A Deck Stacked With Terror

HIGH Easy to pick up and play.

LOW A lack of overall depth.

WTF Scoops the Clown.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi everyone. Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com.

The Spirit Lift is a roguelike deckbuilder that takes inspiration from haunted houses and creature feature films of the early ’80s and ’90s. A group of high school seniors get separated from their group on a field trip to a spooky hotel and get sucked into The Spirit Lift, where they must fight through 13 floors of terror in order to get back home.

Once a run begins, players take their group of teens through the cursed hotel floors in order to make it to the Penthouse and defeat the evil creature there. Each floor is different, with the theme depending on the boss that will be found at the end of the section. Every door along the way might hide cards or gear to help with the run, gold to buy cards from a shady wolf lurking around, or enemies trying their best to gobble the players up.

In combat, cards are played each turn to defeat enemies. Enemies telegraph what they will do when the player ends their turn, so using that information to plan out moves before enemies act is crucial. Unlike others in the genre, I have yet to find a card in Spirit Lift that actually serves as “defense” — there are no shields and no blocking. Options seem limited to attacking or debuffing enemies, which leads to a quick gameplay loop as it’s all-offense, all the time. That said, this speed is helpful in avoiding the maximum of 13 turns per battle — I haven’t found out what happens if a player uses up all of those turns, but I can’t imagine it’s good. Whether players win or lose a run, there will be points awarded that they can use for things like more starting health or starting with more gold on future runs.

There’s not much to the formula beyond what I’ve just described, so there’s not much depth in The Spirit Lift. There’s not much enemy variety, either. In my runs I’ve seen basic versions of bad guys, slightly healthier versions, and versions that do more status effects. There are some one-off enemies that introduce a new gimmick, but the well of new ideas seems to dry up fast.

What really kills the Spirit Lift, though, is the grind. It’s not the worst I’ve seen since each run is fairly short, maybe taking an hour to hit the final boss of the run, but the lack of variety is felt quickly.

On the plus side, players will eventually unlock five additional characters past the starting three after a few runs. Some are better with straight attacks, while others are better at buffing or damage-over-time, but they all tend to play fairly similar to each other. This means that after only a little while, The Spirit Lift has shown its entire hand.

That could be disappointing for players who love to dig deep into an experience like this, but despite how shallow it seems, I find that the spooky haunted house vibe is charming, it’s easy to grasp some of the powerful combinations quickly, and learning the full array of monsters allows players to quickly strategize each encounter.

The Spirit Lift won’t be a game for everyone, but there’s joy to be found for players who might like a smaller bite.

For me, The Spirit Lift gets 7.5 loops of elevator music out of 10.

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by prettysmart games. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Steam. Approximately 8 hours of play were spent playing the game, and multiple runs of the game were completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game is not currently rated by the ESRB. However, it’s safe to say that it has fantasy violence as players use cards that represent items like guns, baseball bats, and tennis rackets to attack horror monsters. No blood, no foul language, just creepy atmosphere.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind Modes are not present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles, but subtitles can not be altered and/or resized. There are no audio cues needed to play. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable controls: Controls are not remappable, and there is no control diagram. Movement is controlled by pressing WASD on the keyboard, or by using the mouse to click on the arrows on screen. Mouse is used to control everything else (card selection, selecting options in events, etc),

The post The Spirit Lift Video Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

Being a collector can mean many things. Most associate physical media collecting with geeks surrounded by bookshelves of video games that will never get played. Others will hold five PlayStation games in their hands and feel just as much pride in their collection, however small it may be. We hold on to our discs and cartridges even today, as they hold the memories of our experiences. In some cases, an actual memory card holds the record of an actual beautiful memory associated with the game. Whether it's the game that had a best friend coming to your house every day over a blistering summer or the game that finally got your parent to enjoy your favorite hobby with you, only a physical copy will hold those memories.

Displayed below are artifacts held dear by our SUPERJUMP writers, and the memories they contain.

