Developer/Publisher: Spearhead Games
Genre: Adventure/Metroidvania
Price: $1.99 (on sale for $0.99 as of publication)
Acquired: Review Copy Provided
Review Platform: iPad and iPhone 3G
Verdict: At times brilliant, but often frustratingly flawed.
Pros: Oozes with style; exploring the game world is such an incredible experience
Cons: The controls and especially the combat need work.

Phoenix Spirit is a game that shows just how hard it is to make a truly great game – there are just so many elements that go into the final package that there’s just so much that can go wrong and make what should be a great game be something less than that, unfortunately.

Phoenix Spirit’s story is that you are a Spirit, a strange squirrel-like creature, who is tasked with trying to save the Mother Tree, which is afflicted with a strange disease that has caused evil creatures to spawn throughout its forest, and it is up to you to find the source of the disease. This means that you must explore the forest, collecting new abilities until you eventually find the source of the disease, which you must then destroy. This is a pure slice of Metroidvania in terms of game design. You’re exploring one huge forest area, uncovering new areas of the map, sections of which are blocked off by abilities you don’t have yet. You’ll discover new abilities and upgrades all throughout the world, and the game is relatively nonlinear in its exploration – it doesn’t give you a lot of hints or guidance as to what you are supposed to do or where you are supposed to go – you really just have to figure out what you’re doing. You start out at the beginning of the game, and you have to discover where the source of the disease is, but everything in between is all up to you. This is a great thing – exploring this game is fun. From the tranquil mood the game sets with its dark forest setting and moody soundtrack creating a great environment to play in, to just the wonder of discovering new things and flying around while doing so, Phoenix Spirit really makes exploration enjoyable. Uncovering more and more of the map, revisiting areas blocked off by abilities you didn’t have yet and discovering what lied beneath those barriers, these are where Phoenix Spirit really shines. Just on the exploratory aspects alone, this game compares favorably to the best of the Metroids, and the innate freedom you have with being able to fly everywhere just makes exploration that much more interesting, as you’re less bound by gravity than Samus Aran ever was.

The problem with Phoenix Spirit is that the game struggles mightily with the combat. Exploration is fun, especially since you’re flying around everywhere, and discovering new areas is where this game is just absolutely sublime. The combat just never felt fun, particularly since most enemies take so many hits to destroy that you’re often just better off trying to avoid them, but it is an essential part of the game to refill your health and dash meters. Unfortunately, there is a final boss fight – and given the game’s spotty combat, it’s very hard and not very fun. I want to try and beat it, but I feel little incentive to play it other than to try and beat the game to say that I beat it. But I so don’t want to actually do it.

Phoenix Spirit’s controls are where the game shows a few more cracks. First off, you need to know about the unique challenges that flying presents to you. You need to pick up velocity in order to get anywhere,  and you will frequently use the dive button to fly straight down and pick up velocity so that you can turn back up and get to going in the direction you want to go. You have a dash button, but this is an ability you pick up later, and is limited by the dash meter you have that must be refilled by picking up items dropped by enemies. You direct where you want to fly and aim your one weapon, the cleansing shot, by tilting your device in the direction you want to aim. You have an onscreen indicator showing where you’re pointing with the device, but you’ll be wishing you had a joystick to play this game with. Whether an on-screen joystick would work better or whether this game needs to be on a platform with a real, live, analog joystick, I’m not sure, but considering that I felt a bit silly (and slightly inaccurate) having to twist and turn my device around (I played the bulk of the game on my iPad instead of my iPhone, but spent enough time on both versions to get a feel for both) to lock on to the enemies I wanted to attack, I think this would work better as a joystick-controlled game.

In fact, Phoenix Spirit is a great example of a game that really feels like it’s a misfit on the iPhone platform. I could see myself playing this on the PSP, or one of the consoles as a downloadable title, and a bit of a bigger budget and more playtesting could really have done a lot for this game. From having a better control system, to having combat that would feel like more than just a hindrance to exploration, Phoenix Spirit feels like it’s destined for something bigger, it just isn’t there yet. When you’re just flying around and exploring everything, with the enemies serving merely as speed bumps on your way to discovering the world here (the game takes about 3 hours to get to the final boss fight from my rough estimation), it’s where the game shines brightest. But when combat is the focus, Phoenix Spirit trudges through the molasses of mediocrity. I can’t recall being so disappointed about coming upon a final boss fight as coming across Phoenix Spirit’s boss fight made me feel. I wanted something more from THIS game than a rote boss fight with a combat system I did not enjoy. It’s a shame, really.

But to Spearhead Games I say, do not give up. There are flashes of sublime brilliance in this game that make me want to shout to people to go play this brilliant little game, but then there are times when it just frustrates me to see something so potentially brilliant hindered by its flaws. Learn your lessons from this game, Spearhead Games. There are a lot of flaws, but there are those moments of brilliance that make games truly great. I anxiously await your next project or even any updates to Phoenix Spirit, because there is so much potential that this game has shown me, but it just needs to be whittled into something great.Phoenix Spirit is worth $0.99 (soon to be $1.99) for those moments of brilliance, but be prepared for the moments when you’re frustrated, and realize this game falls short of greatness.