Me resulta muy curioso ver análisis negativos que ponen como que es malo lo que precisamente hace bueno a éste juego.

En Spirits of Xanadu eres el típico "chapuzas" espacial al que tus jefazos mandan a arreglar la típica nave perdida de la mano de Dios que ha dejado de responder a las llamadas. Cuando llegas a la nave, el juego te deja libre. No hay tutorial ni ningún NPC que te dé instrucciones via mensajes de radio: sólo tú y la tarea que tienes por hacer en una nave llena de robots asesinos. A partir de ahí es cosa tuya explorar la nave, ver qué falla, y encontrar las piezas que faltan para solucionarlo. El estilo gráfico (que sí, es feote) y el diseño de niveles hacen muy bien su tarea de hacer más simple la resolución del gran puzle que es la nave, por lo que en vez de tediosa resulta una tarea muy inmersiva (y terrorífica).

Y al igual que las piezas, lo que también hay por la nave son notas y grabaciones de voz de la antigua tripulación que te cuentan qué pasó con la Xanadu, todo esto perfectamente optional. Por eso es cierto que, si ya sabes dónde está todo, te puedes pasar el juego en 10 minutos. Pero como lógicamente nunca has explorado la Xanadu antes de jugar, la duración del juego es de unas 5 horas, un par mas si quieres realmente encontrarlo TODO y pasarte un par de minijuegos opcionales que encuentras. Cada cual que juzgue si le merece pagar el precio por 5 horas de juego, pero yo soy de la opinión de que los videojuegos deberian comprarse no por su cantidad como quien compra patatas en el mercado, sino por su calidad. Si Spirits of Xanadu fuera más largo de forma forzada, sería aburrido.

Si tuviera que buscarle fallos, serían los siguientes:
-Los enemigos hacen respawn, lo cual no es lógico porque no hay ninguna "máquina de desplegar robots" ni nada. Preferiría que si limpio una zona, limpia se quedara.
-La historia no es lo más original que os vais a llevar a la boca. Bebe demasiado de películas como Alien o Horizonte Final, hasta el punto de no ser demasiado memorable.
-El juego, a fecha de escribir este análisis, está integramente en inglés, lo que puede suponer un problema para agunas personas.

Para finalizar, me gustaría destacar que los desarrolladores, aún a fecha de hoy (un año tras el lanzamiento) y que el juego está terminado, siguen trabajando en actualizaciones.

Para ser un indie, está muy bien, te dejan en una nave abandonada y tienes que regresar a la tierra, ese seria el argumento, y luego puedes hacer un montón de estupideces geniales, tiene muchos easter eggs y referencias a otros juegos, música, etc. No tiene micropagos ni dlc de pago. A mi me ha gustado, vale la pena darle una oportunidad.

THIS GAME IS RAD.

It’s got a really simple visual design, but it is still very atmospheric to explore.

The game is KIND of a shooter… there is definitely shooter gameplay in it, and the shooting feels just fine, but what you are really looking at with this game is an ADVENTURE GAME that also just happens to let you shoot robots with laser guns.

The premise is sort of like the first Dead Space. There is a vessel that has gone silent for some reason. You are sent to the vessel to assess the situation and then fix anything that needs to be fixed to assure that the vessel will return to earth properly. The difference is that in Dead Space, this is just some explanation for getting you on board the ship full of aliens so that you can start shooting aliens. Sometimes a guy on a radio tells you to fix something and you press A to fix it. But in Xanadu, you actually have to like… figure out how to disable the rogue turret outside the engine room, then disable it, then break into the engine room and look at the engine to figure out why it’s not working, which is partly obvious (replace fuses, unjam the cogs, etc), but it also means performing some quasi-Myst-like gameplay where you fiddle around with knobs and switches and buttons until something interesting starts to happen.

There are also audio logs and text notes you can find, as well as computers you can log onto to read emails and such, which fulfills the part of the mission where you’re trying to investigate what happened. But the weird thing is… and this is coming from a guy who nearly always HATES audio logs and note pages… I actually am really enjoying finding them and reading/listening to them?

