{"id":72,"date":"2021-02-01T17:11:13","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T17:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/?p=72"},"modified":"2021-02-01T17:11:13","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T17:11:13","slug":"savior-or-false-shephard-the-awesome-adventures-of-captain-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/2021\/02\/01\/savior-or-false-shephard-the-awesome-adventures-of-captain-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"Savior or False Shephard: The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

This article originally ran under a different banner\/website in August of 2018 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!! GATHER ROUND!!!\u00a0 After the flogging I gave Square Enix for their low effort E3 presentation, I thought it would be a while before I sang their praises.\u00a0 Well, hell must have frozen overnight, because I am here to commend Square Enix on one of their new releases.\u00a0 While many of you might think I am here to sing the praises of Octopath Traveler<\/em>, you are sorely mistaken.\u00a0 I want to talk about a game that hasn’t received the credit it deserves.\u00a0 A game that has flown under the radar.\u00a0 A game that I urge each and every one of you to try: The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set in the Life is Strange<\/em> universe, we are introduced to nine-year-old Chris.\u00a0 The Bruce Wayne to Captain Spirit\u2019s Batman.\u00a0 We are introduced to Chris\u2019s wild imagination as he saves his toys with his alter ego, Captain Spirit.\u00a0 We continue seeing more of his imagination as we are tasked with designing the Captain Spirit costume and exploring Chris\u2019s bedroom.\u00a0 While interacting with various objects, Chris\u2019s Dad, Charles, calls Chris for breakfast.\u00a0 You are given the choice to go to breakfast or continue exploring Chris\u2019s room.\u00a0 I opt to ignore Charles\u2019s call for breakfast.\u00a0 After running out of items to interact with, I went to breakfast only to be met by a furious Charles yelling he is not a hotel and Chris better come when he is called.\u00a0 We are then given some interactions between the two, that doesn\u2019t paint Charles as someone who is winning the father of the year award.\u00a0 After promising Chris that they will pick out a Christmas tree after the basketball game (and his bottle of whiskey), the game officially beings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

While Charles watches the game, Chris tasks himself with six objectives that Captain Spirit must tackle ranging from piecing together a costume to taking down various villains such as Water Eater and Snowmancer and finally facing off against archrival Mantroid.\u00a0 The game opens up as you are allowed to explore every inch of the small house.\u00a0 Combined with the ability to pick up and use items to solve puzzles, you have what I believe is an evolution of the point and click adventures along the lines of Secret of Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, <\/em>and the infamous Myst<\/em>.\u00a0 Most puzzles are well designed as I was able to piece them together with little difficulty, but not so easy to make the puzzles unrewarding.\u00a0 The exception being finding the code to unlock Charles\u2019s phone.\u00a0 We are given little clues as to what it could be, and I was forced to look online for the solution.\u00a0 When I found the answer my immediate thought was WHO HAS A EIGHT DIGIT PHONE PASSWORD?\u00a0 The good news is you\u2019re not required to complete all these tasks to move the story along.\u00a0 I was able to complete three tasks before accidentally pushing the story forward.\u00a0 Luckily, the game autosaves just before the story triggers, which allows you a second opportunity to check everything off your list, and I highly recommend you do as it rounds out Chris and Charles as characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While on the surface, The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit<\/em>, may appear to be a joyous adventure through a nine-year-old boy\u2019s imagination, this story is about Chris and Charles tackling grief.\u00a0 As you complete more of Captain\u2019s Spirit\u2019s task, you learned that Chris and Charles lost a loved family member.\u00a0 While it is obvious Charles\u2019s drinking and poor parental habits are textbook symptoms of a grief-stricken parent; you slowly learn through the various tasks that Chris\u2019s alter ego of Captain Spirit is the embodiment of Chris\u2019s desire to save that loved one.\u00a0 Despite not being a horror game, I found the final confrontation between Captain Spirit and his arch-nemesis Mantroid incredibly harrowing.\u00a0 Even with the rollercoaster ending, I found myself completely sympathetic to both Chris and Charles as they are both suffering in their own unique ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of the ending, there is a possibility that many players might be irate with the ending of The Awesome Adventure of Captain Spirit<\/em>.\u00a0 The game has a cliffhanger ending followed by a note saying Chris\u2019s adventure will continue in Life is Strange 2<\/em>, set to release on September 27, 2018.\u00a0 While I have railed against episodic storytelling as it forces your story to constantly have build-ups and climaxes, I am willing to forgive The Awesome Adventure of Captain Spirit<\/em> since it is essentially a demo for Life is Strange 2<\/em>.\u00a0 Considering I was given a well-written story with solid puzzle gameplay, for free, I am ok with Square Enix using this experience as a way to get people\u2019s interest in Life is Strange 2<\/em>.\u00a0 While I have only played an hour of Life is Strange<\/em>, The Awesome Adventure of Captain Spirit<\/em>, has me wishing I had more time to play through the series to be ready for Life is Strange 2.<\/em>\u00a0 I, for one, welcome other publishers to create demo experiences like this as I am now more excited for Life is Strange 2 <\/em>than any other trailer or gameplay from E3.\u00a0 I personally hope that Bethesda brings one out for Doom Eternal<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I highly recommend The Awesome Adventure of Captain Spirit<\/em>, but I would like to challenge all my followers.\u00a0 I challenge you not to play it alone but to play with a friend or family member who normally doesn\u2019t game.\u00a0 I firmly believe games like The Awesome Adventure of Captain Spirit<\/em> and Life is Strange<\/em> showcase how games marriage story and gameplay that doesn\u2019t overwhelm new players.\u00a0 We as gamers should be looking to spread our favorite hobby to other people as many of us use games to get us through tough times.\u00a0 If we all work to show the powers of games, maybe we can reach someone struggling with life.\u00a0 Think of someone like Charles.\u00a0 Had someone maybe introduced him to games, he might have found a healthier outlet for his grief.\u00a0 I am sure Captain Spirit would say you never know unless you try.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally ran under a different banner\/website in August of 2018 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!! GATHER ROUND!!!\u00a0 After the flogging I gave Square Enix for their low effort E3 presentation, I thought it would be a while before I sang their… Continue reading Savior or False Shephard: The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":73,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gatecitygaming.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}