Nathan Kelly

I present my copy of the Wii version of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I remember my first experience with this game. I was at the house of one of my mom's friends as a kid, and I didn’t have too many people to hang out with at the time. I was just eating some party snacks or something, and upon entering the living room, they had a copy of Twilight Princess just sitting on their Wii. Immediately, I was sold by the foil art cover. Being a PlayStation kid, I had no idea what The Legend of Zelda even was at the time, but I had only ever seen two other boxes that looked nearly as good as this one: Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2, my favorite games ever at the time.

My family had a Wii that they had bought, hoping that it would get the kids up and moving (still a highlight of that console and something that the Switch has mostly left behind). I went to my dad and practically begged him for a copy of Twilight Princess, which he insisted that I would have to pay for myself. I used a collection of roughly 1,200 US nickels that a grandparent had given me at the time. I felt bad about this trade for a number of years. But as I grew older, I never gained an appreciation for coin collecting, so the only regret I still have over this is paying back my dad in a rather annoying currency.

I was so excited to actually have the game in my hands as I eagerly popped it into my Wii. I played through the opening village and admittedly ran into a problem. Like many others at the time, I was too confused by the opening village area to actually trigger the events to go on the rest of the adventure. In my defense, you have to get a cat to follow you by fishing and then get it to chase you around; It was cryptic for a child. I put it down for a while, but eventually my dad came to me and mentioned how we went through such a hassle trading nickels for a game that I didn’t even play. This got me to actually sit down and play through the rest of the game, and I’m glad I did. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is the greatest Nintendo action RPG I’ve ever played, and I doubt that I’ll ever trade it away.

Mike Wilson

It can be incredibly challenging to name your favorite game when someone asks you to do so. In theory, this is something that could always be changing. If you’re a massive fan of the Zelda franchise, you know there will always be the next one coming, and it has a chance of supplanting your past favourite. But when someone asks about your most important game ever, well, that’s something else. We’re talking not just preferences, but something more meaningful and tangible, something that is part of your gaming history.

Historically, I’m a Nintendo nerd. Raised on Hylian princesses, Italian plumbers, and Kongs called Donkey, I had an incredible upbringing in the gaming world.

So it’s a huge surprise, even to me, that perhaps my most important game is, in fact, Virtua Tennis on the Dreamcast.

I was Nintendo through and through. I always got to play on my friend’s Mega Drive, but at no point did I ever consider it superior to my SNES. Then SEGA threw a curveball and released the futuristic (for its time) Dreamcast. Incredible 3D graphics, amazing CD-quality sound, access to the internet, and still my favourite little thing, the VMU.

Being the underfunded young man I was when I bought the Dreamcast, I wasn’t able to pick up many games. I obviously had to buy the Blue Blur in his first mainline 3D outing in Sonic Adventure, but outside of that, I didn’t have anything else.

Thankfully, there was the Official Dreamcast Magazine (ODM) here in the UK, and for the first time as a gamer, I was able to play demo discs. As an owner of the N64, I was always jealous of other console users with their demo discs from magazines, and now here I was, doing it myself; incredibly exciting times for this Nintendo fanboy.

ODM issue 17 gave us Dream On Volume 18, consisting of two videos of upcoming games and four demos for me to enjoy: Sega Extreme Sports, Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX, Ducati World, and, most bizarrely, my most important game, a demo of Virtua Tennis.

As with a lot of SEGA games at the time, it was a port of their arcade version from 1999, but it now allowed multiplayer madness in the home. I didn’t have a clue about this or the arcade version at the time, and I didn’t care; I was just excited to play something new that wasn’t Sonic.

And play I did; I enjoyed choosing one of the then-famous players and seeing who I felt was more accommodating to my play style. I enjoyed playing a best-of-three sets with the computer, and I absolutely loved playing with and dominating my friends.

