Video Game Review: Spirit of the North

By Jason Koop

Does story have a place in video games?  If so, what type of stories can/should be told?  How does the type of game affect the story?  And is there room for innovation and creativity in the wide world of video games?  I didn’t think so, until playing a game called Spirit of the North.

                To be clear, I didn’t start playing video games until I was about 8.  And when I did, my first experiences were almost exclusively made up of kart racers like Diddy Kong Racing, and CTR: Crash Team Racing.  Several years later, my horizons were expanded to include games like platformers like Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back and adventure games like Spyro: Year of the Dragon.  Spoiler alert, neither of those games are known for deep story-telling.  Any stories tend to consist of straight forward, here’s the level’s goal, accomplish it to move closer to the game’s conclusion.

                Now, I am aware that the video game market has grown exponentially since I was a kid/teenager.  More and more games are being made by smaller, independent companies, which has led to a great diversification of the type of games being made available and the stories being told.  But there’s something to be said for personally experiencing a game.  And Spirit of the North is a title that has had a profound influence on me.

                Developed by Infuse Studio, Spirit of the North is a third-person adventure game where you control a fox that is wandering a land where you appear to be the lone living being left.  Early on, you collapse, seemingly dead, until you are revived and given spirit powers, which enable you to both traverse as well as combat this sickness that seems to have ravaged the land.

                Set in what appears to be a Northern European country – maybe Finland or Norway – you traverse from snowy mountains, grassy valleys and watery lagoons, all the while finding ruins of a lost civilization, wherein lies a story of great loss and tragedy as you aim to ultimately bring about the land’s healing.  Throughout the levels, you find a blue flower that grants you spirit abilities throughout the game – like being able to air-dash, send forward a spirit projection, and a spirit blast – in contrast with a red parasitic growth that seems to be responsible for the desolation that surrounds you.

                This game is deceptively simple.  You control a fox, and you can run, jump, bark, and wag your tail – yes, those are the controls, and barking never ceases to be glorious – as you roam across scenery that is nothing short of gorgeous to look at.   The levels (called chapters) are pretty straight forward – for the most part – and reaching the end simply takes you into the next chapter.

The story is completely non-verbal, though.  There is absolutely no dialogue, nothing is written down for you to read.  The story is entirely told through visual art that you can find scattered throughout the levels.  Really, it is completely possible to finish the game without absorbing anything of the story and taking away that the game has some nice settings and a fantastic soundtrack.  But if you take the time, there is a poignant story to be found here, and I think the extra effort makes the game that much more worth it.  And it makes the ending – which is in of itself fantastic – all the more meaningful.

One takeaway I have from this game is that while I have always been slow to pick up on story cues and rhythms, there is something more rewarding, more enriching, when a story doesn’t just hand its audience everything.  Looking closer, actively paying attention to details, and just generally putting in the effort might be more taxing on me personally, but I can’t say that I don’t benefit from it.  If nothing else, being in the habit of not expecting things to be handed to me or quitting when I don’t readily understand things sounds like good life skills to hone and keep sharp.

I won’t spoil the game here, you will need to stay tuned to the Book-Bat podcast, where Karlissa and I will be sure to discuss this further.

How Spy x Family Helps My Marriage

By Jason Koop

Let’s get this out of the way, I grew up in a western Evangelical culture.  As such, I was exposed to a lot of the common tropes in the 90s and 00s.  And with the goggles of retrospection on, I can only now start to recognize the waters I was swimming in.

One thing that was abundantly clear:  Fantasy was not for “good, Christian adults”!  It was only something for kids/teens to grow out of once they got older and “more mature”.  A placeholder, not something to hold onto into adulthood – unless you were using it to teach something to children or young teens.

Fantasy… For Grown-Up Christians?

Why, the very idea that any credible adult could have any positive, growing experience from reading stories about a blue hedgehog that runs at super-sonic speeds, spandex and caped crusaders fighting outsized villainy, or a hero with an ancient sword who smashes pottery to find gems?

Preposterous!  Utterly ridiculous!  Up surd!  No, no, no, NO!!!  Real, mature Christian adults can only be instructed with self-help adjacent, study type books.  Everyone knows that!

Well… okay, but why?  Do we lose something as we get older and need everything spelled out for us in order for it to sink in?  And why is it that a freakish number of these “lessons” imparted through many of these “study group” books are ever so quickly forgotten and never fondly remembered?

This year, Karlissa and I are celebrating our tenth anniversary.  And I’m sure it would come as no great surprise to anyone to find out that we have clashed; and still do.  As someone who grew up in Western Evangelical culture – but never really knew the waters I was swimming in – I am surprised at how easily I came up with the expected steps when our relationship struggles.

·         Talk to a pastor/church elder

·         Read a Christian marriage book

·         Listen to Christian marriage “experts” – podcasts, YouTube videos, TikTok, FaceBook, etc.

None of these are particularly appealing to me for a variety of reasons.  Being an introvert. Finding most “Christian” marriage advice to be pretty shallow and mostly a band-aid solution.

But then, I came across something that not only grabbed my attention, but has begun to transform how I see not only my marriage, but my whole family.  Spy x Family.

Not Your Average Spy Story

Written and drawn by Tatsuya Endo, this ongoing manga debuted in 2019.  And, despite Endo having been in the manga game since the year 2000, this was his first work to be published in English.  The premise is as follows…

In a Cold War-esque setting, a spy – code named “Twilight” – is tasked with getting close to reclusive politician Donovan Desmond to hopefully prevent a nuclear war between rival nations Westalis and Ostania.  However, the only way to do so is through his son Damian, and the best way to do so is through the private school that Damian attends.

