I was guilty of underestimating this card when I first saw it. I focused on the part of the card that lets you turn assets with charges into resources, and I was pretty unimpressed. And that aspect of the card is indeed, in my experience, pretty situational. It's not often you want to turn Shrivelling, Rite of Seeking, or Grotesque Statue--easily the best and most important cards in your deck--into a few resources. If you're running a bad, cheap spell like Alchemical Transmutation, then maybe that ability gets more useful... but I often don't.

What's great about this card is that it lets Akachi return emptied spells to her hand. This is so so good. Akachi is incredibly powerful with her high-level spells in play. In concert they give her the ability to dominate pretty much any scenario. She can get three clues or deal three damage in one action with success literally guaranteed, even on Expert (thanks to the Grotesque Statue.) The only problem is that her spells eventually run out. That would leave her totally helpless... except here's where Spirit Seeker comes in. Getting five more Shrivelling charges or four more Grotesque Statue charges (you need to leave one charge on that one before bouncing it) gives her staying power.

So, now that I have some experience with Spirit-Speaker, I would rate it one of the better unique assets. It's not quite on the level of Duke or Zoey's Cross, probably, but it's quite useful, and gives Akachi a much stronger late game if she draws it.

This card is extremely strong with cards like Eye of the Dreamer or Breath of the Sleeper . When you have Spirit-Speaker and one of those spell cards in your starting hand, you can have 10 ressources (5 ressources net) after two actions. 10 Ressources - 5 Ressources - 2 Actions - 2 Cards = 1 still doesn't sound worth it. Well Spirit-Breaker isn't lost so it will shine when you use it again, no matter if for ressources of for returning an asset.

A lot of other cards transform into optional emergency caches or better, only needing the action when you have to play them first.

There are some cards (especially Rogue cards) that do better, but they are just an instant gain while Spirit-Speaker can be used whenever you need ressources AND it still has another use which some players have as primary use (returning an asset to your hand, especially high XP cards).

Quite often there are those spells you only use situational, like evade spells. When you feel you are better equipped to kill an enemy than to evade it, you can transfer the rest of the charges into ressources, so you have effectively cleared a slot.