LIFTED (PC) Review

A pair of indie games is what awaits on the agenda next for SuperPhillip Central. The first is a short romp, but one packed with adventure: LIFTED. Let's check it out with a full, in-depth review!

A game clock-ful of adventure

LIFTED is a 2.5D cinematic action-platformer which follows the tale of high school student Ari and his teacher, mentor, and friend, the Professor. The latter is in love with Ari's history teacher, and thinking that he has no shot with her otherwise, he opts to take Ari on a time-traveling trip (courtesy of his invention, the Anytime Elevator) to acquire a specific tiara. Extra credit for Ari and a potential way for the Professor to successfully woo his crush. A win-win and a "two birds with one stone" situation!

No doubt Ari and the Professor's friendship is meant to draw familiar parallels to the relationship found in Back to the Future's Marty McFly and Doc Brown. After all, it's a time traveling story, and that's not even going into how Ari's voice actor even sounds like he's doing a Michael J. Fox impression. You'll certainly hear a lot of it, as characters within LIFTED are exceptionally chatty. Some players might find this obnoxious, and perhaps I would have, too, if not for the fact that the dialogue throughout the game is abundantly charming and humorous often, as well.

Oh, and let's not forget that the spirited, little chinchilla Julius joins the adventure, as well.

LIFTED is an adventure that takes players through a handful of unique locations throughout time. By the conclusion of the game's short, initial three-hour runtime, Ari and the Professor will pass through Egyptian canyons and temples, a pirate island and caves within Tortuga, swing on vines and infiltrate a temple in the deep jungle, and spend some time on the snowy and incredibly gusty mountaintops, as well.

Starting off in Egypt, you get a sense for the controls and how the game plays. As a 2.5D platformer, you're seldom moving along a strict side-scrolling perspective. Instead, the camera tends to be at different perspectives, sometimes at an angle, sometimes panning into position to create a cinematic flair. 

This can be challenging to contend with at times, because while the camera can move around in a three-dimensional orientation, your character is stuck on a strict, 2D path. This means that you can be holding right to move in that direction, and then the camera changes position, altering the direction you're supposed to hold. This never resulted in cheap deaths or anything like that, just some very occasional befuddlement with knowing which way to move the stick to, in turn, move Ari.

Ari must have misunderstood and taken it literally when he read about "cliff notes".

Through the initial Egyptian chapter of LIFTED, you learn how to move, jump, double jump, climb cliff faces a la Nathan Drake in Uncharted (Ari certainly did not skip gym class with the amazing acrobatics and miraculous-level of mobility he affords and offers to players), and also the ability to use a grappling hook to latch onto specific points in levels, swing across chasms, and pull himself up to reach new heights. 

There's seldom any enemies to concern yourself with in LIFTED. The only real danger is missing jumps and having Ari plummet to his doom. The Professor would definitely take some points off his extra credit for doing that. There is no "live" system or health to worry about in LIFTED. You fail, you simply retry from a nearby checkpoint, which are generally generous in location. 

In Tortuga, Ari learns how to leap between and slide down walls.

Though I do have a minor issue with the checkpoint system in LIFTED. That issue being that checkpoints are not marked, nor does the game give an indication when you're reached one. Not only does this make you not know if an unintended death might make you have to redo a potentially frustrating potion of a level, but LIFTED also contains plenty of collectibles. It can be quite easy to miss them, as a lot of them are located in crafty and clever areas. There are lots of "points of no return" in levels, where if you pass a certain section, you're locked out of backtracking. This means that you have to back out to the main menu and redo the entire level all over again just to get another chance at a given collectible. 

Levels aren't too terribly long, but it can feel obnoxious, especially when going for certain achievements where you have to do a flawless run, for instance, through a section of level. Most of these are deep within levels, meaning that it's not just annoying to have to reach these sections, but if you fail the achievement's requirement, you have to redo the level and make it back to that section. Frustrating. 

Regardless, it's not just all about platforming in LIFTED, either. Various environmental puzzles are thrown in for good measure, as well, to keep the gameplay feeling fresh. One early puzzle in the Tortuga Island chapter features block-pushing onto specially colored pressure plates. When a certain plate is held down, the complimentary colored gate or door opens. The puzzle is essentially figuring out which plates to hold down in a specific order to access new areas which house new blocks to utilize. 

Mirror, mirror on the slate, can Ari help the Professor with his desire for a date?

A lot of the puzzles are simply trial and error or aren't too tricky to solve, but some of them did actually cause me to need to step back and ponder over them some. I definitely appreciated that they weren't all thoughtless brain teasers, and instead were quite smartly thought out in execution.

LIFTED is a quick romp. The beautiful and well made cut-scenes, although entertaining and often humorous, take up about a third of the initial playtime. Everything else is split up between running, jumping, and puzzle solving. However, there is an appropriate amount of extra content to sink your adventuring teeth into, from the previously mentioned collectibles which unlock various unique outfits for Ari to wear, to nearly 70 different achievements. These achievements range from perfect runs through sections of levels, interacting with the environments in specific, not-always-obvious ways, and collectible hunting. 

Some of the vistas seen in LIFTED are just jaw-dropping spectacles.

Gorgeous and impressive are two words that come to mind when I think of LIFTED's presentation. The game offers an abundance of eye candy through its expansive vistas, cinematic camera angles, and visual splendor. I particularly like the Rayman-esque character designs, where each character in the game lacks appendages like arms and legs, but possesses disconnected hands and feet. It's a cute and charming art style that works, and I imagine helped to make animating the given characters less of a workload. 

"Snow" time to hang around, Ari--adventure awaits!

Meanwhile, the sound design is stellar, too. The voice work is exceptionally well done with great comedic timing and delivery by the actors, and the music especially packs a powerful punch, particularly in more dramatic and action-oriented sections of the game.

LIFTED is indeed a short adventure that some may balk at the $20 asking price, but I find there's plenty to like and even love about this charming cinematic journey that Ari and the Professor set on. Some checkpoint-ing quirks do annoy, and some camera angle issues do less than delight. However, in the end, the overall package is one that I am glad I had the opportunity to check out. I might even go back and complete the final six achievements that I'm missing, which is something I seldom have the motivation to do nowadays, so that certainly speaks to LIFTED's quality. 

Like an action-packed epic you'd watch in a movie theater, LIFTED is a game you can finish in an afternoon and feel like your time was spent well. The only difference is that with LIFTED, you need not worry about stepping around on some nasty, sticky floor to do so.

[SPC Says: B-] 

A code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.