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Lost Soul Aside has come a great distance since its preliminary promotional video went viral again in 2016, with tremendous slick fight and visuals being sufficient to catch Sony’s consideration. Nine years later, the ultimate product is a PS5 console exclusive that largely lives as much as the exhilarating battles and landscapes that had been proven that day.
Still, its shallow story and poor efficiency on PC makes Lost Soul Aside generally really feel like a husk of an motion journey sport.
Lost Soul Aside follows a young man named Kaser as he joins a resistance group named Glimmer against the empire. It starts off as a potentially intriguing and politically engaged story, but quickly devolves into a generic adventure about saving the world against interdimensional monsters called Voidrax and their commander, Aramon. The plot twists are obvious, so it’s hard to really stay invested, even when the stakes are increased when the Voidrax steal the soul of Kaser’s sister, Louisa.
Along the way, Kaser joins forces with a floating dragon-shaped Voidrax creature named Arena, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed their banter together as they traveled across different biomes and dimensions. Arena expresses regrets about his past actions and vows to make amends by giving Kaser the ability to fight back against the Voidrax. Learning more about Arena’s backstory kept me engaged with the game outside of the combat even when the story itself was a plodding bore.
DMC meets Final Fantasy
The gameplay is where it really shines. Its real-time action combat plays most like Devil May Cry with its heavy emphasis on combos, and also you’ll acquire entry to extra weapons as the sport progresses. Between Kaser’s 4 choices, a sword, greatsword, spear, and scythe, it’s immensely satisfying to seamlessly change between every of them in the course of the warmth of battle.
While the tempo at which the spear and scythe are unlocked later within the sport could also be a bit gradual, there are many combos to execute with the sword and greatsword in the course of the first half. This is as a result of wonderful improve system. Kaser has a ability tree for every of his weapons, and every node offers a stat increase or some type of observe up assault to his combos. It isn’t essentially revolutionary, however its simple nature will get the job completed. This helps to alleviate the pacing hole between unlocking all of Kaser’s weapons.
Lost Soul Aside will get much more of a visible spectacle by giving Kaser his personal Voidrax-infused particular assaults with Arena. They change up the gameplay sufficient so it’s not a continuing button mashing affair. Kaser can equip as much as three at a time and so they range fairly a bit.
My favourite ones embrace Breath Barrage, which summons two floating smaller Arena-shaped heads that mechanically fireplace like turrets. Lifeforce Bestower summons a tree that slowly heals Kaser so long as he stays inside vary.
Best bit
Lost Soul Aside is at its greatest once you’ve unlocked all of Kaser’s weapons. The fight is probably the most refined side of the sport and with the ability to change between weapons on the fly makes battles really feel like butter, even with the lower than ideally suited body fee. The weapon trinkets and equipment that Kaser can equip have a compounding impression on the moment-to-moment motion, including a stunning quantity of depth and customization to fight.
These powers additionally add a extra strategic aspect to the fights. After breaking an enemy’s defend, I’d activate Breath Barrage in order that I can maximize my injury output earlier than they will recuperate, and Lifeforce Bestower lets me reserve my very own therapeutic potions so long as I play conservatively for an period of time. Experimenting with how Arena’s powers may synergize with Kaser’s combos gave the gameplay a brand new dimension to have enjoyable with.
Kaser may increase his weapons with equipment discovered all through ranges in chests or rewards for story development. They give numerous results like merely growing your injury output by 5% or restoring some quantity of HP when touchdown a vital hit. At first, these don’t actually appear to make instant adjustments. However, as you accumulate extra weapon equipment and even stronger ones, their impression turns into obvious. It actually scratches the min-max a part of my mind although there’s no conventional stat improve system.
Not so smooth
On the graphical side, Lost Soul Aside is impressive. It’s got the hyper-realistic anime style that Final Fantasy is thought for. The quite a few biomes and environments are breathtaking to have a look at too. While ranges can really feel a bit railroaded generally, there are cases the place you’re inspired to discover and might discover chests containing gold or generally even trinkets Kaser may equip on himself for passive results.
There are additionally particular fight trials referred to as Dispersed Dimensions hidden all through the degrees that present rewards for beating them below sure situations like finishing below a time restrict or Kaser’s well being continually drains. The rewards had been positively worthwhile because the trinkets had been rarer and had extra highly effective results than those you’d discover in chests.
However, the expertise is mired by poor efficiency on PC. There are fixed stutters and framerate drops in all places, each out and in of battle. Even opening up the menu causes a little bit of lag, and there’s a couple of second of a delay the place the display turns to black earlier than returning again into the sport, which is noticeably annoying. The efficiency is especially detrimental contemplating Lost Soul Aside is a fast-paced motion sport and each second issues otherwise you threat shedding.
For instance, there’s a particular Dispersed Dimension problem the place enemies can solely be broken by Arena’s assaults. With the entire particle results activating concurrently, this brought on my sport to decelerate to a crawl, and even freeze for just a few seconds earlier than resuming. This similar trial additionally provides a bonus reward if full with out taking any injury. With efficiency points like these, assembly this situation was frustratingly not possible.
The stuttering may also be an enormous downside throughout platforming segments. Missing a platform soar actually will get on the nerves, particularly when it sends you all the way in which again to the beginning of the part. The platforming itself is awkward as effectively. His leaping vary fluctuates an excessive amount of, inflicting me to overlook extra platforms than I’d wish to admit. When Kaser’s ft contact the bottom, it by no means feels fairly proper—the sensory impression feels too smooth and doesn’t fairly persist with the touchdown for me.
Lost Soul Aside arguably excels probably the most the place it issues: the frantic and thrilling gameplay, together with the beautiful visuals. Everything else round it, nonetheless, isn’t actually as much as par. Its story isn’t all that fascinating, and the efficiency points on PC depart a lot to be desired. Its influences are definitely obvious, however it’s clear that its blade isn’t practically as sharp.
Should you play Lost Soul Aside?
Play it if…
Don’t play it if…
Accessibility features
Lost Soul Aside has disappointingly few accessibility features compared to other Sony-published games.
However, there are options for Colorblind mode (Red, Green, Blue) and a Colorblind intensity slider. There are also sliders for adjusting camera sensitivity and motion blur.
How I reviewed Lost Soul Aside
I played Lost Soul Aside on PC for 23 hours and finished the main campaign, along with doing a majority of the Dispersed Dimensions and finding as many collectibles as I could. I used an Xbox Wireless Controller.
Your first playthrough may even be on Normal issue, and each Hard and Nightmare difficulties are unlocked when you beat the marketing campaign for the primary time. You additionally get entry to stage replay.
My key PC specs embrace an AMD Ryzen 7 7700X 8-Core Processor CPU, an AMD Radeon RX 9060 XT GPU, and 32 GB of RAM.
First reviewed August 2025.