An Emotional Story
Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Sleep on Lost Sphear
Lost Sphear is developed by Tokyo RPG Factory, the same folks who put together I Am Setsuna. That game’s storytelling may have been generic, but it was still enjoyable to play through. The game followed the depressing tale of a woman intended as a sacrifice to appease demons, the mercenary accompanying her, and the many companions they meet along the way. Although it’s clear from the outset that the game is focused on giving the player a beautiful tragedy, the overarching narrative still featured moments of lightheartedness and mirth. A bit cliche? Maybe. But it lacked many of the logical fallacies or loopholes that exist in plenty of other JRPGs.
The player felt a genuine bond for Setsuna and her companions as the story went on. The relationships that form between the characters feel natural, and heavily contribute to the game’s heartbreaking end. Even if its story may sound generic as well, players can probably expect Lost Sphear to tell a tale that’ll be sure to pull on the heartstrings.
Tactical Combat System
Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Sleep on Lost Sphear
Players have a lot of choice when it comes to engaging enemies in Lost Sphear. Running around foes is a viable strategy. But if the player does want to fight, running into a group of enemies doesn’t pause the game and take the player to a battlefield like most JRPGs. The action starts immediately and forces the player to maintain battle awareness right off the bat.
Location is everything. Players will have to direct where their characters stand while choosing an attack. The enemy can move too, creating an ever-evolving game for positional superiority. For those familiar with JRPGs and Active Time Battle Systems, this is nothing new. However, Lost Sphear borrows the same amendments to the system that I Am Setsuna made, and forces the player to consider the timing of attacks as well.
Although most Active Time Battle Systems involve the player taking character position, abilities, weapons, and type effectiveness into account, Lost Sphear also forces the player to consider when certain attacks will land. Forcing an enemy’s attack to land early may stave off death for a few more seconds, while timing a party member’s special attack just right could give it just enough of a boost to defeat an enemy in one less turn. This addition creates new levels of strategy and stress in equal measure, and provides plenty of options for how the player can pursue combat. We’re keeping our fingers crossed that Lost Sphear’s enemies evolve as the game goes on, as I Am Setsuna got a bit too easy once the player got the hang of timing attacks.
Potential for Plenty of Character Development
Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Sleep on Lost Sphear
The main character of Lost Sphear, Kanata, is your stereotypical JRPG protagonist. He wants to help others and has a pretty good attitude about shouldering the responsibility of destroying the “White Fog” that’s slowly destroying the world. He’s joined by Locke, an uppity preteen, Lumina, an older sister figure, and Van, a mysterious and brooding individual. Each of these characters fit a pretty standard JRPG character archetype.
However, it’s worth noting that I Am Setsuna also featured plenty of JRPG archetypes. That game used archetypes to establish character backstory and mannerisms almost immediately, so that the plot could begin developing the characters as the player met them. Tokyo RPG Factory even used archetypes against the player, by having characters respond to plot elements in an unexpected way. Lost Sphear’s seemingly average and boring ensemble of a party is probably similar. We’re willing to bet that these characters are written to be so ordinary so it’s all the easier to watch them develop and grow more complex as the story goes on.
A World That Players Want to Explore
Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Sleep on Lost Sphear
Gameplay for Lost Sphear has shown a semi-open world that’s ripe for exploration. Treasure and side quests dot the map, rewarding the player for taking a break from the story to spend some time investigating an unbeaten path. Caves and mysterious looking glens also invite new and exciting possibilities.
Finding additional resources, weapons, or paths to circumnavigate around a difficult group of enemies are all excellent means of encouraging exploration. It’ll be interesting to see if this semi-open world will allow players to have a direct effect on the story as well. In Lost Sphear, the world is being destroyed because it is “forgetting itself,” so will ignoring certain parts of the world cause them to be destroyed faster?
Graphics and Music Inspired from a Past Era
Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Sleep on Lost Sphear
Like I Am Setsuna, Lost Sphear captures the aesthetic of an older generation of gaming. The game both looks and sounds like an updated JRPG from the 1990s (games like the original Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger). It’s incredibly nostalgic.
Tomoki Miyoshi is responsible for writing the game’s soundtrack. The man wrote the soundtrack for I Am Setsuna as well, which used a piano to ground the score in a chillingly calm melody throughout the entire game. Miyoshi takes inspiration from both Joe Hisaishi, the man responsible for composing music for anime like Spirited Away and video games like Ni No Kuni, and the video game soundtracks from the NieR franchise. We’re confident Miyoshi will deliver another hauntingly beautiful soundtrack for Lost Sphear worth listening to.
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