Just to prove how incredible the VMU was, as you played the game, there would be a little matchstick equivalent of the game happening on the screen of the VMU. Who needed a massive TV with incredible graphics when you have a tiny pocket-sized one that does the same damned thing?

This demo of Virtua Tennis was exciting, fluid, and just simply fun. It wasn't overly complicated and was so easy to just jump right into, even if you were a novice. This game kept me engaged with the Dreamcast; it kept the system alive while I saved up for an actual new game or waited for something for my birthday. 

It seems bizarre that this bite-sized demo, of all things, I consider to be my most important game, but I see it as something that truly opened up my gaming mind to things outside of just Nintendo. It taught me that even the simplest of things can be engaging and provide hours of smile-producing fun. 

To this day, I always make sure to get the latest system from each company so that I can play all games from across all the systems. Although Nintendo had my heart from the early days, SEGA stole it from them right at the end.

Eventually, I was able to get Shenmue, and my word, did this really make the Dreamcast my most beloved console of all time. But whereas Shenmue made me fall in love with the Dreamcast, it was this small demo of Virtua Tennis that made me fall in love with gaming beyond Nintendo.

PJ Walerysiak

I was declared a traitor by my brother and cousins when I bought myself a PlayStation back in the early 2000s. We were a Nintendo family; how dare I turncoat for a competing console?!

It wasn’t a desire to forsake Nintendo that drove me towards buying a PS1, for I would always love them. It was a desire to have something of my own. The Super Nintendo and N64 belonged to my older brother, and he would regularly exercise his dictatorship over their use. Being seven years younger, I could do little to stop him.

I eventually saved up enough money from my paper route and made the leap. I bought a PS1, Crash Bandicoot, and Final Fantasy 7. I had never experienced a game like FF7 before, so ripe with deep narrative and heavy themes, somewhat beyond what my eleven-year-old brain could fully comprehend.

There was a story here far beyond saving the princess/realm/universe, complete with characters whom I bonded with over dozens of hours. It felt like I had discovered a vital element that I was missing before. I needed more!

I immediately became hooked on RPGs, especially Final Fantasy. I devoured FF8, then FF9. When I saw Final Fantasy Tactics in the store one day, I bought it without a second thought.

And once again, a veil was lifted from my adolescent brain, revealing to me an incredibly detailed medieval fantasy world of political intrigue, class warfare, treachery, and sacrifice. Characters had their naivety laid bare, their values challenged and demonstrated through combat. Systems of government and economics were exposed and torn apart through sharp rhetoric. Again, I could not grasp the full depth of its arguments, but it felt profound even then, as if the lessons buried within were relevant to life and I could hopefully decode them someday.

All of this was built upon the most foreign game design I had ever encountered. Every game I had picked up until then felt intuitive, even if I blasted through tutorials. With youthful hubris, I reckoned myself smart enough to figure this game out quickly.

Boy, was I WRONG.

Why were my attacks missing so often?!! Why couldn’t I move my character as far on this grid as the enemy could? Did that guy just destroy my armor? What the heck!!! I gave the protagonist the same birthday as me, but why in the world did that matter?

I shelved FFT for a few months, frustrated after being confronted with my own naivety and defeated so soundly in Dorter Trade City time after time.

But it had a hold on me, pulling at me to give it another shot. So I resolved to take the time to learn. Thus, a lifelong love of this game was born, and I learned a lesson about my own capacity. I hadn’t realized that a game could teach me more about myself.

I got my best friend to try it out, and he enjoyed it just the same. In future sleepovers, I would bring my PS1 over and we would play FFT literally all night, trading the controller in 3-hour shifts. The person not playing would either catch up on sleep or help the other as a consulting tactician.

I would go back to play FFT every few years and found that each time the story and its themes hit me in a new way. Even today, as I’m playing through the recently released Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles, I’m taking screenshots of lines of dialogue that feel FAR too relevant to today’s political atmosphere and class inequality.