They are actually really well written (and the VO is not bad at all), and there is an interesting element of the story that adds an interesting quirk to a lot of the messages. But I also like that the logs and stuff you find aren’t just exposition dumps. You also find the sorts of notes and things that people would actually write down. You might find the recipe for an omelet, or a scrap of paper on which someone has simply scribbled down the Konami code (ha ha). One of the audio logs was made by one of the crew, who got really drunk and basically just drunk dialed his voice recorder. I literally laughed when he starts talking about his girlfriend’s hair for some reason and about how it looks “very Roman… like the hair a Roman would have”. The sort of weird, incomprehensible babbling your drunk friend would actually say.

The most obvious sign this is an adventure game though? I've never played a shooter where I had to get out a pen and paper to SOLVE ONE OF ITS PUZZLES. But you will have to do that at least once here. Don't be scared, though. The puzzle quality is very good. Just remember to be very thorough.

Using my own scale below, I give Spirits of Xanadu a hearty 7!

I WANT MORE GAMES LIKE THIS.

7) A classic, essential, and/or must-buy game that is worth full price.
6) A good game that is worth the full price.
5) A pretty good game worth checking out--especially if discounted.
4) A pretty good game, but I would recommend buying it discounted.
3) Worth checking out, but I would recommend buying it heavily discounted.
2) Only worth checking out if you are dangerously curious.
1) Avoid at all costs.

So... that's all there is?

Introduction
Spirits of Xanadu is a game I tried to like, but there's simply not all that much to appreciate. The visuals are artistically appealing, but the gameplay and narrative design are so repetitive and simple that I'm genuinely uncertain as to what people see in it. From the get-go I had tempered expectations, but I still came away unsatisfied. SoX isn't some abhorrent mess, but it didn't feel worth the time I spent with it.

Plot
Spirits's story is told entirely through notes and audio logs, but the plot rundown goes as follows. You play as a spacecraft technician employed by Extrasolar Research Associates (ERA) in the year 1983 (alternate timeline), and are on a mission to repair the engine drive of a research vessel named "Xanadu." However, once you dock things immediately take a turn for the worse. There's no power throughout the whole station, and none of the crew comes to greet you. Subsequent exploration of the ship also reveals all robots aboard to be hostile. It becomes your duty to discover what happened on the Xanadu, and decide how best to resolve its dilemma.

Presentation
Speaking first on what I enjoyed about SoX, I adored the art style. The graphics are minimalistic with next to no texture work, which allows everything to look sleek and futuristic. The lighting is what really takes the cake though, as it's aesthetically exquisite through its sparing usage; creating a dark and eerie atmosphere across the whole spaceship. This tension wears away after about an hour, but altogether I applaud the visual design of Spirits. To put a cherry on top; the game is highly stable and the audio is relatively good considering the budget.

Gameplay
Next up is gameplay, and this is where SoX takes a dive. The layout of the Xanadu is essentially just a dozen rooms with several corridors connecting them, and sporadic, concentrated pockets of angry robots placed around the ship. There are three enemy types, and the AI for all of them is awful. Their line of sight seems to be broken, so they get caught on walls about as often as my Nan takes a tumble down the stairs. The gun-play is smooth and precise, but fighting each of these enemies once instantly shatters the dense atmosphere, as the threats become more ridiculous than they are frightening. The rest of the gameplay is characterized by 'puzzles', but in reality they're just chores. To make the Xanadu fully operational again you backtrack regularly to different portions of the ship, pressing prompts and killing more droids. Long story short, the gameplay sucks.

Writing
Speaking of stories, the narrative of Spirits isn't anything to call your perpetually-handicapped Nan about either. As I already stated, the tale of the Xanadu is exposited exclusively through pages and audio files, left behind by the three members of the station's staff. While there's some nuance, none of the writing is SoX can be described as all that engrossing. The story is linear, straight-forward, and fairly unoriginal. The ending you get is all you can choose, and there are three options in total - some taking more effort than others to achieve. Spirits is easily completed in under 2 hours without rushing, but if you're as methodical as possible you'll reach 4 hours of playtime, max. All in all SoX's narrative is passable, but does not impress in any sense of the word.

