REVIEW

Lost Sphear Review

by Luke Walsh, February 7th, 2018

Lost Sphear is a game which is looking to garner players attention by hitting their nostalgic memories of growing up with the old school Japanese RPG games like early Final Fantasy titles, Chrono Trigger and others. The problem is nostalgia will only prop up a game so much before the flaws start to seep through. A fair attempt at trying to recreate that magic but it falls a little short being able to deliver the same impactful story, groundbreaking mechanics (for its time 10 years ago) such as combat.

Like other RPGs, the story is not all that different from what you’d expect. You are an orphan boy who has grown up in a village with a few close friends. Kanata, the lead protagonist was left a locket by his “mother” and along with his friends protect their village from the various monsters that roam outside the grounds. After a trip to the forest, however, the world becomes covered in nothingness, which is showcased by white spaces cutting out areas in the world. The main area missing being the village they once lived. Kanta discovers he has the ability to restore places by collecting memories and embarks on a journey to help restore the world from being forgotten.

This keeps the core storytelling around his mysterious powers, as well as the origin of his mother and her identity. One issue with the story is the loose ends and tying up of elements don’t always make sense, nor are they really narratively satisfying feeling somewhat recycles from other older titles. The memory system sometimes requires players to grab them from the text directly in-game as highlighted but most of the time the usual kill or fetch quests complete the bulk of them. An intriguing premise but lacks the actual emotion behind a memory, something which has such a personal connection makes no sense needed being crafted or killing a monster to acquire it.

The memories do have some benefit outside of being a narrative driver as they allow players to unlock Artifacts, these can be placed on the map once an area is restored for various benefits. These usually include things like increasing drop rates in the area, a mini-map and stat buffs for your characters attacks etc.

Combat which tries to be a little like Chrono Trigger allows players to attack after a constant filling meter completes. Each character has a different rate at which the meter fills and enemies also follow the same premise. Characters can also move around before committing their attack where most attacks have a certain range or area of effect. This makes it important to line up enemies and your attacks carefully to get the most out of each move. The strategy element of this side to combat makes it fun and the difficulty does ramp up in the later stages of the game making it more important for wider scaled attacks.

Although more interesting than traditional turn-based combat, the flow is quite sporadic as there were plenty of times when all my characters would attack consistently and then have to wait a few seconds for their attack meter to refill. It means combat becomes quite erratic creating moments where the enemies and your characters are standing around doing nothing before they can attack again. The combat would be greatly improved if the meter filled much quicker, you can improve the speed of it but not enough to improve the overall flow of combat.

The combat also extends into other mechanics with gems that can be used to give characters skills or improve their armour and Momentum which you collect during battle and then unleash on a well-timed button pressed with your attacks to cause additional damage or combine with other effects such as gaining health. One of the cooler elements of combat is the Vulcosuits which are mechs your character can get (or out of) into that improves their statistics and new abilities. Overall though combat is pretty decent in Lost Sphear.

The only issue is the sheer amount of information that is dumped on you in the form of internal words. Momentum, Spirinite, Vulcosuits, Relics are all things in the game which are sometimes thrown at you without too much explanation. I remember getting my first skill and then “collecting” another with Spirinite but had no clue how to equip it or what character it was for.

Dialogue has the same issue, the story has a lot of backtracking and sometimes is a little nonsensical. I spent a lot of my time fast-forwarding through the chat between characters and then just asking my party members at a press of a button what I needed to do next. Unlike I am Setsuna, Lost Sphear’s overall story is a little too cliche for anyone who has played these games in the 90’s and makes it predictable. On top of all the words thrown at you, the narrative can become a little tiring rather than a concise exciting story.

Although Lost Sphear has managed to hit the nostalgia feel, it does only that It seems like it was created to fill a gap and does just that. It’s not a terrible game but seems a little lost in being able to carve out its own take on nostalgic JRPGs that makes it a somewhat confusing adventure filled with cliche or stuff you don’t understand. The combat is pretty decent but flows unnaturally and you will probably enjoy it if you’ve never played RPGs but for 20 hours of playtime, it might not be fully worth it.