Lost Soul Aside has one cool thing going for it — it’s the combat. In the moments where swords and magic stop clashing, everything comes to a standstill. It’s easy to see the numerous franchises that have inspired Ultizero Games to create this title, but the game never rises beyond its idols. LSA is a PS3 game that has been given a PS5 makeover.
A couple of hours into Lost Soul Aside, I was reminded of the “mom, can we have [X] at home?” meme. Yes, dear, we can have Final Fantasy, Devil May Cry and God of War at home, but it’s not nearly as good as any of them.
Where is the Soul?
In film criticism, we often hear that a movie “has a lot of heart”. It refers to the amount of sincerity that a filmmaker puts into a project, helping it stand on its own despite its flaws. While Lost Soul Aside has heart, and you can take a gander at its grand environments and combat animations, what it lacks, ironically, is a soul. It has a functioning body, i.e somewhat satisfactory levels, an upgrade path, a cool-looking, soft-spoken protagonist and the like. However, it’s missing its soul, which would include an earnest narrative, soulful characters and original ideas.
Simply put, Lost Soul Aside is a hodgepodge of arena battles, middling puzzles, and a MacGuffin-chasing plot where none of these elements ever merge together to form something greater. Taking cues from Final Fantasy VII and XVI, its fantasy world is filled with evil empires, underground resistances and ancient, god-like races with magical abilities. Yet, where Final Fantasy features a congruence of said devices to offer commentary on the real world, Lost Soul Aside only imitates that intent.
Some of its shortcomings can perhaps be blamed on the poor localisation. Characters that seem to be extra chirpy on paper come across as annoying due to poor translation and uninspired voice work. Add in the fact that most of the time they’re a combination of exposition machines and clichéd archetypes, and you’ve got a killer combo to kill the game.
Protagonist Kaser himself comes across as a mix of Noctis (FFXV) and Cloud (FFVII) in his appearance, but rarely exudes any personality of those heroes. The cool guy act quickly wears off, and it’s a shame to see barely any depth beyond that. While most of its characters feel lifeless, I will compliment the central duo for keeping it fun where it counts. Kaser and his part-dragon/part-god partner Arena’s banter makes for some genuinely funny moments. Unfortunately, those are few and far between.
While its combat can be entertaining, it could’ve been something more had the developer optimised the progression curve to complement it. You’ll rarely use any crafting items, as the rewards you get are seldom worth the effort. The mostly-linear ability tree will have you wasting points on skills you’ll never use to get to that one cool move you will. As cool as Kaser’s various elemental abilities may look, one can only admire his skills after so many repetitive boss arenas.
After all that bashing, I must say that playing the game feels like driving on a comfortable autopilot mode. You know all the patterns, all the solutions to the platforming puzzles, the ever-familiar upgrade tree with customisable slots for weapons. We’ve seen this countless times before, and it follows the same beat as most other character-action games. Where Final Fantasy stuns in its high-concept production design, God of War in its complex character arcs, and Devil May Cry in its no-Fs-given rockerboy gung-ho attitude, Lost Soul Aside feels like the kid who wasn’t picked for the basketball team.
Even the recent remake of Ninja Gaiden 2, which also has a ridiculously surface-level story, had the foresight to keep things appropriately bloody as a means to keep the adrenaline flowing. Heck, PlayStation-published Stellar Blade, another title produced by a foreign country, took obvious cues from other, famous franchises, while offering enough originality of its own.
PC Performance — No Frames Lost
Fortunately, I have good things to say about the game’s performance. Being an Unreal Engine title, I was fearing a stutter-fest, but constant post-launch updates have improved and stabilised it to a great degree. I played the game on my regular PC, with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 Super and Ryzen 7 5700X3D.
At 1440p, with all other settings, including ray tracing, toggled to their highest, I can get around 85-100fps with DLAA. Adding in upscaling with DLSS and frame generation, this can go up to over 200fps without any generally noticeable degradation in image quality. Sure, aliasing and artifacting can be noticed on fine edges like staircases with lower internal resolutions, but they’re seldom a problem in motion.
Like many current-gen games, Lost Soul Aside also uses ray tracing, with RT-accelerated shadows, reflections and global illumination. Of course, the most transparent of these are RT reflections, which show up across multiple loading arenas. I think the RT features are a nice bonus, but they don’t completely alter the game’s look. The performance penalty is moderate, as I can get up to 110fps from the original 85fps by turning the feature off. Your mileage may vary, although I appreciate the fact that Lost Soul Aside can run on ancient hardware like the GTX 1060. It appears the minimum system requirements are, in fact, realistic.
I would advise refraining from enabling ray tracing if you’re using a GPU with less than 8GB of VRAM. On my RTX 4080 Super, I observed VRAM usage fluctuating between 9-13GB in big arenas.
Technically speaking, Valve suggests that the game is unsupported on the Steam Deck. Practically, though, it is somewhat playable if you (vastly) temper your expectations. On my Steam Deck OLED, I can get an unstable 30fps in open areas with all settings turned down, which can go to the low 20s during heavy scenes.
Speaking of Steam Deck, I would be remiss if I didn’t drop a word about the game’s HDR implementation. It’s functional, though a little dim for my taste. Of course, this is par for the course when it comes to PC titles. I’m inclined to believe, given the overwhelming evidence in other cases, that Lost Soul Aside’s HDR grade looks vibrant on PS5 with a supported display.
Verdict
Lost Soul Aside is a disappointing action romp with stylish combat that is dragged down by painfully mediocre storytelling, characters and substandard localisation.
Lost Soul Aside is available on PC and PlayStation 5.
REVIEW COPY PROVIDED BY PLAYSTATION.
