REVIEW

The Lost Child Review

by Rob Pritchard, September 28th, 2018

Back in 2011, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron was an action adventure title released for PS3 and Xbox 360, and received moderate critical and commercial success. Following the closure of the development studio, the creator of the game bought the rights to the franchise and decided to continue its legacy using his own development company. The result of this decision is The Lost Child, a JRPG dungeon crawler which has been released on PS4, PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Switch.

In the world of The Lost Child, the realms of Heaven and Hell are waging an eternal war, with the world of Earth naturally being caught in the crossfire. Following an attack from the forces of Hell, Hayato Ibuki, a young human journalist is given a mystical weapon known as a Gangour, which allows them to capture mystical beings known as Astrals and summon them to fight for them in battle. Alongside various angel and demon allies, it is your quest to venture into the dungeon like Layers and defeat the monsters that are attempting to break into the human world. Although you do get small traces of humour throughout the game, for the most part, the storyline is played straight. It is nice to see a serious JRPG appear occasionally, as the endless stream of chaos and slapstick gags can be exhausting after the hundredth time they make an appearance.

The Lost Child is set in modern day Tokyo, with Hayato’s main occupation as a journalist acting as a benefit to your new role as a saviour of the human race. At the various locations such as Akihabara and Shinjuku, you are able to converse with the residents, talk to merchants and progress the storyline by completing your assignments, and purifying the Layers that appear towards the end of each story arc. Like many dungeon crawlers, the battle system takes place from a first person perspective, with only character portraits at the bottom of the screen showing your current party members. For the most part, the battles are nothing out of the ordinary, with the standard weapon attacks, defending and item use commands on offer whenever you have need of them.

The one mechanic that makes The Lost Child’s enemy encounters a unique experience is the ability to channel your active Astrals into a metaphysical bullet to attack your opponents. After your Astral Burst hits its target, there is a chance that you will capture the Astral in question. As you may expect, channeling different enemies will increase the amount of damage that is caused, and using high level enemies on weaker creatures will ensure victory within a matter of seconds. The Astrals that you capture throughout the game are a mixture of Shin Megami Tensei’s demons and the trademark creatures from the Pokémon franchise. After taming them with your Gangour and purifying them with your Karma, you can place them into your party to fight alongside your allies. You may also sacrifice your Astral companions in order to transfer their attacks to another creature, in a similar manner to the Gallows mechanic in the Velvet Room from the Persona series.

It is often said that money makes the world go round. In the world of The Lost Child, the same is true for karma. With every decision you make during cutscenes, and every enemy you defeat whilst in the Layers, you will earn one of three kinds of Karma Points, which can be used for many different things such as purifying Astrals once they have been captured, and giving them experience points which they do not gain from joining you in combat. As well as Good and Bad Karma, certain choices will earn you Dual Karma, which is slightly weaker than the morally aligned options, but will definitely help if you need to finish reaching the next level of experience. In a slightly unusual move, you do not earn money inside dungeons, instead you will need to sell your spoils in order to obtain the Yen you need to purchase potions, weapons and other essential equipment.

The graphical style of The Lost Child follows the same rules as many JRPG dungeon crawlers, as it contains a mixture of 3D polygon models and high-quality anime artwork. The character portraits and user interface are sharp and colourful, as well as the artwork for the various breeds of Astrals that you will encounter on your journey. Although the overall frame rate is fairly consistent, the speed of the PS4 version of the game seems to run at the same speed as the PS Vita release. There seems to be little reason why The Lost Child was not enhanced for it’s HD release, when many developers have implemented noticeable changes when releasing different versions of their games.

The Lost Child’s soundtrack uses a mixture of soft orchestral tracks, with the occasional faster track in an emotional cutscene or during an enemy encounter. One of the best tracks in the game plays during the cutscenes that take place in Heaven, where the angels are discussing the antics of the conflicted protagonists. Both the English and Japanese dialogue tracks feel of a professional standard, with some of the best work coming from the actors who portray Michael and your angel assistant Lua.

Overall, The Lost Child is an intriguing JRPG that offers some interesting changes to the formula with its all compassing Karma system, but aside from the Astral Burst mechanic, the battles lack the staying power to keep the player engaged in each encounter. If you are looking for a dungeon crawler that takes inspiration from Shin Megami Tensei and Pokemon’s creature collecting endeavours, The Lost Child is a solid role-playing game that will shine the light of the heavens onto whichever console you decide to play it on.

While it may not be as entertaining as other titles in it’s genre, The Lost Child is a capable creature capturing JPRG that offers divine and infernal gameplay in equal measure.