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Tag Archives: A Quick Review

The Spirit Lift (prettysmart games): A quick (?) look and review, part two

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I 100%ed The Spriit Lift (prettysmart games) today. The immediate feeling I had was relief. Relief that I could quit playing the game and move on with my life. This is something I hate about trying to 100% a game, by the way. How much I hate the grind and tedium by the end of the game. Dark Souls III (FromSoft) was my favorite game until Elden Ring (FromSoft again) dropped. When I went for the plat/hundo chievo, I was naive as to how much it would take out of me. By the end, I was hating the game with all my heart. And this was a game I played every day as my comfort game. When I got the plat*, I exhaled slowly, put down my controller, and did not touch the game for several months.

I did eventually pick it up again, but it was a journey. That plat was brutal and trash, by the  way. I have a completely unsubstantiated theory as to why the From plats are so terrible. It’s because Miyazaki did not want to do them, but he was pushed to do so. So he made them awful as his way of retaliating. Again, I have nothing to base this on, but it’s a theory that makes sense.

And the reason that Elden Ring‘s is a dream in comparison is because it was meant to be a mainstream hit/breakthrough. That’s not a diss on the game, by the way. It’s my favorite FromSoft game by a hair over Dark Souls III. Something can be a massive hit and still be unique to the vision of the director. I really hate people who act as if something that has mass appeal is automatically a sellout.

Ahem.

Back to this game. Here is part one to my review from yesterday. When I realized that I was close to the plat, I should have just shut down the game and walked away. Why? Because I knew what it was going to do to me. I knew that I get obsessed and my brain turns weird. I knew that I would keep on grinding until I got the two or three meaningless items I needed to get the plat.

I did not want to do it, but I knew I would.

Did I walk away? Of course I did not. I got into that flow state that I hit when I’m focused on an objective. Here’s the thing, though. With the Dark Souls III plat, I knew what I needed to do. I did not like what I needed to do, but I knew each grueling step. The worst was ten hours grinding to get a certain covenant item. Anyone who went for the plat and didn’t want to do the online PvP knows what I’m talking about.


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The Spirit Lift (prettysmart games): A quick(?) look and review

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I have been obsessed with a game for the past three weeks or so. It’s called The Spirit Lift (prettysmart games), and there’s a demo on Steam. Full disclosure: My good friend, Ian, is on the marketing team, which is how I heard of it. It’s a roguelike/lite deck-building ’90s teen-starring game that has ghosts and monsters in it, and it’s lots of fun.

I tried the demo, and I vibed with it immediately. I really dig the nineties aesthetics with the saturated colors. I also like that the teens are very diverse as far as race and ethnicity. Yes, some of them border on stereotypes as characters (the hunky jock that is obsessed about his next meal rather than any big issues; the goth girl who is miserable all the time; the nerdy photographer who is always snapping pics, but I’m fine with that.

The demo hooked me, and I bought it immedaitely. I played run after run as it had that ‘just one more run’ feel to it. Now, three weeks later, I almost have the plat. I just need to find two pieces of evidence, which is frustrating the hell out of me. I’ll get to that in a minute.

The launch trailer, which I have included below, has an appropriate grainy/scratchy VHS feel to it, which is not really what I felt playing the game itself. That’s not a slam on the game, by the way. If anything, it’s a testament to how absorbed I get when I’m playing that I don’t really pay attention to the graphics. Which are great!

Here’s the basic premise. The class of whatever year it is are paryting at the Vexington Hotel their senior year. Three of them stumble into the elevator and go floor by floor, fighting monsters along the way. Then, of course, they meet the big boss up in the penthouse, and that’s the end of the run. One run, if it goes the distance, is about forty-five minutes.

It’s funny. I would say that I’m not a turn-based kind of person. And yet, I played Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Sandfall Interactive) and this game. As I said to Ian, I had more fun with this game than with CO:E33. I drive people crazy when I say that one game is more fun than another while also saying that it doesn’t necessarily mean the former is a better game than the latter. Which, I admit, is jerk behavior on my part–but I have to have my fun somehow.


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Duck Detective, both games–A Quick Review

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I’m still on an indie dev kick, and I decided to play Duck Detective: The Secret Salami (Happy Broccoli Games). It’s about a duck who is, yes, a detective, and it’s very Sam Spade about the whole thing. Except with animals as the characters, and a very cute pop-up book, cut-out characters visual style. The whole thing is very snappy, and I loved the vibe.

