The most damning critique I can make of Lost Soul Aside is that I couldn’t wait for it to be over. While the combat does occasionally shine, the poorly constructed narrative, terrible cinematography, and levels that drag on for the sake of having a longer game. While the technical performance was better than expected, Lost Soul Aside is still fairly buggy, and a stable frame rate can’t make this an enjoyable experience.
Lost Soul Aside
Developer: Ultizero Games
Price: $60
Platforms: PS5 (reviewed), PC
The publisher provided a PS5 code for this review
Lost Soul Aside follows Kaser, a rebel fighting against an evil empire, the specifics of which are left to our imagination. During a demonstration, the Voidtrax arrive, consuming people’s souls to gain power. Kaser’s beloved sister, Louisa, whom we are repeatedly told he is close with, is immediately fridged for the remaining 99% of the game’s runtime, because saving the world isn’t enough motivation. Louisa getting sidelined might not be that frustrating on its own, but the opening hour of the game is dedicated to Kaser and Louisa discussing what a capable person she has become, who can handle helping the revolution. The follow-up to that conversation, being her removal from the story to exist purely as motivation, feels extra insulting.
Prior to Louisa getting her soul sucked, Kaser finds an ancient Voidrax Dragon underneath the empire, Lord Arena. Lord Arena empowers Kaser to fight with superhuman abilities, the specifics of which are vague but amount to being slightly better at combat than Kaser previously. Lord Arena lives up to his name, largely thanks to his grating vocal performance and constant banter during combat. Not only do you have to deal with him referring to himself in third person, but the banter lines can repeat frequently, with Arena yelling “Don’t embarrass me, kid” a half dozen times during a single encounter.
The plot sends Kaser to different realms to find Soul Crystals in alternate dimensions, to stop the evil Aramon from regaining his powers. This creates the flow of the game, which is just a series of long linear levels. There are some side paths, so you can find resources and money, neither of which I ever used for anything the entire game. I only had one potion crafting recipe, and the merchants only sold crafting resources, resulting in me never engaging with that system, especially since Lost Soul Aside never asks enough of you to require engaging with those systems.
Lost Soul Aside Struggles to Deliver a Memorable Action Experience
Levels are made of platforming and light puzzle sections, which connect combat arenas. The combat is where I felt the most enjoyment with Lost Soul Aside, but as the number of combos and weapons at my disposal increased, the enemies I was facing became bigger and bigger damage sponges. Towards the end of the game, enemies are basically immune to knock-ups and staggering, which are key components to actually enjoying the combat. There are some solid boss fights, especially in the first half of the game, but as the spectacle of the bosses becomes bigger and bigger, the actual combat mechanics suffer, limiting your capabilities and overextending fights.
The narrative never grabbed my interest, partially due to the lack of compelling ideas, but also because of the poorly acted and framed cutscenes. The dialogue is overly verbose and constantly filled with proper nouns, making every person sound like they are reading plot summaries and not actually just speaking to another person. The English voice performances are rough, too, ranging wildly in the amount of emotion and gravitas used. The tone is inconsistent as part of this.
The cinematography might be the most frustrating aspect, something that often goes unnoticed in most games. Nearly every cutscene, both combat and dialogue-focused, functions identically. There are rarely any cuts; the camera locks onto a single character and follows them, swaying wildly depending on the action, and every move is far too fast to be coherent when watching the cutscene. The camera is almost always at a slight tilt too, in such a way that towards the middle part of the game, I could feel my head tilt back to a level view whenever a cutscene would transition back into gameplay, where it would level back out.
The Final Word
Lost Soul Aside has ultimately left me feeling empty. Its most frustrating aspects are ones that don’t necessarily impact the actual gameplay, but the gameplay itself, while good in its best moments, isn’t enough to save this game. The end result is a forgettable and frustrating action game that I can’t recommend to even the most ravenous stylish-action fans.
MonsterVine Rating: 2 out of 5 – Poor