Conclusion
Stepping back for a moment, I will say that Spirits of Xanadu was made by a team of two people, so many of its faults are understandable. However, I review games based on how much I actually enjoyed them, and I did not enjoy SoX. It has some redeeming qualities such as its unique visuals, palpable atmosphere (at first), decent shooting, and even a few fun easter eggs; but the flaws I've already enumerated are overwhelming. I can't recommend this game to anyone, as there wasn't enough quality content to justify the time I personally invested into it.

Don't be discouraged by the graphics. The look of this game is simple, yet functional. What this game has going for it however is a strong atmosphere, great writing and a huge attention to detail. This is not only a game that rewards your curiousity and attentive exploration, it demands it!

If you're unattentive, you might start the game without a flashlight. Or you might overlook that you can repair a fuse and turn on the lights and play the whole game in a dark ship, only with your flashlight. Or you might miss a new weapon. Or you might overlook the myriad of hidden clues, notes, scribblings and hints.

In fact that's what happened to me. My first playthrough was quite short (around 3 hours) and I thought I found almost everything. Imagine my surprise when I found out I only got about one third of the story (and a bad ending)!

I probably don't have to mention that this game has been inspired by System Shock; that's pretty clear from the trailer and the description. I can just reassure you that this is not a low-cost remake of SS, this is an interesting and original take on the "investigate a spaceship that stopped communicating" theme (of which there is not enough if you ask me :). Just be prepared to work hard for a complete understanding of what really happened and a chance of changing the ship's fate (and yours).

Spirits of Xanadu is one horror game, out of few, that I like and enjoy playing, because it focuses on atmosphere, music, story, and narration with nice voice acting, but aside from all that, it's good horror game in my eyes because it uses the atmosphere and its environment to inject fear in you.

How this game does it's thrills is, again, it's great atmosphere, and how the enemies that want to kill you are all in their place, doing their own thing, and will attack you because they saw you, not because they know exactly where you are, and they won't magically appear in front or behind you to cheaply scare and kill you, like most other horror games do.

Another great thrilling aspect about the game that makes me fearful of it, is how they do illusions by letting you see these space ghosts from time to time while exploring the ship. They magically appear and disappear, but in a slow seamless way, and these ghosts are not trying to scare you in the since of a quick spook, but more in the way that they're watching you, and you see them doing they're own thing rather than to stupidly scare you, it's what I'd like to call a cool scare.

The game looks great by the way, yea it's just simple plain colors with simple structures from the looks of it, but with nice lighting, great affects, and 'not' crappy models with a great amount of them, it all combines together to make great scenes to look at. I also want to give extra credit to the team for making small quality details like books with readable titles and good quality pictures on them, and having me think that the environment I was in feel like it was lived in before, just from look at rooms and finding nice notes.

Speaking of notes, the game is filled with just enough story content like notes and voice recorders, that it kept me interested in that story throughout my duration of playing the game. Some these notes were mostly interesting to read, but some are part of, what I feel, the environment as a means of making the world/ship believable, which was kind of cool. The voice recorders are awesome, with great voice acting, and ones that are unique with how everyone has their own thoughts and personalities, but they all share the same despair and downfall. So the story, in all angles, is great.

Going to gameplay, you start off with a laser gun with unlimited ammo, so scavenging for resources of any kind is not necessity, which I'm kind of happy about, but I'm not against having them if done correctly in a game like amnesia. The gun play in the game is decent but a bit jittery when zooming, although I haven't found myself zooming much, firing from the hip was more optimal. You have to look for items to collect, and usually place them in other areas or machines, fix broken machinery, and maybe find some clues to open locked optional doors for added content like a different gun.

What I like about the whole experience that the game throws you into the game with no hand holding of any kind mostly, as in no tutorials, no objective markers, nothing, you have to figure it out with the notes in the game or audio log, or just plain figuring it out. That can be viewed as a negative also, but for me It's an alright thing to put in (or not to put in) as the stuff you have to do is not insanely hard, it's manageable.