The basic premise is that you play as Eugene, the duck detective. In this game, he gets a call from a mysterious person in the bus company complaining about their lunch being stolen. Eugene goes over and starts interrogating everyone. You get clues from your talks, and the I really like how simple the mechanics are. You hover over an object, and it has three exclamation points you have to find. Each one has a relevant word/phrase for your case files. Or, you could ask suspects questions/observe them, and you would get clues in that way as well.

I will say that some of the ‘deducktions’ (yes, that’s what they were called, and yes, it’s pretty cringeworthy every time I saw/heard it)  I had to make weren’t intuitive/did not seem to be what the clues was telling me, but I don’t know how much of that was my fault and  how much was the game.

In general, I was able to mash it out because the way to solve each issue was Mad Lib style. There were sentences with blanks, and every time I clicked on one of the blanks, a list of words would pop up. It would tell you helpfully if you had ‘2 or less’ words wrong or ‘3 or more’. There’s a story mode, too, in which it will tell you which answers you got wrong, but I did not turn taht on.

I will admit I had to look up one answer online because I just could not get it. When I looked it up, it turned out that I was looking at the puzzlse (figuring out a safe combination) in the completely wrong way. That’s just because my brain is weird, though, so I’m not mad about that.

I loved the characters, even the most annoying one. Who, I found out later, was voiced by Brian David Gilbert. He used to work for Polygon and now does really crreative and weird vidieos about once a month. He’s also in the second game, and he’s just as annoying in that game! And yet, somehow, he became endearing by the end of the second game. Not because he’s voiced by BDG, but just because of how well-written the games are.

Each game took me about three hours, and I easily platted both of them. I really appreciated that you could get the ten or so achievements in each game mostly just by playing the games. I loved the atmosphere and how the games were just oozing with charm. And the fifties feel to the dialogue with the effortless nods to modern time.


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Beacon Pines (Hiding Spot)–A Quick Review

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Beacon Pines (Hiding Spot) is another indie game that has been been in my backlog for quite some time. It’s also about dark themes and a mystery surrounding a sleepy little town. It came out to rave reviews, and people who like it really like it. I remember the ravings, so I was cautiously hyped when I decided to try it out.

A note: I am a visual person in that if I don’t vibe with the look of a game, I’m going to have a hard time getting into it. Same with the audio to a lesser degree. If a game is harsh on my ears, then I am not playing it. This game was pleasing to my eyes and easy enough on my ears.

The basic premise of the game is that you’re a kid, Luka, whose father died in a terrible accident six years ago and whose mother disappeared…I want to say several months ago. His grandmother comes to live with him, and this is where we start.

Side note deux: I have created the new category of A Quick Review for games I’ve finished in less than five hours. I’ve actually put more time into this game, but that was for cleaning up the trophies. There were a few that were a pain in the ass, and my god, I was not happy to be doing them. But since I only had two of ten left, well, I was going to do it, wasn’t I?

In addition, I probably won’t give a number to these shorter games because it doesn’t feel applicable. Or rather, I don’t think it’s fair to give a number to a game that’s only a few hours long in playing time. I may give up numbers altogether, but I’m not willing to go quite that far yet.

The main gimmick of the game is that you can make different choices at certain important points in the game. You do this by choosing a charm to put in the slot. Each charm has a word on it with the appropriate emoji/item/whatever on the charm. So if it has a picture of a pile of shit, well, then the word/charm is shit. And, yes, that’s an actual charm in the game. As are fight, flight, struggle, crooked, weep, and many more.

It’s a neat concept, and I really enjoyed being able to change what I did at certain points in the story–and those choices actually mattered. Except, they really didn’t. I’ll got to that in a second. And I will say that in trophy hunting, I really wish they had a skip button once you heard a dialogue for the first time because my god, some of the dialogues go on foreeeeeeeeeever.

At the beginning of the game, you’re at your father’s grave and musing about how it’s been exactly as long that he’s been gone as it was that he was alive in Luka’s life. (Six years and six years). Things quickly turn into an amusing romp, and this is the tension that continues throughout the game. Sadness and grief battling with snark and humor. I liked the vibe, and it never felt too heavy-handed in either direction.


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