When I think back, attempting to pinpoint what games were pivotal in stoking my love of storytelling and desire to write, FFT is chief among them. FF7 may have opened my eyes, but FFT opened my mind and continues to do so today.

Young PJ would be happy to know that I finally understand everything that this wonderful game offers and all that it has given me.

Jahanzeb Khan

More than any of the latest, increasingly expensive gaming tech, Atari has been responsible for rekindling my love for video games and their rich history. The launch of the + Platform really opened the door for both lapsed gamers and newcomers to connect with Atari's history. Both the 2600+ and the 7800+ consoles are designed to play nearly all cartridges right out of the box. Not only the old cartridges that are out in the wild, but even modern homebrew releases from publishers like Atari Age. Atari themselves have even been commissioning and publishing new releases, not just reprinting their legacy software but even brand new ports, such as the recent 7800 port of Tiger-Heli.

For me, the + Platform really opened up a whole new world of gaming and game collecting, and being able to play these ancient cartridges on hardware that connects with ease is just one of the coolest gaming alternatives. One of my favourite things to do is to go out and hunt for Atari cartridges, and I've done this every chance I can get when exploring Melbourne or visiting any city in Australia. I'm often amazed to find some really good hauls in the most unlikely spots, and more often than not, I can get them at a pretty good price. If you're going to a retro game shop, chances are that the business owner will know what the games are worth, and so you want to head into pawn shops and thrift stores that are not gaming-specialised, where you are likely to find a random haul of old games that they'd rather get rid of quickly. Oh, and you can always count on your local Rotary Club op shop to give you the best possible deal on games! 

In my many hunting adventures, I've stumbled upon some really rare Atari games, especially when it comes to the North American releases that were released much later in the lifecycle of the original 2600 VCS console. One of my favourites is this copy of HERO, an adventure platformer that was truly ahead of its time. It was like Metroid before Metroid was even a thing. I was on a trip to Sydney and about to board the train to the airport to catch my return flight, when I suddenly had this weird hunch to check out a random pawn shop in Chinatown. 

I'm glad I listened to my sixth sense because the secondhand jewelry shop had a random assortment of cartridges tucked away in a corner. I think the owner was surprised that I was interested in buying these, and so I paid nearly nothing for them. My haul from there included the aforementioned HERO and lesser-known 2600 ports of Rampage and Double Dragon. HERO in particular is quite expensive and hard to find in Australia, and so it's the thrill of discovering these hidden gems in the wild (at a great price!) that makes Atari game hunting one of my favourite travel pastimes. 

As a child, my favorite type of video games (and the only ones I played) were platformers. I (and my parents) staunchly opposed “Traditional” video games, which I (and my parents) believed to be filled with violence and kissing and swearing—but most importantly, they cost money, and required downloading something to the computer! How frightening.

Browser platformers were different. Platformer games had none of the violence my parents might object to, required no downloading, and were free to play. As such, I essentially had free rein. I adored tackling the various Flash games on Nick Jr.’s website, along with Playmobil and Lego platformers as well. I became a skillful manipulator of the arrow keys and spacebar, conquered my fears of patrolling enemies, and rejoiced in my ability to get all (or at least most) of the points in each level—whether they be gears, bricks, or panda toys.

Over the years, I aged and moved on. Flash got discontinued. I got a Steam account. I would still dream sometimes about my old platformers, but I didn't touch a platform game for years. Then came the chance to review Monochrome Heights, released on Steam on October 7^th, developed by Patrick Knisely’s company, One Frog Games.

Patrick Kniseley had previously worked in a variety of creative industries, such as puppetry, podcasting, sketch comedy, and many others, before releasing his debut, Monochrome Heights. The game was billed as “Traditional tough-as-nails platforming meets a novel phase mechanic where players must swap between black and white to avoid hazards and land on platforms.” I was greatly intrigued, especially by footage of the demo.

