After the good I Am Setsuna, Tokyo RPG Factory returns to our screens with Lost Sphear, JRPG so classic that you will feel like you are playing Chrono Trigger. More or less. The title is available for Playstation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam, and we got to try this latest version.
Lost Sphear takes place in the world of Eru, a land on the edge of heaven surrounded by the sea, with green forests and delightful towns scattered throughout the kingdom. In one of these, Elgarthe, he lives Kanata, a young protagonist of our story, who for some time has been plagued by a recurring dream.
However, during one of his raids with his friends, something upsets his existence and that of all the inhabitants of Eru: Elgarthe has disappeared, and with her other pieces of the surrounding area. In their place only a very thick white fog that it is not possible to cross. Kanata, desperate, however, always finds the solution in a dream. He discovers that he has a power that allows him to put things right, through memory and memories. Indeed, something powerful and evil is erasing the memories of places and people, condemning them to oblivion. It will be up to Kanata and his friends to embark on the journey to fix the situation and find the person responsible.
Nostalgia effect, approx
Classic JRPG fans like the former final Fantasy e Chrono Trigger will have rejoiced when Square Enix created the Tokyo RPG Factory studio with the sole purpose of bringing the genre back to life as it was in the beginning, and the welcome given to some titles released in recent years, including I Am Setsuna, is proof of this . Partly due to nostalgia, partly because some titles are really very good, a revival is underway and Lost Sphear is riding the wave as the most experienced of surfers. Like the previous work, the combat system is based on theActive Time Battle, suitably modernized, which makes turn-based combat faster and more dynamic than other systems.
We will have a party of up to four components with us, then Kanata plus three interchangeable allies, and numerous ways to improve and customize the statistics of each, to adapt them to the way we play. It must be said that, despite being based on a system that has over twenty years behind it, the gameplay is fresh even if you are not a fervent fan of the genre. Learning to manage skills, attacks and the use of objects will be almost immediate so if you are approaching the world of JRPG only now and you are a little intimidated by turn-based systems, don't worry, Lost Sphear is more than "user friendly".
But beware of boss fights. The fights with normal mobs that meet around the world are quite simple, there will be situations in which they will not even have time to try to hurt you, but the difficulty increases suddenly during the bosses. Nothing particularly striking or that cannot be resolved with a little strategy, but there is this disparity of difficulty in the fights that must be taken into account.
It should also be noted that the game itself is quite poor. In addition to the main quest, which can be completed in about fifteen hours, there will be very little else to do. It is certainly not a Skyrim, in which you risk losing the compass among the myriad of side missions. The story itself also does not shine for originality, so the replay value is quite low.
Good graphics and sound
If at the level of pure playability we are on high levels, graphics and audio settle on a little lower rungs in the ladder. The graphics are all dedicated to "pucciosity", if you let us pass the unorthodox term. From the protagonists little more than children designed to leverage tenderness to certain monsters that look more like non-ravenous Furbys, Lost Sphear features rather sparse yet pleasant graphics and actually delicious. Seen like this, this game looks ready for a direct port for portable systems like the Playstation Vita.
The audio is also poor, reduced to very few sound effects that we will hear mainly in the fights - few even at this juncture - and to the background music. In our outings around the world we will almost always hear only the sound of our footsteps on the ground, while little or no sound effects related to the world of Eru, not even the chirping of a bird on a tree. We save the fact that the music is very nice, although repetitive in the long run.
The options are also reduced to the minimum wage, in fact we will only be able to control the resolution, the scrolling speed of the dialogues and the game difficulty.
Separate discussion for the checks
True, controls aren't exactly the focal point of a JRPG, but in this case we have to mention them. We already mentioned that we tried the PC version, and in testing for this review we decided to try using both using the keyboard controls and using an Xbox 360 pad. While we had very few problems using the pad, we found the keyboard commands bordering on ridiculous. The mapping of controls, uneditable, it is nothing that you cannot learn to master, but it is frustrating, or at least not very intuitive.
In conclusion
In essence, Lost Sphear is definitely a good title, albeit direct - zero side activities beyond the main quest - but with the right longevity. Thanks to a gameplay halfway between the historical and the modern, it can attract both an older and younger audience. Keyboard controls aside, while not excelling, it is more than happy to play and its cute and colorful appearance is a joy to behold. Maybe it's not a title for everyone, but it's good for both fans and for those who are only now approaching the JRPG.
