in the hub world. It’s an aspect I didn’t spend much time on but the requirements are seemingly grindy.

There are also side missions like dating some of the demon NPCs (see why I had an issue with the dialogue?), Arena trials where you fight waves of enemies, and another mission type where you save these cute piggies from captivity on smaller levels. Speaking of the cute pigs, you also have a whole minigame where you can hire some pig adventurers to go out on expeditions, with the rewards being the many currencies you need. It’s just a case of going through menus to assign 1-3 adventurers to an area. It’s just busywork that gives you a new method of income but it’s not that fun to do — the pigs are super cute though!

You’ve also got a bank to deposit money in case you run out of lives, a potions shop and a weapon shop to buy new ones or upgrade current ones. And finally, you have the Tree of Duality. This is where you can upgrade Sebastian/Mary’s abilities like health, damage output, the weapons themselves as well as your card-holding abilities. The game by default will beat you in 4-5 hits, which does make it feel like the retro games that have inspired it. With that said, due to the inconsistencies of gameplay I mentioned, I’m glad you can at least even the odds.

Everything, Everywhere, All At Once

I felt it necessary to go through the exhaustive list of what Spirit Mancer does to showcase just how bloated the game feels. This is a game that started with an idea board and then just went through with every single one. This would be fine and sometimes even award-winning, if everything is fleshed out. For Spirit Mancer though, outside of the core gameplay of juggling your different attacks out on the levels, everything is surface level.

None of it’s necessarily bad but there isn’t much that’s spectacular either. Softening the blow to its shallow systems is how flashy the game looks. The sprite work for characters and enemies are diverse, colourful and just look overall cool. The levels you fight through can be similarly described too, with Sebastian/Mary’s attacks also being a spectacle.

There’s something to enjoy here if you’re looking for some casual busywork with a good chunk of arcade-y hack-and-slash combat too. It’s not that deep of a game but it’s vast and time-filling, so it may just scratch someone else’s itch. There’s a core game design here that would’ve shined in something more consistent but Spirit Mancer has too much going on, too many ideas and not enough of what works in its favour.

Spirit Mancer is available now for PlayStation 5 (review platform), Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam

Developers: Sunny Syrup Studio

Publisher: Dear Villagers, OKJOY

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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