When comparing Spirits vs Machinarium, the Slant community recommends Machinarium for most people. In the question“What are the best Android games without in-app purchases/paywalls?” Machinarium is ranked 17th while Spirits is ranked 75th. The most important reason people chose Machinarium is:
The player is forced to move their character across the map in order to find objects of interest. This, coupled with the great sound design and soundtrack which also do their part in giving cues as to where the objects are and if the player is close, really help you immerse into the atmosphere and art style of Machinarium.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Impressive style and quality
The artistic design of the game is quite dream-like, with hand-drawn characters and levels. Its sound design is equally impressive.
Pro Whimsical artistic style
This game is ethereal and relaxing, while at the same time engaging the player in challenging puzzles. The main character is comical, yet beautiful at the same time. It's almost like The Wisp and Lemmings had a child.
Pro Great atmosphere
Dream-like art direction with hand-drawn characters and levels, and excellent sound design.
Pro Varied, Lemmings-style puzzles
The game has interesting and often challenging puzzles, especially if you wish to complete the level perfectly, made possible with varied abilities of spirits that get introduced throughout the game.
Pro The gameplay is perfectly interwoven with the overall aesthetic and atmosphere of the game
The player is forced to move their character across the map in order to find objects of interest. This, coupled with the great sound design and soundtrack which also do their part in giving cues as to where the objects are and if the player is close, really help you immerse into the atmosphere and art style of Machinarium.
Pro Beautiful art style
Machimariums hand drawn graphics exude a very steam punk style that definitely has a very unique look by being all hand drawn.
Pro Challenging puzzles
The puzzles are quite challenging to the point of frustration but in the end give a sense of immense reward when figured out.
Pro Interesting protagonist
The main character and the one controlled by the player is just a normal, average, everyday robot. He doesn't have any special powers or abilities other than being able to slightly extend his midriff in order to reach high ledges or making his body shorter. He's pretty much an ordinary robot thrust into an extraordinary situation.
Pro Built-in hint system
For those that do find some of the puzzles too challenging there is an inbuilt hint system shown through "thought bubbles" on top of the playable character.
Every level has its own hint when pressed and it's usually a hint on where to go or what kind of object you need. Although it's advised not to rely on the hint system too much since it takes away from the experience of actually enjoying the game.
Pro The well-designed gameplay mechanics avoid making the game boring to the player
Unlike most point-and-click games, objects of interest in Machinarium light up only when the main character is close to them; this completely changes the way the game is played. In point-and-click games where this is not the case, the gameplay is usually reduced to aimlessly flailing the cursor around waiting for something to light up.
Machinarium on the other hand completely avoids this, keeping levels interesting and the player interested to the game.
Cons
Con Broken on Android Marshmallow devices
Unfortunately, Spirits doesn't work with Android devices with Android 6.0 Marshmallow installed (or higher). The game simply freezes or crashes instantly while loading.
Con Slow-moving gameplay
Spirits is intended to be a slow, relaxing game, though some may not enjoy the extent of the title's slowness.
Con Items may be difficult to find due to similar colors
At points in the game there are needed items that blend in too well with their surrounding making it quite difficult to actually see them.