The Spirit Engine 2

The Spirit Engine 2, a side-scrolling 2D indie RPG, was released in 2008. Mark Pay handled its design, programming, writing, and art, while Josh Whelchel composed the music. It serves as a significantly improved follow-up to Pay’s 2003 freeware title, The Spirit Engine. The game later became freeware itself in February 2010 and earned the GameTunnel Top Independent RPG of 2008 award.

In gameplay, players guide a party of three through side-scrolling levels, speaking to NPCs, taking on missions, and buying or selling equipment. Enemy encounters are not random, though enemy types can vary. Statues act as save points. The battle system is real-time with automatic attacks, but players can speed up, slow down, or pause the action. Unlike its predecessor, there is no mana system; instead, actions can be paused to build extra power or wait for an opening. The two teams line up on opposite sides of the screen, and players can rotate their three party members between front, middle, and back positions. Melee attacks can knock characters out of position, while ranged attacks may hit the back row or multiple targets. A damage multiplier increases with sustained hits and decreases otherwise. Both allies and enemies revive automatically after a time, though with reduced health, and all health is restored between battles.

Each character has unique skills, which must be used constantly—unlike the original’s “regular actions.” Skills fall into four damage types. Before battle, players can set up “skill chains” for each character or the whole party, allowing a sequence of skills to trigger based on the situation. Characters start weak but improve by spending skill points earned when the party levels up. Each level grants one skill point per character, but a skill can only be raised to a quarter of the party’s level, and higher-level skills gain less from each point. Refund points let players reassign spent skill points.

The plot begins with players choosing three party members from a grid of nine, each with a distinct personality (antihero, naive, or logical) and class (knight, musketeer, or priest). Every character has unique dialogue and story events. The setting is Lereftain, a country under a fragile peace with neighboring Yaegara. The continent of Medea is ruled by the psychic, tentacled Rakari, who are generally accepted but distrusted by some. The Rakari also act as