It's surprising to see the action adventure RPG Lost Soul Aside finally getting a release, given that development began in 2014 and its first trailer debuted back in 2016. Since then, the title has clearly gone through a wild development cycle, since it's coming out essentially ten years and a full console generation after it was originally conceived by developer Bing Yang. While the title originally started off as a solo project, Yang eventually got some developers on board thanks to funding from Sony's China Hero Project, forming Ultizero Games, and now, the game is finally out.
"The true story of the game - what you'll ultimately be doing for the vast majority of gameplay - kicks off when Kaser's sister is targeted by a particularly large Voidrax and her soul is taken."
The world of Lost Soul Aside is, despite its vibrant colour palette, a bleak one. A major portion of humanity is ruled by the Empire, which took on the reins of leadership after winning a war that led to several homes destroyed. Protagonist Kaser is one of the victims of this war, and has become a skilled fighter and a member of rebel group GLIMMER that is working to overthrow the Empire and confront the emperor face to face. The story starts off with a plan, a call-to-action for the common people of the Empire to stand up and fight back against the emperor during a parade celebrating his birthday.
This interesting beginning is, unfortunately, brushed to the side quite early on thanks to an invasion of an inter-dimensional force known only as the Voidrax. These enemies are not only able to swarm humanity and bring about large-scale destruction, they also have the ability to steal souls from humans, which they are seemingly hoarding underneath a mountain. In the midst of this explosion, Kaser finds himself allying with a friendly Voidrax, Arena and the two must work together to fend off the invasion.
The true story of the game - what you'll ultimately be doing for the vast majority of gameplay - kicks off when Kaser's sister is targeted by a particularly large Voidrax and her soul is taken. Kaser and Arena decide to travel to a place theorised to be where the Voidrax keep all the human souls they've been collecting. Unfortunately, this means that Lost Soul Aside essentially turns into a collection quest where you're just running around and collecting magical macguffins that can potentially help save Kaser's sister.
"The pacing also suffers quite a bit thanks to how the story is told."
The general pacing of the story is a strange one. It starts off quite well, with a setup that implies that the Empire has been maliciously using Voidrax powers to keep its citizens under check with heavy taxation as well as force thanks to the power of the Knights. Unfortunately, none of this narrative pays off in a particularly satisfying way, and the moment you finish the prologue, you might as well forget about the entire prologue.
The pacing also suffers quite a bit thanks to how the story is told. Lost Soul Aside is an incredibly linear game with nothing in the way of side content to give you a break from the main story. While this isn't necessarily a bad thing on its own, the main story often throws you into back to back battles and boss fights, with only the occasional character interaction or light platforming puzzle to break things up. As a result, playing through it can feel exhausting at times. Fortunately, while this issue is most noticeable in the opening hours, the frequency of encounters does stabilize later on.
Lost Soul Aside is a fast-paced game that will pit you against several enemies at the same time while also making sure you're never in any real danger thanks to an abundance of healing items. You get two core attacks - light and heavy - along with a dodge, and abilities given to you by Arena, of which you can equip three at any given time.
The combat has a tendency to look quite flashy, with particle effects flying all over the place as you mix up combos by freely switching between light attacks, heavy attacks, and your abilities. Unfortunately, most encounters aren't particularly challenging, rarely encouraging you to do more than string together combos, dodge, and land the occasional perfect block to deal with enemies.
To give credit where it's due, the boss mechanics in Lost Soul Aside are quite well done. These bosses can range from being a duel against a similarly skilled and powered up soldier, to massive hulking beasts where you have to work at taking them down one claw at a time before you can get an opening to unleash your biggest hits on them.
The variety offered by the three distinct weapon types also help quite a bit. While you start off with a regular sword, you quickly get your hands on two more weapon types - the Greatsword and the Poleblade. All three weapons can end up feeling quite different, each with their own area of expertise. Where the Greatsword can deal high amounts of damage with its slower combos, the Poleblade can help you take down groups more efficiently. The basic sword itself sits somewhere between these two in terms of its niche. All three weapon types can be switched between at any moment, giving you plenty of chances to vary up your combos.
Each weapon can be equipped with a number of accessories which can change up how much damage or other utilities the weapon can add to your arsenal. These accessories must be manually attached to the weapon, and since their placement is up to you, each weapon ends up with a unique look. The effects of these accessories can range from letting you dodge further, recharging your abilities more quickly, or even just giving you some bonus damage for certain attacks.
The other major source of progression is the ability to unlock new Arena abilities. Up to three of these abilities can be equipped, and they essentially act as major combo attacks in their own right. Along with the flashy abilities, you can also unlock additional moves for each weapon, increasing your potential for epic combos even further. There's also a loose crafting system in Lost Soul Aside, allowing you a quick way to make use of all the plants you've been picking up to craft healing potions and other upgrades. Overall, combat is easily one of the game's strongest aspects and the main reason to play Lost Soul Aside if you choose to.
When it comes to visuals, Lost Soul Aside seems like it's stuck in different eras of gaming. While the overall art direction can be quite strong at times, especially once you're done with the long prologue mission, fidelity is essentially all over the place. Some parts of the game look like they might have been developed with much weaker and older hardware in mind, while other parts look flashy and current-gen. Together, these factors result in a noticeably uneven visual experience, perhaps an inevitable byproduct of the project's prolonged development.
"The sound effect for sword attacks, for instance, come off as incredibly weak despite your epic combos."
Even the audio is a bit of a mixed bag. While the game's music can be quite impressive, especially when it comes to epic boss fights or big story moments, gameplay related sound effects don't quite feel as punchy as they should. The sound effect for sword attacks, for instance, come off as incredibly weak despite your epic combos. Similarly, a lot of enemies tend to sound the same. Voice acting is also uneven, ranging from the fun scenery chewing dialogue coming out of Arena, to the more human enemies sounding like little more than underpaid extras. The performance for Kaser and other supporting characters are decent enough, thankfully.
We played the game on the PS5 Pro, where Quality Mode showed some serious issues. In the short time I tried it, everything felt sluggish, movement and combat, struggled to maintain a stable framerate, making it a slog to play. Fortunately, Performance Mode was far more stable, with only a few drops here and there, particularly during auto-saves.
Speaking of a lack of polish, there is plenty of evidence that Lost Soul Aside may have ironically needed a little more development time all over the place. For example, music during cutscenes cuts off abruptly the moment they end, instead of fading out naturally or being timed to match the scene. Enemies also glitched out surprisingly often, either getting stuck behind a piece of scenery or just freezing altogether, letting me score some free hits.
"All of the issues in Lost Soul Aside feel like they might be emblematic of a lack of experience on the developers' side."
To wrap it up, all of the issues in Lost Soul Aside feel like they might be emblematic of a lack of experience on the developers' side. Despite combat having a solid foundation, the game rarely pushes you to experiment, since simple combos are usually enough to get the job done. Coupled with its lack of polish, Lost Soul Aside is a title I can only recommend to those already invested in this style of action. RPG fans may struggle with the story's uneven pacing, while action game fans will likely find more to enjoy, but even they may feel drained by the overwhelming early boss encounters, which fortunately stabilize as the game progresses.
Lost Soul Aside could have been much better than it turned out, but despite its flaws, there's still clear potential for something truly great, if only its rough edges were smoothed out.