Lost Soul Aside - Aimed for the Moon, not sure where it lands.

It's important to know a little about the reviewer before you read their review.

Lost Soul Aside is the 1st game from the Ultizero Games, so i don't think there is any context needed on whether I've played the previous games from the studio or not.
I'm a fan of games where combat requires proper timing. I enjoy action adventure games and I played the game on PlayStation 5, and my playtime was 25 hours.

Going into the game I had 0 expectations. I had consciously avoided most trailers and all I knew about it is that it's a hack n slash game and it was 1 man's ambition that got support from PlayStation under China Hero Project banner. More than any thing else I wanted to support this one man's ambition and that's why I bought the game knowing that it was launching close to Hell is Us, Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Mafia: The Old Country and Hollow Knight: Silksong.

What did I think of this ambitious game? Let's find out.

First Few hours

After finishing the game there is one thing that I can say for sure is that the 1st hour or 2 of the game is the worst part of the game. Yeah, you read that right. The 1st hour was intro to the game but it was filled with the same enemies throughout the 1st hour so all I did was hack n slash the enemies and moved along, I was very unimpressed.

But as I moved past the 1st hour and defeated the 1st boss that's when the things started to feel better. From there on there were much better enemy variations, mini-bosses and bosses.

And to make things even better, soon I was given the responsibility of wielding a Great Sword and boy it didn't disappoint.

As I Grew into the Game

It was around 10 hour mark when things started to peak visually and from the combat point of view. At his point you have 3-4 weapons catering to different play-styles and the game takes you to some of the best visuals seen this year.

What was even more interesting was the inclusion of platforming in the game. This game has some very good platforming sequences and they were all fun making the game more than just a hack-n-slash game.

But what bothered me the most throughout was the lack of proper ending to cut scenes. The cut scenes would abruptly end. Also, the music and background scores were not synchronized properly either, more often than not, music just randomly switches to something else in the same scene or is completely out of sync with what's going on in the game. This is when I was constantly reminded that this is a game from someone very new to the game making and even though with the help of Sony they could not smoothen the rough edges.

Combat and Weapons has a lot to offer

While at the heart of it it's all hack-n-slash, the game offers a lot of variety in combat to it's players through various weapons. You get 4 different kind of weapons to choose from - Swords, Greatswords, Poleblades, and Scythes. Each with their own skill trees and moves. Some weapons and moves also enable long range combat but why would you do that?!

The game also offered weapon upgrades through the addition of a charm to the weapon and what was cool was to be able to place a charm where ever you wanted to place it in the weapon and it would reflect in the game.

Character's skills were closely tied to the combat and weapons as you could do some skill upgrades by progressing into a weapons skill tree.

In short, the combat was fun and one thing that comes with hack-n-slash in most games is button meshing and there was plenty of it with occasional dodging of blue attacks.

Gameplay was a Good Mix

The game was of course centered around combat but it has few good variations to offer. Side activities of finding skill points where you would have to fetch flowers within a time limit. Another activity was to fetch colored flowers in proper order and both of these activities required little bit of platforming. Then there were challenges on offer to beat waves of enemies to receive special rewards as well.

Apart from the above then game had made sure that there was plenty of platforming in the gameplay to give you a break from hack-n-slash. All I can say is these platforming events where at the end of it was an enemy throwing obstacles at you needed to be properly quality gated because more often then not I would make it to the end of the platform even before enemy starts throwing obstacles at you.

The game had decent puzzle on offer too but the puzzles that were a part of side quests were not really rewarding as it would give you just potions and there was plenty of it already and even you could craft them as well.

Highlight for me was to be able to use Great Sword as a skate board in one of the platforming sequence!

Characters and Story in the Game

I played the game in English and it wasn't the best experience in terms of dialogue delivery but I've heard the in Chinese it holds well.

If we talk about the characters they were pretty bland. There were plenty of main NPC characters that added to the story but none of them had any kind of impact on you as a gamer. Even for main character there was not much on offer, from beginning to the end you knew exactly how it will play out.

As for story, it was pretty standard. There was no sense of uncertainty as to what will happen next, you would always have a rough idea about what's going to happen and that's how the game plays out.

What I will say though is that game has some of the best action sequences that was worth a watch.

Boss Fights and Enemies

There were plenty of boss fights and enemies in the game. Were they needed to be in abundance? probably not. In essence you go after waves of enemies and then you fight the boss after a point it started to feel like a slog because there was just too much of it.

Some of the bosses were really well done and you need to put in some thought before you meshed the button but most were pretty straight forward.

Conclusion

Lost Souls Aside is an ambitious project. It tried to do a lot of thing but I'm afraid to say that it did not deliver on those fronts. Game would have benefited from shorter length and would have offered developers more time to fine tune the game properly instead of turning a game into a slog fest. Abrupt ending to the cut scenes did not help my experience at all.

Game offers some of the very best cut scenes and at time reminds you of Final Fantasy 16. The combat was very well done and it was fun to try out all the weapon types alongside all the platforming game had to offer. Game visual design stands out i from mid game onwards and it at times it was a sight to behold.

If there is one feedback I could give to the dev team then that would be quality over quantity please.

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SpwanYaard