When I picked up Monochrome Heights to review for SUPERJUMP, I thought it’d be a throwback to my early gaming days, and the skills I picked up years ago would come in handy now. I forgot one key thing:

I’m terrible at platform games.

The reason I haven’t touched a platform game in years is that I have money and a computer and freedom; freedom to play Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto and Thief, freedom to play games that have three dimensions and voice acting, and above all else, no challenging jumping from here to there.

Monochrome Heights is a fantastic game, with such a simple yet fun twist: Aside from traditional platform mechanics and hazards, a primary mechanic of the game is phasing. The player can phase between black and white, allowing them to stand on similarly-colored platforms—they simply go right through the color they are not currently in. By phasing from black to white, protagonist Happy can scale obstacles, dodge enemies, and avoid traps.

The themes of the game are rich and timely, tackling matters like transhumanism, consciousness and self-awareness, and the place of robots in society. The plot itself revolves around a robot, Happy, trying to stop another robot, Layla, who sees liberating robotkind as a worthy goal in a world ravaged by climate change. To stop the enemy, Happy must ascend Layla’s tower, using phasing powers while avoiding enemies and encountering other robots along the way.

The plot is fascinating and the gameplay challenging. But I am terrible at platformers. I struggled with Adobe Flash games made for young children, and Monochrome Heights is “Tough-as-nails.” The game itself is fantastic. It requires considerable rewiring of the brain to acclimate to the simple notion that “Robot=black, robot stand on black, fall through white; Robot=white, robot stand on white, fall through black.” Nevertheless, once I started to get the hang of it, it became immensely satisfying.

I was able to beat the second level. I was phasing from black to white in mid-air, zipping back and forth, then dying and taking things slowly—both options suggested by the game: “Tight, simple controls that allow players to blaze forward with speed and momentum, or take it slow and patiently progress.” Watching Happy forge through platforming challenges that had stumped me ten minutes prior was like an injection of dopamine into my soul. Wait, is the soul affected by dopamine? There’s one for the metaphysicists.

The nearly two-hour-long soundtrack, by video essayist and composer Bent Neatley, is sublime. Even as I racked up triple-digit deaths each level, the soundtrack was there, gassing me up and encouraging me to move along. Each level had its own leitmotif that imbued it with charm and kept things fresh.

In terms of complexity, the story itself isn’t the stuff of the Mahabharata, but it was still quite engaging. Happy has a mysterious relationship to the archnemesis Layla, and Layla’s motives are not entirely black-and-white. Each named robot has its own unique, equally simple and cute design—even Layla, who boasts a mop of black hair. (Hair? Do robots have hair? Can robots have hair? Should robots have hair?)

The game has a singular flaw that stands out to me: If Happy phases while touching the opposite color, Happy dies and gets reassembled at the nearest checkpoint. On numerous occasions, Happy must jump from one black square to one white square above. On such occasions, the blocks are spaced so far apart that it requires near-pixel-perfect timing to get on top of the platform above without dying. While I could easily move on from all the other frustrations, Happy’s jumping skills in that department irked me. (Can robots train and upgrade their skills at the robot gym?)

The challenge actually made me nostalgic in a way. Once I realized what I was in for and tempered my frustration, I felt a sort of fondness for my archnemeses of childhood: The Snappity-Snap Fish in Wubbzy’s Underwater Adventure; the heated vents in Junkbot; Francine in Prankster Planet 2. This was what I had been training for the whole time: To stop Layla.

In the end, Monochrome Heights is a fantastic platformer, a satisfying debut for One Frog Games. The next planned game by OFG, Detective Mane, is a cozy mystery revolving around the theft of a parallelogram, investigated by the eponymous lion, Detective Leonardo Mane. Patrick Knisley and his studio are going places, unlike me, trying to play Monochrome Heights.

For myself, I am forced to paraphrase Charles Farrar Browne: “For people who are good at the kind of video games like Monochrome Heights, Monochrome Heights is just the kind of video game such people are good at.”