Overall I had a great experience playing Spirits Of Xanadu, I'd even compare to Alien Isolation, obviously not in graphical power, technicalities, or gameplay elements, but in story, atmosphere, and voice acting, all of them being low level nice qualities, but a worthy comparison to note. The asking price can be argued upon, as the game isn't long, but it is a great experience, for me I'd say 10$ is its sweet spot, but I'm not against the original price.

Shameless link[ksalue.com] to original post.

It is set during an alternate version of the 1980's on an unresponsive research vessel, the Xanadu, which is in orbit around a planet far from Earth, and, playing in the shoes of a one-man recovery team, you are instructed to return the ship the and all of it's research material back to Earth to it's corporate owners even at the cost of the well-being of the crew. You start the game on a small recovery vessel making it's final docking approach on the Xanadu, and once aboard it you have nothing more than a flashlight, a laser pistol and your wits to complete your task (although technically you could never pick up those two items and complete the game in complete darkness without shooting anything).

There is no hand-holding or tutorials or explicit guidance given. Period. The puzzles are simple, the map is small, there are only be a few weapons to collect and a handful of enemy types to fight, but discovering what happened to the Xanadu and completing your mission entirely through your own actions makes the whole experience feel surprisingly rewarding.

The atmosphere of this game is something to behold in and of itself, though, and it's carefully crafted by a combination of the impeccable presentation of the mystery of the Xanadu and the game world's immersiveness. You discover the details what happened to the Xanadu primarily through tape recordings made by it's three former inhabitants which are scattered around the ship, hidden, but put in logical places. There's even poems and notes that you can find that add even more intrigue and flavor to the narrative but the recordings truly are unforgettable. These personal accounts of the crew's self-destruction and are believable, well-written, and incredibly well voice acted. As you listen to these voice logs, playing through the game slowly becomes more and more tense as you learn about the what caused this cryptic tragedy and realize that, soon, you too will suffer their fate. This ambience is pitch perfect for me: unsettling and bleak but not outright terrifying or unbelievable or depressing (in other words, it's almost completely devoid of any melodrama).

The interior enviroment of the Xanadu perfectly complements the storytelling of the game in order to make its atmosphere so absorbing. No detail inside the Xanadu is out of place besides the occasional easter egg. The interactivity of the enviroment, while oddly limited in some ways, is, overall, realistic, and the limitations prevent it from being distracting or superfluous (this is not a Visceral Cleanup Detail rip-off). The various living spaces, amenities and utilities all feel like they are necessary components of this vessel. All together, they give an important sense of realism as you explore the ship which keeps the whole game experience grounded despite the game's minimalistic visual aesthetic and ominous mood. It should be noted, too, that while thorough exploration is necessary for experiencing everything all this game has to offer, its small scale prevents any serious tedium in this endeavor.

The only real problem with the immersion of the game is that the design of the enemies and how you fight them is not nearly as interactive as the enviroment they inhabit. Each one attacks you in their own, singular, boring way, and you just have to shoot them to kill them (except for the security drones which you can shut off if you can sneak up behind them). One enemy type, which I call kamikaze robots, are especially frustrating to deal with because their one attack pattern is to run up to you and destroy themselves and you with a fatal explosion. It's nearly impossible to stop them before they get within arms reach since they have plenty of health with no weakpoints, they run faster than you, and most areas of the ship are quite confined and free of obstructions to outsmart them with. A seperate but related issue in the immersion is that some of the enemies (including the aformentioned kamikaze robots) are somehow capable of respawning on a derelict ship in space for no reason and the debris from potentially infinite encounters with these respawning enemies causes performance degradation over a playthrough.

All in all, this is a great indie game that can engage you with it's enigmatic and disconcerting atmosphere and make you think. Even if it's light on the play-time and mechanical depth, it can be just enough to make a lasting impression on those that play it.

EDIT: Added much, much, much more detail.

If you, like me, love mid- to late-90's FPS games like System Shock or Deus Ex, you're likely to enjoy this game. It's kind of amazing how much it feels like a game of that era just on a modern engine. Complete lack of guidance means lots of exploration and non-linear gameplay.

