Tag: The Spirit Lift | A Banana Peeled

Why I don’t do brand loyalty

Posted on February 18, 2026 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I am at a loss as to what game to play next. This happens when I get obsessed with a game. In this case, The Spirit Lift (prettysmart games). I was obsessed with it, and I want to parse what kind of games sink their claws into me. I will break down the games into two different categories: FromSoft games and non-FromSoft games.

FromSoft games are in a league of their own. I have a longstanding rule that I do not preorder games. Except. FromSoft. If they put out a game, I’m buying it (if I can. Still bitter over Demon’s Souls, Bloodborne, and now The Duskbloods on The Switch 2). I will say that my faith is a bit shaky with Nightreign and Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon coming out in the last few years and now The Duskbloods.

Side note: I don’t have loyalty to brands. Our relationships are purely transactional. As long as I enjoy/like/get use out of your product, I will buy it. If standards start slipping or I no longer like your product, I will no longer buy it. That’s pretty much it.

It’s the same with FromSoft. Well, not exactly the same. I had a much more emotional connection to the ‘product’, but….

I can feel the games going out of my reach. I have known since the DLC of Dark Souls III that there would be one day I could no longer play the games. My abilities were shit to begin with, and I struggled to complete Dark Souls (my first From game). It took me roughly 150 hours to finish it (with the DLC) for the first time. I had the Prepare to Die edition, which meant it was the whole game. I remember a games journalist casually saying there was no way anyone could take a over a hundred hours to finish the game (sans DLC). He was very much, “No one is different than I am. I am the gold standard for how to play Souls games”, but even so.

I almost quit once, and I did quit for a year another time. I struggled so hard. But I kept going back to it. Ornstein and Smough killed me over a hundred times. Well over. It took me roughly seven hours (one hour a day for seven days) to kill them. Why did I stick with it? I have no idea why.

The funny thing is that they didn’t make me quit; it was the Gaping Dragon, of all bosses. It’s not a particularly difficult boss, but it has a ton of health. It’s a very tedious boss if you don’t have at least a +5 weapon–which I did not. After spending a billion hours chipping away at its health (only a slight exaggeration), I got it down to one or two hits. I stepped back to avoid an attack and–stepped into nothing. There was an abyss I guess I didn’t see, and I died a most ignomious death.

I was furious. I was used to dying–good lord, I was used to dying. I mean, it’s in the name of the edition: Prepare to Die. But not to a fucking hole in the ground. I threw the controller and gave up the game on the spot. A year later, I picked it up again. Why? I’m not quite sure, but I think it had something to do with Scholar of the First Sin coming out.

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

Posted on February 16, 2026 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

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.

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

Posted on February 16, 2026 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

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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