Overall, the gameplay of Lost Sphear is solid in execution, sans the difficulty that comes with it. The gameplay will require strategy out of you, and maybe you’re better than me in the department, but for the most part it is a good game. The manual positioning alone separates this RPG from more traditional of its type, such as a Romancing SaGa 2, but the difficulty does keep you grounded when it comes to being consistently entertained.
I don’t know what’s going on with role playing games as of late. It’s like they’re getting in touch with their inner-90s child and depending on what made them great in the first place – simplicity and story. Lost Sphear is the latest of the bunch of retro-esque RPGs that harken back to a simpler time that was focused more on gameplay structure and story, rather than glitz/glam.
Let’s get right into this.
The story of the game revolves around a young adventurer named Kanata, who, along with his friends, has begun to run into a terrible white fog that is making a good bit of his land disappear from existence. Kanata must find out what is causing this fog, while at the same time gather memories that will release objects/people from the grasp of the fog. The memories actually bring the objects/people back into the fold of things, sometimes even bringing once forgotten structures back to life. If Kanata and his friends don’t find the solution, then their land, including their hometown of Eru, is in some major trouble.
Tokyo RPG Factory put together one helluva game with Lost Sphear. On the surface, the game is a very basic RPG that doesn’t do anything special to grab your attention. It depends on turn-based action to lead the way, while putting in the remedial RPG elements to keep the action, as well as motivation, going (gathering items, upgrading weapons/armor, etc). It doesn’t try to do more than it should be doing, which is a huge advantage for it because it asks you to focus on what it believes matters the most — the story.
Having been raised on the likes of Phantasy Star in my early youth, I can attest to the fact that stories are what make games memorable. It doesn’t matter about pretty effects during fights or what type of powerful spell/weapon you can use, rather the sticking point for any great RPG seems to always be story. That is what made a game like Chrono Trigger epic, what makes The Legend of Zelda (pick one) stand out and it is what makes Lost Sphear entertaining. Because, again, at its core the game is a very basic RPG, so story should be and is the focus.
Anyway, the story is neat and intriguing. Seeing people and things disappear into the ether and then fighting to find a memory to bring them back is kind of creepy and, at the same time, sorta majestic. It takes a large amount of creativity to really pull some emotion from such an insane idea, but it works. You get it at the beginning when you lose your town to the white fog. You understand further, and it becomes more impactful, when you raise the memory of a king long since gone from the dead in an eery scene. The motivation to make the land right again and to discover the horrible thing that is happening across the land adds another element of depth to the gameplay. This set up and story makes you care for the characters, the land and the situation that has become of each. As mentioned above, it’s a sticking point and one that drives the game. Anytime you can focus on story and make it matter, then that usually equals out to a good game.
That said, the game does have some elements it does depend on to separate it just a tad from traditional turn-based RPGs.
One of the neater elements of the game is the use of position strategy during fights. You’re not just stuck in a set position, rather you can move characters to surround enemies and sometimes take out multiple enemies at once. For example, early on in the game there is a giant pig that you have to fight on the cliffs of a pretty waterfall. The pig, which enjoys the hell out of charging at you, can take out a good chunk of your group’s energy, if you don’t position your group correctly. Lost Sphear’s gameplay allows you to move your characters into position where you feel the least amount of damage can be done to them. For example, Kanata is a sword guy, so moving him to the right of the pig and up close, though out of line of sight, was the strategy for him. Moving Kanata’s counterpart to the other side of the pig, she sports some powerful boxing-esque gloves, so it’s close combat as well, keeps her out of the way of the pig’s attack, while also keeping the range short. The final two members of the party were long range specialist, so moving them out of the way (far away) meant I had two characters that were very much still hurting the pig, while at the same time keeping out of range as well. Positioning your characters is an enormous part of the gameplay strategy of Lost Sphear and it gives the game a bit more to think about other than just pushing the ‘X’ button to select attacks. For younger gamers out there, I know that positioning sounds like a chore, but it’s simple and it works very well within the structure given. It also supplements some of the unfair attacks and defenses that some of the enemies crop up with, while at the same time absolutely asking you to think beyond traditional RPG elements.
Beyond positioning, there are other elements that make this a bit more than the typical RPG.
You can create structures within the game, you can actually sell/purchase/make food in the game using ingredients you find, which are pretty much everywhere you go, and you can put together powerful magic-based moves with elements called spritnite. These rechargeable moves allow you to pull off special attacks once every two turns. As you level up and find new things, you will be able to grow these moves into something incredibly useful and more impactful. I won’t say more than that, but they’re the edge and the thing that pushes strategy and the game into another level of entertainment.
That said, the game has a huge problem with unbalanced and unfair mid-to-minor enemies that can’t seem to work themselves out when they need to occasionally (not all the time, just occasionally). Anytime you ramp up the difficulty of a game and create frustrating scenarios for players to run through, especially early on in the title, you’re bound to lose some folks along the way. For example, prior to my group meeting that giant pig by the waterfall (mentioned above), I had to this point, been fighting some minor enemies. They did damage, they put up a fight, but early on there were no real obstacles. The game was just getting the player accustomed to the process. Almost every type of RPG has this small ramp-up pattern to its difficulty/enemy arc. It wants you to slowly get to the point where you understand the gameplay options available to you and are confident you can take down enemies (even when you can’t sometimes).
Well, the honeymoon ended quick in this department for Lost Sphear.
The second level of enemies were replicating bunnies (good choice of models). The bunnies also had an impenetrable defense that they could activate, which would last about 3-4 turns before turning off. That long amount of time, which if you think about turn-based RPG-ing with four characters going through the motions four times, usually ended up with my entire party dying. Again, this is very early on in the game, so this amount of difficulty was completely unnecessary so quickly. Even with positioning and re-positioning taking place, it still took me about 3-4 tries before getting beyond 2-3 bunny-thingies. Ultimately, I tried to avoid these damned things as much as I could, which is an option, but sadly I had to eventually fight them due to the linear progression of the game (or the perceived linear progression). At the end of the day, it was frustrating and completely, as stated prior, unnecessary so quickly in the gameplay. This didn’t get easier as the game progressed either. Difficulty was a big issue with this game and for a traditional RPG structure it was baffling. The story was there, the RPG elements were there, so why make the game so difficult so quickly? It doesn’t make sense gameplay-wise and it hurt the experience. It felt a bit unbalanced with the enemies and the arc was more of a hill-y rollercoaster than a steady progression upward.
Having said this, if you enjoy torturing yourself as you progress through a game, I know there are some Dark Souls nutcase(s) out there, then this game was built in your honor. For the rest of us just trying to have a good RPG time, it’s no cake walk.
Negativity aside, a huge plus beyond gameplay that made the difficulty seem like an afterthought in-between adventures was the visuals of the game. I did thoroughly enjoy the mixture of old school art that is quite simplified and defines an RPG generation long since gone, while still maintaining massive amount of details in environments and characters that make you understand it was built for the current generation systems. To boot, you get a very strong soundtrack that I could probably listen to on a daily basis. In short, presentation was excellent, though not completely forgiving of the difficulty.