There is one very strange design choice by the devs which is to erase all your save data after you beat the game. So there is no going back to further explore the ship and find things you missed once you trigger an ending. You must restart. I found this disappointing since I had no warning it would happen, so I couldn't go back and explore the ship more in the state it was in right before finishing the game. Actually, this was so bizarre to me that I thought it was a bug; however, a dev responded to me to let me know this was a completely intentional design choice.

I still recommend the game, but I think you should just go in knowing you'll have to replay the whole thing to make different choices later in the game. I was happy with my choices (which is why I chose them first!), but I wanted to play through the others without needing to tediously repeat the rest of the game. So even though I thoroughly enjoyed my playthrough, I was left with a bad feeling of disappointment once it ended and the title screen returned missing the option to Continue from a save. Knowing this in advance, I think you can go in and enjoy it without any feelings of disappointment.

Overall the experience is very unique and interesting, and the narrative well-told. And it was fun.

Spirits of Xanadu is a quite interesting indie first person shooter in the vein of System Shock.

Story:

Set in 1983 in an alternate timeline, you play as an unnamed mechanic who is sent to investigate a spaceship named Xanadu which is orbiting around a mysterious planet. You are sent to do repairs and check up on the crew, but once you enter the space ship you find that the crew is nowhere to be seen, so you have to look for clues to figure out what happened to the crew while trying to survive in the hostile ship.

Spirits of Xanadu has a quite simplistic story, most of it is hidden beneath audio logs that the crew left behind and they are your only pieces of story and a lot of them are quite interesting, to hear what happened to the crew.

Graphics:

Spirits of Xanadu looks mediocre at best, but trust me while the graphics are not impressive the game delivers the goods in other sections. The game has a quite simplistic art style even the enemy robots you fight don't look impressive at all, they all look like vacuum cleaners that roll around and fire lasers at you.

However The game has some decent lighting effects which help set the mood for the game. The atmosphere in this game is incredible and is often really creepy.

Audio:

The audio is what helps set the mood for the game, the music alongside the ambient noises you hear make you feel uneasy throughout the entire game and it's actually some pretty impressive audio design for an indie game.

There is some voice acting, but all of it ranges from good to mediocre, I think sometimes the characters overdo it in certain scenes and it sort of ruins the mood, but I won't knock it against it.

Gameplay:

Spirits of Xanadu is an FPS game at heart, but there are puzzles to solve ranging from easy to difficult. Exploring the ship is also a dangerous task as there are security robots that went rogue and attack you on sight. You have a laser pistol to protect yourself, but there is another gun hidden if you find it. One thing that is sort of a blessing and a curse is that once you clear out the ship of the robots they don't respawn, while nice on paper as there's no worries of getting killed, it sort of makes late game boring as all you do is go from one corner of the ship to the next and not getting attacked sort of makes it boring. Other than that you explore the ship to find out what happened to the crew of the spaceship and try to fix it.

The ship is rather small and it doesn't take a long time for you to explore the entire ship. The game itself is also rather short (only around 2 hours long for the first playthrough and maybe even less if you don't take your time exploring every bit of the ship)

The puzzles are actually semi decent and are fun to solve, but some of them are kind of difficult and only possible to solve if you look around the ship for solutions and even then a lot of them are not as clear as they should be which is nice.

If I didn't make it clear, once you enter the ship you are free to explore at your own pace, the game doesn't force you to push to the goal and once you begin the ship is your playground and you can do whatever you want, which is fun.

Verdict:

Spirits of Xanadu is a hidden gem if I ever seen one. While not a looker, it delivers in almost every other category. If you liked System Shock you will enjoy this game. While it's short, there's still multiple endings to get and not to mention for the price you could do way worse.

Final Rating:
8/10

Pros:
+ Intriguing story
+ Great puzzle design

Cons:
- Graphics are mediocre

If you liked this review please consider joining https://steamcommunity.com/groups/completingthebacklog and https://steamcommunity.com/groups/ImperialReviews

A nice tribute to System Shock, focusing on the atmosphere/ambient story elements over combat. Does a surprisingly good job despite its minimal presentation, and I appreciated the fact that it doesn't rely on extensive scripted sequences to tell it's story or go completely into "walking sim" territory.