Therefore, Twilight is tasked with creating his own “family”.  In turn he adopts little girl Anya and marries Yor to be his daughter and wife, respectively.  However, he keeps them all in the dark that he is a spy on a mission. 

Unbeknownst to him, though, both Anya and Yor are keeping secrets from him as well.  Anya is a telepath, and Yor is an assassin.  And thus, all three are trying to play the part of a happy family while keeping significant secrets from each other.

Okay, I know this sounds completely ridiculous.  But really, I think it is all a front for addressing real family life and struggles.

Twilight (going by Loid Forger), is very much a dad.  Equal parts composed, family leader, overworked and worrying that he isn’t doing well as a husband or father – thus compromising his cover – and I find him so relatable.  He works hard, tries to make Anya study to do well in school, and constantly tries to affirm and encourage Yor as a wife, mother and person.

Yor is equal parts deadly competent and completely clueless.  On one hand, her strength, love and resolve enabled her to raise her brother (Yuri) when they were children and has made her into a pillar of comfort and safety to Anya.  On the other hand, her complete lack of cooking skills and social competence often leaves her on the wrong side of cultural expectations.

Anya is childishly naïve, yet somehow more in touch with things than either of her parents.  Because of her telepathy, she not only knows both of their secrets, but picks up on struggles that both try to keep hidden from her.  And yet, she is constantly afraid that if everyone knew each others’ secrets, it would destroy this family and the stability that she desperately needs.

And the story plays this out so superbly.  Amid all the espionage, assassinations, and classroom drama is a family that is trying to find out how to function as a unit, despite their differences and secrets they can’t/won’t tell each other.

Lessons Learned

Now, how has this helped me in my marriage and family life?  This all seems a little too outlandish, you might say, to be even remotely helpful.  However, in this story I have been shown things that stick with me much more than simply being told “do this/do that”.  Lessons like:

·         What sticks with the child is family experiences much more than nice toys/presents

·         While adults aren’t culturally allowed to ask for affirmation, they still need it

·         While we are individuals, we are at our best when we sacrifice for others

·         Miscommunication happens, but it needs to be worked through

·         Raising a healthy child is much more involved than simply checking of a list of needs

And these are all told through entertaining and wildly unrealistic stories that ensure that the lessons will likely linger with me that much longer.

Maybe all of this means that I am not a proper, mature, Christian adult.  But I would like to think that stories like Spy x Family that can teach us something, perhaps in an unexpected way, that will then stay with us much longer than a lecture or spiritualized self-help book.

Is Art Subjective?

By Jason Koop

“Art is subjective”. 

That’s a line most of us have heard, in one form or another, in our lifetime.  Put that line into a Google search, and you will get many people’s (and AI’s) take on it. 

My thoughts on that line have run the gamut from “What does that even mean?” to “That’s your excuse for defending something that is just bad” to me using it to defend my own preferences.

For the sake of this post, I’m not coming at the line “art is subjective” from the perspective that there is no “good” or “bad” art, because “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. And I’m not saying I can convince you that some piece of art is “good” or “bad” because of how it grades on a specific formula.  I’m going to approach the line “Art is subjective” from the mindset that a piece of art can mean different things to different people at different times.

Basically, to appropriate Shrek’s greatest line:  Art is like onions.

What brought this on is two videos I saw on YouTube that discussed two franchises/series I have some definite thoughts about.  The first was The Dark Underlying Theme of IDW Sonic by Sonic Theory, and the other was The Chronicles of Narnia: The Black Sheep of 2000’s Fantasy by The Thrifty Typewriter.

In The Dark Underlying Theme of IDW Sonic, Sonic Theory argues that a major theme in the IDW Sonic comic books is free will. And I must say, having read the comics I didn’t make that connection, but then again, you’re talking about the guy who didn’t know Hamlet was contemplating suicide when he says “to be or not to be”, so… there’s that.  Sonic Theory has a point.  The theme of free will isn’t slammed in the audience’s face in a way that you cannot miss it, but now having had it pointed out, I can’t stop seeing it.  I honestly want to do a deep dive on that theme using all the characters (yes, I’m a Sonic nerd, where have you been?).

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Black Sheep of 2000’s Fantasy looks at the three theatrical movies that came out in 2005, 2008 and 2010 (The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe; Prince Caspian; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader) and how they fit into the fantasy saturation that really kicked off in the 2000s.  Comparing the films to the contemporaries of their time gives the review an interesting angle.  While I don’t really agree with The Thrifty Typewriter’s takes, frankly it has more to do with the fact that I have at least a basic grasp of the spiritual tones of the stories and he doesn’t.  His perspective is drawn from taking into account the media landscape the movies were being released into.

These two seemingly unrelated things do in fact share a common thread I’d like to tug on.  They showcase how an underrated determiner of what the audience’s takeaway(s) of a story/character is the individual’s perspective.  My main takeaways from the Sonic the Hedgehog IDW comics are the themes of friendship and teamwork.  I tend to see The Chronicles of Narnia movies by comparing them to the books and the Christian themes that C.S. Lewis tried to get across. But these YouTube reviewers saw different things, probably based on their own perspectives and life experiences.

“Art is subjective”.  I used to balk at the very idea of it.  If you had a differing take on a book/movie/video game, well then you were just wrong.  And if you were to imply that there were multiple different themes that could be taken from said media, depending on how you approached it, well that was just plain silly.  The themes are the themes, and they are plainly universal, regardless of your perspective.

But now… I wonder if the themes one takes away from a piece of art are indeed subjective, because of our human flaws and brokenness.  Perhaps we are incapable of perfectly getting across themes and stories, which then leaves cracks where the audience can fill in with their own personal life experience and theology.

And by God’s grace, He makes it so that imperfect stories told by imperfect humans can have a richness of meaning.  Maybe even beyond what the creator intended.